Ich ?

[kmac]

Could someone help me clear this question up. Is ich in the marine tank, internal fish disease that breaks out or do you have to introduce it to your tank. Either through a sick fish or in the water.

[SkullV]

Could someone help me clear this question up. Is ich in the marine tank, internal fish disease that breaks out or do you have to introduce it to your tank. Either through a sick fish or in the water.

It must be introduced. The marine ich (crypt) is not present in the tank until you introduce it.

[kmac]

ok thank you I have just heard it both ways

[Recty]

Think of it like bed bugs...

You wont ever have them in your bed unless someone brings them into your house. They dont just magically one day appear, someone has to bring them in. Same with ich. It doesnt just float around in the air and drop into your tank and start infecting fish. It comes in on live rock or on/in fish bodies and then spreads around your tank. But if you just mix up a bunch of salt water from a bucket of dried salt, use a bunch of dry rock and nothing else "living" goes in there, your tank will be ich free until you introduce it from some source.

[kmac]

Wish someone would have made it that easy a while back. I have ich in my tank. Made a mistake as a nube and have been dealing with it ever since. I have tried copper and it came back and when i first started dealing with it. It seemed everyone had different methods and storys of how you get it and how to get rid of it.

At this point I just make sure I only add healthy fish and if they start to look bad just up water changes thats worked for me so far. I dont think i would ever put my fish through a copper treatment agian.

[Recty]

Healthy and less stressed fish have an easier time fighting off the invert boring into their skin and feasting on their blood/flesh... so keeping your water quality high can go a long way to keeping your ich level down.

Most ich in the aquarium is either on the rocks laying dormant for a couple days or else is on the fish, during the day there isnt a bunch of free swimming ich just moving around the aquarium, so the actual act of doing a water change isnt really removing any ich, at least not enough to make a big difference.

Copper can be tough. Look up hyposalinity treatment for ich... if you dont have inverts, that can work really well and it's easy to do.

[kmac]

I dont have the room to take fish out of my tank I have a mixed reef setup so cant do hypo with the corals. If I move and get my fish room I might pull the fish and try it.

How long does the fish tank have to be with out fish to kill anything left in the tank.

[jt_milstead]

Run your tank fallow for 8 weeks to be sure the ich has not been able to complete the life cycle.

[GoldenTaco]

What if you have itch, and dont add any fish for let's say 6 months, and run a 36 w uv ? Will this remove all the itch ?

[jt_milstead]

Youll keep the ich in check at best, and will have outbreaks every so often.

[Stuart60611]

I have tried copper and it came back and when i first started dealing with it.

Did you treat in quarantine or in the display? If in quarantine, how long was the display left fallow? What kind of copper did you use, what copper level did you maintain, and for how long did you treat?

I am confident that something went awry with how you treated because copper is extremely reliable in terms of eliminating the parasite and particularlly cupramine. If you have already coppered your display (rock and sand), then doing so again I think is your best option (obviously correctly this time:p), especially since you will have a very minor, if any, ammonia spike. The only thing to worry about is retreating can be a more complicated situation if you coppered your display using ionic copper in terms of limiting what you can retreat with safely.

[GoldenTaco]

Additional question, so i have treated with salifert stop parasites.
Will this just postpone the problem, or can i fully treat the problem with this type of treatment ?
I am just about to get two new tangs and i am pretty shure they will get the itch, i have never actually had any big problems with this , just a few spots.
But it sux to know i have this in my display tank.

[Stuart60611]

Additional question, so i have treated with salifert stop parasites.
Will this just postpone the problem, or can i fully treat the problem with this type of treatment ?
I am just about to get two new tangs and i am pretty shure they will get the itch, i have never actually had any big problems with this , just a few spots.
But it sux to know i have this in my display tank.


None of these treatments will eliminate the parasite. Only 3 options: (1) copper (most prefered chemical treatment), formalin bath (effective but difficult to apply and highly lethal if misapplied), or maybe a quinine based drug (mild but not proven and difficult although safe to administer), (2) hyposalinity (difficult to do correctly and lengthy but safe to administer for most fish), and (3) tank transfer method (labor intensive and requires a lot of water and tanks). Anything and everything else will not work. Read up on these three methods and decide which you wish to use. Alternatively, live with the infestation and try to keep nutrition and water quality as high as possible and hope the fish can fight off most of the symptoms (you will always have some symptoms to varying degrees) and tolerate the parasites.

[GoldenTaco]

Thanks alot stuart, man i feel bad for my fishes right now.

[Chris27]

Folks that have used copper unsuccessfully have made mistakes, as it is by far the most reliable treatment out there. Common mistakes are improper dosing, causing either a high or low concentration, length of treatment, and testing error. After that, not allowing the display to go fallow for at least 5-6 weeks will surely end up in failure as well.

Cupramine is attractive to the novice fishkeeper simply because it's hard to screw up, but it's still not as effective as plain'ol copper sulfate / ionic copper.

Some key points that lead to success with copper:

1. Temp - keep around 80 - lower temps can slow the lifecycle a bit.

2. Treatment Interval - if copper is properly dosed, the cycle will end in about two weeks, however the non-copper treated display must remain fallow for at least 5 weeks with the temp at 80F.

3. Type of copper - ionic is the best and most effective, chelated and others are less harsh on fish if overdosed, but they are also less effective on halting the parasite lifecycle.

4. Testing - Test daily, even twice a day, and dose accordingly to maintain the copper in the therapeutic range. Copper only works in a small range, if it's too weak, the parasite will live on, if it's too high you can hurt the fish.

5. Diet - Feed the hell out of the fish, a fat fish is most always a healthy fish.

[kmac]

I have some of the happiest fish youll see then they are all fat. I am guilty of overfeeding. Thats one way I try and fight the ich. Im sure that when I treated with copper that I most likly rushed things. Since having ich I have added a powder blue and red sea sailfin to my tank powder had it bad for a day or so but came out of it. Lucky for me the powder ate like a pig from the moment he entered the tank. I have never seen a spot on the redsea. At this point I have just accepted it in my tank. I havent lost a fish to ich in years. Even the new additions I have had the powder for over two years and the red sea a year both fat and healthy.

[Stuart60611]

With tangs, if you decide to once again go the copper route, I would not use ionic coppper because tangs will have great dificulty tolerating and likely could die. Cupramine is very effective against ich, and the much better choice here. Of those of us here at RC who use copper, the vast majority of us use cupramine. That should tell you something.

[Chris27]

Hogwash, ionic copper dosed to 0.3 ppm will not hurt a tang. All my fish, including 5 tangs, went through an ionic copper treatment without a loss. And to this day, every one of those fish is fat, healthy and growing well, some of which I've had since I started 4 years ago.

Ionic copper is the best treatment hands down. Chelated copper and cupramine are easier on fish, but they are also easier on the parasite. I have used all formulas and found that crypt can make it though both chelated and cupramine treatments, oftentimes requiring a second 3-4 week treatment.

FWIW, most people use cupramine for two reasons, one, it's readily available in the US, given that Seachem is a staple in most pet stores and two, it's harder to screw up using it.

[Stuart60611]

Hogwash, ionic copper dosed to 0.3 ppm will not hurt a tang. All my fish, including 5 tangs, went through an ionic copper treatment without a loss. And to this day, every one of those fish is fat, healthy and growing well, some of which I've had since I started 4 years ago.

Ionic copper is the best treatment hands down. Chelated copper and cupramine are easier on fish, but they are also easier on the parasite. I have used all formulas and found that crypt can make it though both chelated and cupramine treatments, oftentimes requiring a second 3-4 week treatment.

FWIW, most people use cupramine for two reasons, one, it's readily available in the US, given that Seachem is a staple in most pet stores and two, it's harder to screw up using it.


Well, we can agree to disagree I guess. But I have never heard of person being able to treat a puffer or a large angel for example with ionic copper, but I have treated several puffers and know many who have treated large angels with cupramine without a problem. Also, I have never failed once in many treatments to completely eliminate crypt when treating with cupramine at full .5 (and not the .3 you use with ionic) strength for 3 weeks.