Ick Help

[flrman]

I have a 120 reef tank that has big outbreak of ICK. I want to give my puffer, a fresh water dip, how should I do it.

Thanks. Carl

[starseed]

I've never found fresh water dips to be useful for ICK - can make it worse.

Can you Q the puffer and treat with Hypo (I think puffers are copper sensitive, but not sure)?

I had an outbreak a week ago and I added a UV and it did stop it and all the fish recovered - but one is suffering secondary infection and can't get her out for treatment.

[kevin2000]

FW dips are not considered effective in treating ich .. trophonts can bury themselves inside the fish protecting them from the FW. A FW bath will eliminate some of the external parasites and in some cases it has been used as a temporary solution .. but a FW baths a two edge sword and the additional stress may do more damage? Also .. if your putting the fish right back into the ST then your exposing it to more parasites.

Hypo salinity is the preferred treatment for most fish ... especially a copper sensitive fish like a puffer.

You should note that if one fish has ich then all fish should be considered infected .. whether they show obvious signs or not. The best method to insure your tank is ich free is to QT and treat all fish and leave your ST without fish for 5-6 weeks (ich will naturally die off since they need fish to perpetuate their life cycle).