sw is such a pin in the butt!

[twistedimage92]

ok heres the story... set the tank up, ran for few weeks (2-3) i bought 4 damsils. 3-4 days later my wife buys 2 clown fish. 1 clown gets ick and dies less than 24 hours in the tank and also a damsil. next day we get a new clown and 4 more damsils (7 damsils now). then we get a sweetlips (bad idea). he goes good for a few days and then i add a yellow tang, cleaner shrimp, and scooter blenny. the sweetlips gets ick and dies and also does another damsil(now down to 6). yesterday i bought a ringed cleaner shrimp. i noticed ick again and then this morning another damsil dies... what could be doing this? every time i get a fish, another dies!

 

[Toam]

first things first, I'd stop replacing the dying fish because the ick spores are most likely still in the water. Your first goal is gonna be to clean the setup you currently have, obviously with water changes and possible treatment, I know how to deal with FW ick, but I'm not gonna tell you how to deal with SW ick as I am unsure as to the differences and don't want to say the wrong thing.

The FRESHWATER treatment is usually turning up the water temp to around 88-95 for several days top kill off any spores in the water. after a week of raised temperatures i slowly cool my tank back down and than do a soft treatment with a mild medicine. during this time you definitely wouldn't replace any lost fish as the new ones will simply contract the current infections.

 

[1979camaro]

the reason you are experiencing so much trouble is because you moved way to fast. You overloaded your tank early on, most likely before it had a chance to cycle properly, and by continuing to add more fish rapidly you add additional stress to the ones you have. Beyond that, I am guessing you did not QT your new arrivals so that is possibly where the ick came from. In order to deal with the ick you need to set up a QT tank, remove all the fish for 4-6 weeks, treat them either with medication or hyposalinity, and then return them to the tank

 

[twistedimage92]

can i just leave the fish in there and do not add any more fish for 4-6 weeks?

 

[wayne]

To be harsh ..... set the tank up, ran for few weeks (2-3)<<OK>> i bought 4 damsils<<ok, but dodgy, I can't remember what your setup is>>. 3-4 days later my wife buys 2 clown fish<<too fast>>. 1 clown gets ick and dies less than 24 hours in the tank and also a damsil<<cheap fish from bad stores and no QT - no surprise>>. next day we get a new clown and 4 more damsils (7 damsils now)<<ridiculous, shoptastic>>. then we get a sweetlips (bad idea).<<Yes>> he goes good for a few days << a few whole days!! How marvellous>>and then i add a yellow tang, cleaner shrimp, and scooter blenny<<hmm, why so fast>>. the sweetlips gets ick << no surprise>>and dies and also does another damsil(now down to 6)<<no surprise>>. yesterday i bought a ringed cleaner shrimp. i noticed ick again<< why are you surprised?>> and then this morning another damsil dies<< ?>>... what could be doing this?<<Ich , an overloaded filtration system, damsel aggression, bad management>>

I really hate to be harsh, and I' sure you deserve some luck, but this ain't no mystery. All the fish out, for two months, let the ich sort itself out. Then learn to QT everything.

 

[FroggyFox]

80 gallon tank with all those fish so fast...wow. What Camaro and Wayne said is right on...moving way too fast and not quarentining new fish has caused your tank to be in panic mode.

Generally a good timeline for stocking a SW tank is going to be the initial cycling with live rock for several weeks to more than a month...this gives you time if this is your first tank to get used to testing the water, doing water changes with appropriate temperature and SG as well as topping off and making sure your equipment is up to par. Then if all is well add a cleaning crew of sorts, snails crabs etc. Then wait another week or two...add A fish or maybe a pair. Then every fish afterwards you probably want to quarentine first. Check out wayne's article about Quarentining here: http://www.myfishtank.net/forum/showthread.php?t=32495 So I would say about 6 weeks in between new additions to your tank (assuming you get them into Quarentine for those 6 weeks), not a couple of days.

 

[wayne]

If you leave the fish in their for4 to 6 weeks you might get some survivors that are somewhat rsistant to ich. But there will still be background ich which is not fatal for the next 2 or 3 years till it dies out fully (there is a reference to ich cell senescence attributed to Burgess), and anything new going in will possibly provoke a full outbreak.
To get rid of it all the fish come out one way or another

 

[twistedimage92]

so there is no way for the ick to go totally away? i just got this stuff the other day that says kills all ick in 14 days... "kick-ich"

if i were to move my fish into a qt tank (whick i dont currently have but am planning on setting one up) am i going to have to drain everything totally out? or can i keep the water in there? the kick ich seems to be working because the spots are going or are gone. on the bottle it says to use for the full period even if the spots go away to prevent future outbreaks...

 

[S.Reef]

i would wait a few weeks before you put fish back i the tank, the ich should for the most part go away.

 

[wayne]

Frankly kick-ich has a pretty dire reputation for not working. It has an active ingrediant that iss effective, but to make it largely reef safe it is diluted to such an extent almost noone believes it to be effective. Beware that the life cycle of ich involves parasites dropping on and off, and typically fish will appear fine in the morning, reinfected by the evening, good one day , bad the next.
Most stages of the parasite are difficult to treat in the extreme - most cures involve killing it at it's most weak state, free swimming from substrate cysts to infect the fish. However to get all the cysts to do this takes some time which is why the tank needs to be fishless for at least 4, should be 6 and if you have the patience 8 weeks is a good idea. Meanwhile the fish you have can be treated with the very effective copper somewhere else. You do not need to break the tank down - in fact most tanks with inverts do much better once the fish are removed

There are lots of myths around ich. Freshwater dips have been demonstrated NOT to work, noone has demonstrated garlic to work, and almost all the reef safe cures like KickIch, RXP cannot be demonstrated to work. Metronidazole works, but less than 50% of the time

 

[lordroad]

Wayne, I've read a couple articles about metro working too, but everything I've read was pretty inconclusive. Have you ever tried metro yourself?

I heard metro "sometimes" works on ich for freshwater. I have personally tried it and it did nothing for me.

I've used metro to cure a discus with IP. However, it failed to work on a couple clown loaches.

 

[Fishchaser]

cantr you just giveit a Fw bath

 

[1979camaro]

the problems with that option have already been addressed

 

[aresgod]

hahaha camaro...

 

[seastaar88]

this is why it is so imperrative to Q your fish before you add it to your tank. i can't understand spending the time and $$ to set up a sw tank and not Q your fish only to lead to an ich outbreak. boggles my mind. i hope this proves to be an invaluable lesson for you, so that hopefully you see the error and prevent it next time!

 

[wayne]

No, freshwater dips, an old standby, are absolutely useless. They only kill stuff that's on the surface. Most of the ich parasites are embedded in the fishes flesh, and are completely proteced from the freshwater dip. Conconi, in one of the classic ich references gave up after a 17 hour freshwater dip, and it had had zero effect on the ich parasite.
Remember all the little white dot is mostly scar tissue

And anyway you would be simply dipping/treating to put them back in a bath of more ich parasites.

If you really aren't in a position to remove all the fish at this point I would be tempted to try metronidazole rather than garlic, although neither are any more than 50:50 cures, but you might get lucky. I'm not even convinced garlic is a 50:50 cure - when I tried it it was a 100% failure, and I'm not convinced most of it's success stories are due to it, even if people aren't mistaking grains of sand, marine snow for ich anyway.

 

[Lorna]

I have heard of garlic being used more along the lines as a preventative rather than a cure. I agree, get the fish out to be treated with copper in another tank this is the tank that you will keep the fish in for the 8 weeks necessary to ensure that the main display is free of ick before re-introducing the existing. I wouldn't be adding any new fish to the hospital tank either until you get this under control. Don't spend a fortune on this tank as you will only be using it later as a qt for newly acquired fish. Once your fish are back in the main tank you need to disinfect this tank using a diluted bleach solution and dry it thorouhly before using again.......

 

[seastaar88]

I have heard of garlic being used more along the lines as a preventative rather than a cure

that's what we used it for in an old job... marinated the frozen foods in it while they thaw and then straining the food before serving.