ich, one more question
- Thread starter duke62
- Start date
in my experiences the best thing to do is just feed them well and often with meaty foods and veggies. Adding vitamin supplements such as selcon wouldn't hurt. They will eventually fight off the parasite naturally which is a lot better IMO.
If you decide to copper treat do not do it until you have a kit.
If you decide to copper treat do not do it until you have a kit.
- Location
- Dingmans ferry PA
all together i have 9 fish 4 from my old tank 5 new. thanks ireefny i would love that opper text kit let me know when i can pick it up
- Location
- Dingmans ferry PA
i put a leaner shrimp in on monday.i havent seen him since
- Location
- Upper East Side
You might want to consider a UV filter for your tank. It won't help with the fish that do have ich, but supposedly it will kill the free floating parasite. I foolishly didn't quarantine a fish I got from Petco and introduced ich to my tank. I left a UV filter running for a couple of months without adding anymore fish, and I haven't seen a spot of it since then.
- Location
- Baiting Hollow Long Island NY
I'm afraid all that time your tang was treated in copper does not really count because without a test kit you have no idea of the copper level. As was said, too little copper will do nothing. Of course too much will kill the fish very fast. Also cleaner shrimp will do nothing for ich. You can put them in there if you like them and they may eat a few paracites but they will be no help. A UV sterilizer also will not cure ich but it may kill the free swimming paracites that go through the unit. Unfortunately most of them will head for the bottom. You can also feed garlic if you like, I don't feel it will help with the problem but I sometimes feed it because my fish like it. Ich is a very easy disease to cure with copper in a couple of days if it is kept at the correct therapudic level.
Tangs are referred to as ich magnets because all tangs are schooling fish and are never found alone. They will always be looking for their swimming mates and they never seem to forget them even after ten years.
Sorry for all my negative opinions but I have been dealing with ich for many years.
Good luck.
Paul
Tangs are referred to as ich magnets because all tangs are schooling fish and are never found alone. They will always be looking for their swimming mates and they never seem to forget them even after ten years.
Sorry for all my negative opinions but I have been dealing with ich for many years.
Good luck.
Paul
- Location
- Dingmans ferry PA
man u just bumbed the sh!t out of me..:frown:
- Location
- Baiting Hollow Long Island NY
Sorry, that was not my intention.
IMO you don't seem to knowlegable about ich. There is a lot of information about it on line. The most important thing to know is that it is in your tank with your fish so you have to get your fish out of there and into a hospital tank. Too late for quarantine. You need to treat with copper at the correct dose and you have to check the level every day because it will be reduced every day. I would just change 5 gallons of water in the hospital tank every day and add the prescribed dose of copper to the new water. If the fish are not near death they should be relitively free of "visable" paracites in about 48 hours, but they will not be cured at that time. The directions on the copper will probably say to leave the fish in there for two weeks which is fine. You also need to have the temperature in the tank at about 81 or 82 degrees. After this time you still can't put the fish back in your tank or they will just become re-infected and you will have to go through this all over again. You need to leave all the fish out of the main tank for 6 weeks with the temp at 82 degrees. After the 10 days or two weeks (whatever the directions say) you can just let the copper abate by itself in the hospital tank but be sure not to put any of that water that has been treated with copper in your tank. That means not to even catch the fish and put that net with the copper on it in your main tank. Instead, transfer the fish to another container with new water then catch them again with a different net to put them in your reef.
In the future you should quarantine all your animals.
Your tank is new so all of your fish will be stressed which makes ich almost guaranteed. In an old tank with very healthy fish ich is not so much of a problem.
Good luck and get some sleep. Your fish will forgive you.
Paul
- Location
- The Big City
This isn't why tangs are referred to as ich magnets, and it's not all tangs that are considered to be ich magnets. They're referred to as ich magnets because if ich is introduced into the tank they're likely the first one to come down with it. Also there are other fish that don't school, like Queen Angels, that are also considered ich magnets.
- Location
- Baiting Hollow Long Island NY
I disagree, tangs are all schooling fish and are always stressed in a tank because they are seperated from their school. Tangs are never seen alone in the sea. Queen angels are loners, I have never heard of them being ich magnets, I have had quite a few of them and I don't remember them ever having ich. I have seen many hundreds of tangs in the sea and have never seen one alone.
They are stressed. Healthy non stressed fish do not get ich. Fish in a tank are ususlly stressed. If you see fish in the sea you can tell immediately that they don't look like fish in a tank. If you can keep fish in breeding condition they will not get ich. My fish were infected with ich only once in 25 years when the power went off and the tank went down to 60 degrees. ( and I dont quarintine, but you should)
That was a few weeks ago, there is obviousely ich still in my reef but I have a hippo tang along with other fish and they do not have ich because they are in breeding condition. Fish should be building nests and chasing other fish away or they are not in very good health. Of course you will not see tangs do this because they are egg scatters and do not build nests but you can tell from their behavior the condition they are in.
They are stressed. Healthy non stressed fish do not get ich. Fish in a tank are ususlly stressed. If you see fish in the sea you can tell immediately that they don't look like fish in a tank. If you can keep fish in breeding condition they will not get ich. My fish were infected with ich only once in 25 years when the power went off and the tank went down to 60 degrees. ( and I dont quarintine, but you should)
That was a few weeks ago, there is obviousely ich still in my reef but I have a hippo tang along with other fish and they do not have ich because they are in breeding condition. Fish should be building nests and chasing other fish away or they are not in very good health. Of course you will not see tangs do this because they are egg scatters and do not build nests but you can tell from their behavior the condition they are in.
- Location
- Dingmans ferry PA
what do you mean they are in breeding condition.ive had my 55 gal set up for 9 months and had alot of coraline growth and not 1 of my fish died.i put 5 fish in at the same time.now that i switched to my 110 1 of my 2 tangs died he was being harassed by other yellow i took him out and put him in qt tank then it jumped out.and now after 2 months of havin this tank up i get ich.my fish where doing fine i didnt notice any stress.they where eating i have new coraline growth they slept in same spots every night.i noticed absolutly no stress.my paramters goes like this PH 8.4 AMMONIA 0.0, NITRITE 0ppm ,NITRATE 0ppm, CALCIUM 350 ,ALK 3.0 meq ,PHOSPHATE 0 ppm. and its been like this since i transfered everything over. and SALINITY 1.024 and i keep temp at 77*f.
- Location
- The Big City
Queen angels are big time ich magnets and that is a fact. They're very hardy but they do have a habit of catching ich very easy.
Being a schooling fish, and not being able to school in your tank, has nothing to do with a fish getting ich. If a fish is stressed out, and you have ich present in your tank, there is a good chance that the fish will be effected but so will health fish. If your fish is healthy there is a better chance of it fighting it off than a fish that is stressed out. There are also strains of ich that are very deathly and will kill health fish. You see many cases of wipe out happen when a fish, carrying ich, is introduced into a tank with health fish. By the way, unless you have a huge tank, 1000's of gals, your fish are going to be stressed out.
This isn't true as healthy fish can and go get ich. They maybe better able to fight it off but they can and do get it. Remember ich is a parasite.
In the ocean fish have all kinds of parasite on them, as well as diseases. To say that a fish that is in breeding condition can't get ich or another type of parasite isn't correct.
- Location
- Dingmans ferry PA
thats what ive been reading also morrone.i didnt read anything about what paul has been saying.
- Location
- The Big City
Duke
There is a lot of different opinions on ich, even if you can every get rid of it in your tank. The one think that is definite is that you can introduce it into your tank and even healthy fish can be effective by it.
There have been some good results on using garlic, and that should be something you should try first, unless you're using it already. Hyposaltity does work but you can't do it in a reef tank as it will kill your corals, inverts and LR. Also you need to make sure you have ich otherwise probably wouldn't work. Copper is probably the best thing to use but in some case the ich is very strong and copper will not kill it, and it's not something you should do in a reef tank.
That being said you should QT all you fish, regardless of where or who you get the fish from. Also if your tank has ich you want to remove the fish and treat them. Then leave the tank empty for about 6 weeks, that should kill the ich.
There is a lot of different opinions on ich, even if you can every get rid of it in your tank. The one think that is definite is that you can introduce it into your tank and even healthy fish can be effective by it.
There have been some good results on using garlic, and that should be something you should try first, unless you're using it already. Hyposaltity does work but you can't do it in a reef tank as it will kill your corals, inverts and LR. Also you need to make sure you have ich otherwise probably wouldn't work. Copper is probably the best thing to use but in some case the ich is very strong and copper will not kill it, and it's not something you should do in a reef tank.
That being said you should QT all you fish, regardless of where or who you get the fish from. Also if your tank has ich you want to remove the fish and treat them. Then leave the tank empty for about 6 weeks, that should kill the ich.
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- Location
- Dingmans ferry PA
alright mods i got everything i needed from this thread please close
- Location
- Baiting Hollow Long Island NY
Let me see if I could debate some of this. Of course all fish can get ich but very healthy fish do not. (or rarely do) I can prove that. My reef which I set up in 1972 was an ich infested tank for about the first ten years and I had to keep copper in there almost continousely. We did not have reefs then and all captive fish were stressed. After that time when I became more experienced and had many years of diving experience where I could observe fish and learn how to get them into breeding condition there was no more ich in my tank for the next 25 years. During those years I added many animals from many different stores, wholesalers, other people's tanks and the sea with absolutely no quarantine. My fish got ich for the first time about a month ago when the power and heat went off in my house for a day and the temp went down to 60 degrees. The fish were stressed and were infected with ich. I have many times taken fish from an LFS with obvious ich and put it in my reef. I OF COURSE DON'T RECOMMEND THIS and I certainly don't recommend putting any animal in your tank without quarantining but my tank is an experiment and not meant to just be a showcase. The infected fish would either live or die but never in all those years did any other fish get ich. That includes queen angels and hippo tangs which I have kept for over ten years. There was also a brutalid fish in there for 18 years.
It is not discussed anymore but fish in a tank are rarely in breeding condition. Fish in the sea do two things, eat and spawn. Clowns, mandarins, pipefish, seahorses and most fish with the exception of egg scatters should be exhibiting spawning behavior, if they are not, then they are not as healthy as you believe. Fish in the sea look much different than fish in a tank.
I know all about the ich paracite as I have been doing this for over fifty years. I know it is in my tank and it always has been I also know that as soon as one of my fish is near death from old age or an accident it will be infected.
As for not observing stress in your tank you don't know what to look for. We use the term stress for a lot of things in this hobby and it just means that the fish is not comfortable in it's surroundings either because it's diet is not quite right or it's tankmates harass it or water conditions are not good for it. It means any number of things but it also means that the fish is more prone to all sorts of diseases. Fish are also used to be living at a certain depth and they know what that depth is, most adult fish do not like living in water a foot deep, royal grammas come from very deep water, I have seen them at 120'. Fish are also used to swimming many yards around a reef, they don't like to have to turn around in a few feet, this all causes stress as it would if you were caged. If you ever dove with moorish Idols you would tire very fast as they take 100 yard cruises around the reef.
Getting back to ich, it can be cured with either copper or hypo. I would use copper if the fish has a severe case because hypo takes longer and the fish may not live long enough.
If anyone is interested, ich can be cured in about a day if you use copper and quinicrine hydrocloride together. Quinicrine is a malaria medication, malaria is a paracite like ich. I invented this treatment in the seventees.
Have a great day and if you don't agree with me it's perfectly OK, I still like you.
Paul
It is not discussed anymore but fish in a tank are rarely in breeding condition. Fish in the sea do two things, eat and spawn. Clowns, mandarins, pipefish, seahorses and most fish with the exception of egg scatters should be exhibiting spawning behavior, if they are not, then they are not as healthy as you believe. Fish in the sea look much different than fish in a tank.
I know all about the ich paracite as I have been doing this for over fifty years. I know it is in my tank and it always has been I also know that as soon as one of my fish is near death from old age or an accident it will be infected.
As for not observing stress in your tank you don't know what to look for. We use the term stress for a lot of things in this hobby and it just means that the fish is not comfortable in it's surroundings either because it's diet is not quite right or it's tankmates harass it or water conditions are not good for it. It means any number of things but it also means that the fish is more prone to all sorts of diseases. Fish are also used to be living at a certain depth and they know what that depth is, most adult fish do not like living in water a foot deep, royal grammas come from very deep water, I have seen them at 120'. Fish are also used to swimming many yards around a reef, they don't like to have to turn around in a few feet, this all causes stress as it would if you were caged. If you ever dove with moorish Idols you would tire very fast as they take 100 yard cruises around the reef.
Getting back to ich, it can be cured with either copper or hypo. I would use copper if the fish has a severe case because hypo takes longer and the fish may not live long enough.
If anyone is interested, ich can be cured in about a day if you use copper and quinicrine hydrocloride together. Quinicrine is a malaria medication, malaria is a paracite like ich. I invented this treatment in the seventees.
Have a great day and if you don't agree with me it's perfectly OK, I still like you.
Paul
- Location
- The Big City
First yes Healthy fish can get ich, and that has been proven many times over. Once again unless you have a huge tank all fish are stress to some point in our home tanks. As for being in breeding condition, that has nothing to do with a fish ability to get ich. It's very common to see fish exhibit signs of breathing, from clean off rocks to doing mating dances, but those very same fish can and do get ich.
Yes ich is a parasite and they attack all fish, not just fish that are sick and dying. Fish that are sick and dying will most likely die from the ich, as opposed to a healthy fish that has a better chance to fight it off, but there is no guarantee that will always be the case. As for seeing fish swimming in the ocean, well they maybe less stressed than fish we have in our current tank, and in breathing condition, but they're full of parasites and diseases.
As for Hypo or Copper both take a while to work, neither is faster though you have to treat with Hypo longer. Remember Ich can take anywhere for 4-7 days to work it way through the fish body, and copper doesn't have an effect on the ich inside the fish body. So it may seem like the fish is doing better it's just because the ich hasn't reached the stage were it has worked it's way out of the fish body. There are also strains of ich that are resistant to copper, unless the levels are so high they'll kill the fish.
As for using quinicrine hydrochloride, well I never have but I serious doubt it would kill all the ich in one day without killing the fish, then again you made a similar claim about copper also. The other side is if it was that effective everyone would be using it and that's not the case.
Here is an article on using quinicrine hydrochloride
http://www.marineaquariumadvice.com/aquarium_fish_4.html
ntimalaria Drugs
Several antimalaria drugs have been used with some degree of success for combating Cryptocaryon irritans. These would include, but are not limited to, chloroquine phosphate, quinine hydrochloride and quinacrine hydrochloride (Atabrine?). A bioassay should be performed before using antimalari drugs, because their strength can vary greatly from one batch to the next. In my experience, quinicrine hydrochloride was partially effective, but problematic. This treatment caused some of the fish to take on a yellow hue or darken in coloration. It also appeared to cause the fins to begin to fray at about one week into treatment. The recommended treatment period when using quinicrine hydrochloride is 10 days, which is not generally a sufficient period of time to eradicate Cryptocaryon irritans.
Ich maybe a parasite but I don't think it's the same as malaria, which is I think a worm parasite while ich is a crustation type parasite.
Paul I really don't care if you like me or not but don't put information here that you think is correct when it's not. You have a lot of newbie here and you putting information this some may use which could lead to them losing a lot, or even all of their fish.
Yes ich is a parasite and they attack all fish, not just fish that are sick and dying. Fish that are sick and dying will most likely die from the ich, as opposed to a healthy fish that has a better chance to fight it off, but there is no guarantee that will always be the case. As for seeing fish swimming in the ocean, well they maybe less stressed than fish we have in our current tank, and in breathing condition, but they're full of parasites and diseases.
As for Hypo or Copper both take a while to work, neither is faster though you have to treat with Hypo longer. Remember Ich can take anywhere for 4-7 days to work it way through the fish body, and copper doesn't have an effect on the ich inside the fish body. So it may seem like the fish is doing better it's just because the ich hasn't reached the stage were it has worked it's way out of the fish body. There are also strains of ich that are resistant to copper, unless the levels are so high they'll kill the fish.
As for using quinicrine hydrochloride, well I never have but I serious doubt it would kill all the ich in one day without killing the fish, then again you made a similar claim about copper also. The other side is if it was that effective everyone would be using it and that's not the case.
Here is an article on using quinicrine hydrochloride
http://www.marineaquariumadvice.com/aquarium_fish_4.html
ntimalaria Drugs
Several antimalaria drugs have been used with some degree of success for combating Cryptocaryon irritans. These would include, but are not limited to, chloroquine phosphate, quinine hydrochloride and quinacrine hydrochloride (Atabrine?). A bioassay should be performed before using antimalari drugs, because their strength can vary greatly from one batch to the next. In my experience, quinicrine hydrochloride was partially effective, but problematic. This treatment caused some of the fish to take on a yellow hue or darken in coloration. It also appeared to cause the fins to begin to fray at about one week into treatment. The recommended treatment period when using quinicrine hydrochloride is 10 days, which is not generally a sufficient period of time to eradicate Cryptocaryon irritans.
Ich maybe a parasite but I don't think it's the same as malaria, which is I think a worm parasite while ich is a crustation type parasite.
Paul I really don't care if you like me or not but don't put information here that you think is correct when it's not. You have a lot of newbie here and you putting information this some may use which could lead to them losing a lot, or even all of their fish.
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