Fish VS Ick

[silvrbug]

I have a few fish in my 120... one is a yellow tang and the other is a Tomini Tang.... the yellow tang had ick... then went away and I got a Tomini and put in there and now BOTH of the tangs have it.. I feed pellet food that has the immune enhancer in it... it the Spectrum kind.... if I feed that and put drops of garlic in the tank... think that it will help get rid of it again????

[mattsilvester]

i have recently had a similar experience, and ended up removing the fish and treating......

once yellow tang gets it (they are pretty tough fish) then the parasite is at plague proportions in the system.... in my somewhat limited view / opinion anyway......

I used to think the whole "q-tine thing" was a bit alarmist and a bit over kill unless you were keeping really dificult fish.... I've since changed my opinion.

I also thought the whole hypo thing was a bit of a PITA - I recently tried it for the first time, and to be honest I think it is actually easier than messing around dosing copper etc. and its safer too........

In short, I do not think you will get rid of it in the manner you described - you might get lucky, and I am sure others have been lucky, but lucks gotta run out somewhere........

HTh

Matt

[sweetpea355]

In the past when I had outbreaks I would slowly raise the temp and run my salinty lower and it help,Also if you keep them eating and full there immune systems will fight off the parasite.

[reef_doug]

It might help if you soak some nori with the garlic extreme.

Make sure the Tangs get plenty of greens.

QT with either Hyposalinity or copper (but not at the same time) would be your best bet.

[mattsilvester]

What ever your decision, do not add any other new fish (or if ou decide to remove and treat the fish you have) for 30 days after the last spot disappears (or 30 days from the time you remove to treat - which ever applies).

But that you can only be sure by removing the existing fish......

HTH

Matt

[kevin2000]

I suggest you visit the disease forum and check out the "ich" FAQ.

[nava405]

even if you treat the "ich" fish right now, there would still be ich in the tank. The best i can think of which most of ppl have the same situation is keep the ich under control.

[bad2]

If you remove all the fish and treat them all and leave the tank empty for 30 days you will Eliminate all of the ich and not have to worry about this in the future

[toonces]

You are not the first person to ever have this problem.

Check the fish disease forum, and/or do some searches for ick, ich, ick AND garlic, etc, etc, and you will have more reading than you could possibly believe.

Short answer:
Once ick is in your tank (which it is now) the only sure-fire way to remove it is to move all of your fish into a treatment tank, treat with one of the many methods to cure ick, and leave your show tank fishless for at least 30 days.

Anything else and you're pretty much wasting your time as far as 'curing' ick. But don't take my word for it- read the threads.