im putting a fish into QT and im going to dose a med for ich, any recommendations on a brand? thanks
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recommend good ich meds
- Thread starter onefish2fish
- Start date
IMHO, the only things that actually work for SW ich are copper and/or hyposalinity. They should be done in a QT tank, as you are doing, and the treatment maintained for 3 to 4 weeks.
There are many good threads on the net about ich. A quick search will give you lots of information. However, a lot of it is questionable.
You will also see cases where the disease seemed to go away by itself. This can happen, but I believe it's the results of a natural advantages of a well kept reef. In a reef you are going to get high quality water, and your going to feed your fish good food. Both go a long way to making the fish better able to resist the disease. In addition, we often have our reefs populated with corals and related livestock. To filter feeding livestock, SW ich is food, not a disease.
There are many good threads on the net about ich. A quick search will give you lots of information. However, a lot of it is questionable.
You will also see cases where the disease seemed to go away by itself. This can happen, but I believe it's the results of a natural advantages of a well kept reef. In a reef you are going to get high quality water, and your going to feed your fish good food. Both go a long way to making the fish better able to resist the disease. In addition, we often have our reefs populated with corals and related livestock. To filter feeding livestock, SW ich is food, not a disease.
thanks, i know what ich is all about its just that im getting a fish from here:
http://www.njreefers.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=26&topic=14666.0
and im thinking theres going to be ich, i cant guarentee that the fish will have it but i feel theres good chances, besides i should probally have some good ich meds on hand anyways
i could always hypo salinity or whatever it is called but i believe that is only for the free swimming ich correct?
http://www.njreefers.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=26&topic=14666.0
and im thinking theres going to be ich, i cant guarentee that the fish will have it but i feel theres good chances, besides i should probally have some good ich meds on hand anyways
i could always hypo salinity or whatever it is called but i believe that is only for the free swimming ich correct?
2nd hyposalinity in QT. no med is better but what do i know.
Cleaner wrasse is bad idea. Ich is not one of the normal parasites they eat. They also don't survive well in captivity. UV sterilizer can kill the free swimming ich only. Won't do any good if fish comes in with it. The parasites will drop off and encyst and lie dormant, rendering UV useless. And the UV has to zap them fast enough that they don't attach to a host (even money on that one I would say). Hypo or copper. Antimalaria drugs are said to be pretty effective as well. Garlic and such may boost the immune system slightly so that a fish may fight off the ich very easily (so much so that you don't even know you are carrying it in your system). How do I know this last one? I was lazy and didn't QT. Added one fish and stress my hippo and he got it. That means it was present previously. That new fish never showed signs of it.
I think you have a great chance that your fish is harboring crypto as someone said they got a hippo with ich (I'm guessing this was the source). Of course the hippo would show it first. My bet is powder blue would be 2nd. Not sure between the other ones.
Hawk,
I treat every single new fish I get as being an ich host. Standard procedure for me now is 4-6 weeks hypo, irregardless of source. I'm performing that to a whole bunch right now and sure enough 2 of them harbored it (appeared when I raised to reef SG from FOWLR SG). Disappeared around 1.015. I just hope I don't get a hypo resistant strand or something.
Onefish,
back to point.....I recommend hypo or cupramine (it is safest of the copper). Hypo requires 4 weeks at 1.009 minimum (add 1 week to get SG down to that and 1 week back to normal SG and you are looking at 6 weeks). Copper is 2 weeks.
I think you have a great chance that your fish is harboring crypto as someone said they got a hippo with ich (I'm guessing this was the source). Of course the hippo would show it first. My bet is powder blue would be 2nd. Not sure between the other ones.
Hawk,
I treat every single new fish I get as being an ich host. Standard procedure for me now is 4-6 weeks hypo, irregardless of source. I'm performing that to a whole bunch right now and sure enough 2 of them harbored it (appeared when I raised to reef SG from FOWLR SG). Disappeared around 1.015. I just hope I don't get a hypo resistant strand or something.
Onefish,
back to point.....I recommend hypo or cupramine (it is safest of the copper). Hypo requires 4 weeks at 1.009 minimum (add 1 week to get SG down to that and 1 week back to normal SG and you are looking at 6 weeks). Copper is 2 weeks.
i once cured an outbreak of ick on a sailfin tang with garlic, chopped up 2 cloves put in a mesh bag, flatteded just a little with a mallet(like really just a little) the ick dropped off the fish within a day... kept changing the garlic every 4 days or so and kept it up for 6 or so weeks.... it really worked. never saw ick on that fish again... cost about $3 was natural, and didn't hurt any corals.... i heard it from another member on here, i won't say his name so he doesn't have to hear from the skeptics too...lol
i thought it was some voodoo witch doctor stuff myself when the advise was given.... but bad ick one day. real bad the next, put in the garlic, gone the next.... and that was about 2 months ago..
No I believe you. Cause that's what I did with my hippo in the beginning and I was beginning to be a believer in garlic magic. Three months of ich-free, I added 2 fish and within 24 hours, he had nasty ich. Those 2 fish I added, never showed any signs of it. it's unlikely ich went from new fish to hippo that fast. That's when I decided to treat all of them.
i think in an enclosed system like our tanks ick can go fish to fish in hours....
Actually - nothing is a better med than this:
;D
seriously though I agree with calaxa - cleaner wrasse have no business being in our tanks - let alone having any chance of tearing fish tissue off to get at a burrowing parasite. That applies also to neon goby/cleaner shrimp - while those are fine for a community tank - you're misleading yourself if you think they will help pick the ich off a fish. Ditto also on the UV sterilizer. Generally speaking those are woefully inadequate especially given how prolific the parasite is and it's propensity to "drop off" near where the fish sleep at night.
Frankly the easiest way to resolve this is simply not to purchase the fish from the tank that you suspect of ich. Easier said then done I know.
fyi - in my QT I just have regular tank water and I observe whether the fish are eating appropriately, are they flashing/scratching, are they gasping, etc.
;D
seriously though I agree with calaxa - cleaner wrasse have no business being in our tanks - let alone having any chance of tearing fish tissue off to get at a burrowing parasite. That applies also to neon goby/cleaner shrimp - while those are fine for a community tank - you're misleading yourself if you think they will help pick the ich off a fish. Ditto also on the UV sterilizer. Generally speaking those are woefully inadequate especially given how prolific the parasite is and it's propensity to "drop off" near where the fish sleep at night.
Frankly the easiest way to resolve this is simply not to purchase the fish from the tank that you suspect of ich. Easier said then done I know.
fyi - in my QT I just have regular tank water and I observe whether the fish are eating appropriately, are they flashing/scratching, are they gasping, etc.
REEFLECTIONS said:
It violates the accepted lifecycle of cryptocaryon.
After dropping off from a host, it takes minimum of 3 days unless it dropped off prematurely. In those cases, it is usually unable to reproduce. I would still buy from the person referred to earlier, knowing full well his tank is probably ich carrier. I would still buy from REEFLECTIONS, knowing that he (in my opinion) probably has dormant ich in his tank, even though he thinks garlic cured it
I would buy from Hawkeye who does a QT but is (in my opinion) probably passively letting ich into his system.
Calaxa is right on the money, IMHO. Unless you are treating, you are passively allowing ich into your system... QT or not. Not all fish will show symptoms even though they are carriers. Everything you get from anybody should really go into QT (fallow for corals/inverts, hypo for fish). You MUST use a refractometer when you hypo. Anything over 1.009 and you are not going to kill it and anything much under and you may kill your fish. Certain fish don't do hypo, so double check before you hypo any fish.
and i would gladly sell my icky fish to you as well, to be honest i know very little about the biology of marine parasites, thats all i have to go on with my salt water experience.... but how would one attack this suspected dormant ick?
i would say dont introduce it to begin with if possible but we all know how that goes. you can only kill the free swimming stage of ick and if it already host then you cant kill it until it falls off the fish
The only way to attack dormant ich is to pull all of your fish, hypo them, and fallow your tank for 8 weeks. Higher temps (if your corals will tolerate) would speed the cycle somewhat. Not worth the words on this page though if you don't then TREAT (not just watch) all incoming (animals, rock, inverts, etc). The only thing you have to hypo is the fish though. Everything else would be "treated" by being fallow for 8 weeks.
REEFLECTIONS,
If you really want to make your system completely ich free, you have to fallow for at least 6-8 weeks and treat all fish with hypo or copper. They say anti-malarial drugs are effective as well but there is some arguments against. You might want to refer to Dr. Jim on this as I believe he uses this method for QT. Four weeks is considered acceptable as well as 99% of documented crypto finished their life cycle at 28 days at normal temps (exceptions were noted at lower temps, higher SG). Crypto is more prevalent at higher SG. It is why a lot of LFS keep their FOWLR at lowered SG (mask any ich problems as well as a lot of other parasites) and save money on salt.
If you introduce anything (I mean anything) to your system that was not QT, well you chance introducing ich again. If you put a coral in your system without QT, it's unlikely you put ich in there but possible. The only fish I know to be 100% ich free are those that immediately come out of my QT. Once I net them, who knows. Maybe my net is a carrier too (even though I wash and bleach them , etc.). I do notice my tangs never visit the cleaner shrimps anymore. They used to go at least once in awhile but since I've hypo everything, not even once. Then again, some fish never want to be clean (clowns, mandarins, etc.).
Ich in itself is just a pain. Of course, I would prefer the fish not to show symptoms of it but it's not a nasty killer like velvet is. In my opinion and experience, hypo is the safest method. I've tried copper and it can kill or stress fish too easily. Only problem is hypo only solves certian conditions like ich and I belive brooklynella. Does nothing against velvet (think velvet lives to SG 1.003 which would kill the fish). I've hypo'd every type of fish except a mandarin. I don't think hypo would kill him per se; rather he probably would die from starvation. I have a scooter in hypo but I made sure he would eat prepared food beforehand. I worried that my lawnmower blenny couldn't handle it but he gets enough hair algae there as well. The only fish I think cannot handle it are sharks, rays, etc. Mandarin, IF he eats, is fine as well.
One last thing, I think dormant is the wrong word choice but not sure what word we should be using. I guess it's like pimples. Bacteria is always there on your face but not every bacteria will make a pimple (in ich's case, a white cyst). It doesn't make you scratch unless it's real bad, etc.
If you really want to make your system completely ich free, you have to fallow for at least 6-8 weeks and treat all fish with hypo or copper. They say anti-malarial drugs are effective as well but there is some arguments against. You might want to refer to Dr. Jim on this as I believe he uses this method for QT. Four weeks is considered acceptable as well as 99% of documented crypto finished their life cycle at 28 days at normal temps (exceptions were noted at lower temps, higher SG). Crypto is more prevalent at higher SG. It is why a lot of LFS keep their FOWLR at lowered SG (mask any ich problems as well as a lot of other parasites) and save money on salt.
If you introduce anything (I mean anything) to your system that was not QT, well you chance introducing ich again. If you put a coral in your system without QT, it's unlikely you put ich in there but possible. The only fish I know to be 100% ich free are those that immediately come out of my QT. Once I net them, who knows. Maybe my net is a carrier too (even though I wash and bleach them , etc.). I do notice my tangs never visit the cleaner shrimps anymore. They used to go at least once in awhile but since I've hypo everything, not even once. Then again, some fish never want to be clean (clowns, mandarins, etc.).
Ich in itself is just a pain. Of course, I would prefer the fish not to show symptoms of it but it's not a nasty killer like velvet is. In my opinion and experience, hypo is the safest method. I've tried copper and it can kill or stress fish too easily. Only problem is hypo only solves certian conditions like ich and I belive brooklynella. Does nothing against velvet (think velvet lives to SG 1.003 which would kill the fish). I've hypo'd every type of fish except a mandarin. I don't think hypo would kill him per se; rather he probably would die from starvation. I have a scooter in hypo but I made sure he would eat prepared food beforehand. I worried that my lawnmower blenny couldn't handle it but he gets enough hair algae there as well. The only fish I think cannot handle it are sharks, rays, etc. Mandarin, IF he eats, is fine as well.
One last thing, I think dormant is the wrong word choice but not sure what word we should be using. I guess it's like pimples. Bacteria is always there on your face but not every bacteria will make a pimple (in ich's case, a white cyst). It doesn't make you scratch unless it's real bad, etc.