Ich which solution ?

[FxdupCobra]

I just purchased a flame angel and put him into my tank. He is now covered in ich.

I have a blue tang and paired clowns. The other fish are doing fine but I need to know what’s the best thing to do?

1) Setup a hospital tank and bring down the salinity?
2) Put in a cleaner shrimp and install my UV Sterilizer? (LFS recommended this).
3) Take the fish out and get some credit at the LFS? But what about the other fish?

The issue is I am leaving town in 3 days and need to do something quick?

Any help is more than appreciated!

[Crazed]

It's going to be some form of #1: into a hospital tank. #2 won't do anything for the fish that are already in there; the UV sterilizer only affects ich in the free swimming stage, not the ones that are on the fish or borrowing in the substrate. #3 isn't an option because the tang is an ich magnet and now all the fish have been exposed to the ich, even if they don't show it. Even if you sell the dwarf angel back you'll need to treat the other fish. They're at definite risk.

I personally wouldn't do hypo: I prefer copper (Cupramine specifically) and aerating the tank highly, although you have to take the sensitivities of the specific fish into account (which I don't know in this case; the clownfish would be okay in copper, though). If you're leaving town, I would trust a fishsitter with looking at copper levels better than paying attention to very sensitive salinity which can change daily due to evaporation and whatnot. With Cupramine you have a range for effective concentrations, but for hypo you need to be accurate to the ppt. But, that is your choice. There are people who do not like copper, too.

You better move fast, though. They should all be treated ASAP--that can't be stressed enough. Just get a 20 gallon tank, a sponge filter, and a thermometer, and be prepared to do lots of water changes. If you do copper, you'll need a test kit for that, and if you do hypo you'll need to buy a good refractometer if you don't already have one. Absolutely no sand, rock, or any porous material--just some PVC pipe cuttings of various diameters for the fish to hide. I wouldn't put any tank water into the hospital tank. Don't share anything between the two tanks (including nets, test tubes, and so on).

Your DT will have to remain fallow (that is, no fish) during the entire period until the ich in the tank mostly dies off, or they will just be reinfected when they return.

[mess7777]

Tough place. If you don`t have a pre-existing set up QT tank you will have ammonia issues in the new setup that a sitter may not be prepared to deal with.

I can attest that hyposalinity is not the hard part of the QT process, in fact I am currently 3 weeks in and this part of the puzzle is by far the easiest. I have a 42g QT tank, and 1 full day of evaporation barely makes a difference in salinity on my refractometer.

I struggled a lot with ammonia at the beginning, and nearly lost a yellow tang. That same tang now came down with a separate bacterial infection and will likely not pull through. I did go away on vacation for a week but needed to leave very detailed instructions for my sitter to ensure everything remained stable....this included a water change.

How long are you leaving for? If the ich isn't crazy bad you may be able to get away with feeding some anti-parasite food along with some garlic to hold it at bay until you return. Then you can start a hospital tank and give it the attention that it needs.

[shawna1972]

Cupramine and stability ( made by seachem) for a bacteria additive. I unlike most always used a small piece of live rock from my tank and tested to make sure it didn't throw my copper level off and if it did I added a bit more cupramine to where I needed to be. I also always have sponges in my display and i threw that in the qt as well. I did daily water changes and If you use a power head depending how weak the fish are ( I put a few pieces of egg crate together with zip ties to make a cage to slip over the power head.)so they didn't get stuck to it. I believe seachem sells a stick on ammonia badge as well that isgood for 5- 6 months. I got the badge but don't totally rely on it, keep your daily water changes in affect and you should be good. Btw most fish tolerate cupramine very well. And do not ever ever use any water condition to fight the ammonia while using cupramine or any copper. Water conditioner and copper = death. Good luck hope this helps.

[shawna1972]

Oh and a hang on the back filter filled with filter floss and a sponge from your display. Change floss after every feeding! I fed all they wanted with garlic guard but let the filed suck up any uneaten food and threw the floss away and when you do your w/c make sure to get any left over food on the bottom :)

[MrTuskfish]

If you're leaving in 3 days and don't have a trained fish-sitter, your fish are in real trouble, they all need t be treated. Maybe returning the Flame and hoping your other fish can fight it off until you return is the only option. But here's my 2 cents anyhow.Flame Angels are extremely sensitive to copper, which is usually my 1st choice for ich. (It is probably the only fish I know of that I doubt could handle an effective dose of copper, give his present condition). Hypo works well; but needs constant monitoring with a good, perfectly calibrated refractometer and (preferably) an ATO. There just isn't much wiggle room with hypo, IMO. I think this would be a good time to use quinine sulfate. This stuff has been discussed at length on this site and others. It is also the treatment of choice of Bob Fenner, Bob Goemans, and others---these guys are real experts. Search this site for QS, Regal Angel has posted a lot of good info; not just anecdotal accounts. Avoid all the "new", "reef-safe", etc. treatments. The Flame sounds like he's in real trouble; food & garlic is not going to help this fish (IMO) and when all the parasites infecting him multiply; I think they'll attach to all of your fish, if they haven't already. Ich often gets into the gills first, where you can't see any white spots. And, I agree with the above posts: cleaners and UV will not cure or prevent any parasite infestation. That is a common comment on any source that discusses ich. What ever happens, get a QT (cheaper than the flame Angel) and QT everything and you'll never go through this again.

[Orcrone]

Everyone has given very good advice. I just want to add that I'd be reluctant to return to that LFS. It's a myth that cleaner shrimp can cure ich. They cannot dig deep enough to get to the parasites and only wind up scratching the itch. The UV Sterilizer will kill some parasites, but as Crazed points out it cannot kill them all, which is what you're really striving to do.

Depending on the condition of the fish and how long you'll be out of town I think I'd be tempted to wait unless you have someone you could really trust to do this properly. It's not only treating with copper or hypo, but also monitoring ammonia and being able to do some large water changes if necessary.

And in the future please consider a simple QT for all additions. Good luck to you.

[Definitive_Aqua]

Recommend Kick Ick (reef safe - i have tested) in the tank, and a hydro plex dip. both products are from ruby reef. We use them everyday and dip all fish in a 10 min hydroplex bath before going into any of our tanks. Has greatly increased our rates of survival.

Do not dose Hydroplex into an established tank - just a warning :)

[MrTuskfish]

Recommend Kick Ick (reef safe - i have tested) in the tank, and a hydro plex dip. both products are from ruby reef. We use them everyday and dip all fish in a 10 min hydroplex bath before going into any of our tanks. Has greatly increased our rates of survival.

Do not dose Hydroplex into an established tank - just a warning :)

I've read quite a bit about Kick Ich, almost all negative. Bob Fenner, whom I consider one of the hobby's real experts, basically says its worthless. Given how it is supposed work vs the life cycle of ich, I agree.
From Fenner's site, Wetwebmedia:
Q. "So, I bought a 20gallon hospital/quarantine tank and used my main tank's water. Water seems to be ok and now my last two butterflies are in the tank. I bought "REEF SAFE KICK-ICH" to treat it.
Weywebmedia answer:

"IMO, this stuff is better used as salad dressing than a fish "medication"...and please don't use it in your main tank! It's really a "pepper sauce", intended to make the fish slough off body slime in the hope that the parasites go with it."

[Definitive_Aqua]

while i agree i would never use it in a reef tank (but then i would never use any med in a active reef) i have personally achieved pretty great results and its a great med for a person who is not confident in the use of pharm drugs.

example: 380 gallon cylinder with synthetic reef insert - client ordered gold rim tang put it in the tank with out proper treatment, tank gets ich. 3 days later with no other meds besides kick ich and rally ( for good measure) fish have all recovered. dosed into main tank never quarantined bio had no problems and there was no spike.

reading is good but imho doing is better - somethings work better for some then others depends on how soon you catch and treat.