Clown Tang has ick. Reef Tank, what should i do?

[klubvibez]

I have a 60 gallon reef tank with hard and soft corals, a refugium with macro algae, and protein skimmer, and a UV sterilizer. Im noticing ick on the clown tang. He's the only fish in the tank. What can i do to get rid of the Ick. I know my sterilizer is killing stuff in the water but i only recently got it. So i guess some of the parasites didn't have a chance to get killed. what should i do?

 

[electrikat]

If you can catch it you can qt it for several weeks and treat it with cupramine or coppersafe. I use a cleaner shrimp to eat it off of the fish. Every tank should have at least one. There is Kich-ich which is reef safe but it is hit-or-miss on whether it will work. I'm not sure if you could do hypo on the whole tank with the corals and inverts or not.

 

[Phyl]

Hi! I'm going through a battle with ich right now too. It was a new fish so it was still in QT when it broke out. I'm using hyposalinity to treat the fish. Hypo isn't good for the inverts. They wouldn't survive the process and the corals probably wouldn't fare so well either. I had some inverts in my QT that were refugees from my main that I had to pull before I started dropping the SG. The best thing to do is to QT the fish and treat with either copper (cupramine) or hyposalinity.

Good luck. The guys here are a great wealth of information when it comes to dealing with ich.

 

[klubvibez]

hyposalinity you mean reduce the salinity? there's so many crabs and snails and stuff that i cant ever catch. there's also an anemone, starfish, cucumber, i dont think i cant lower the salinity without dire consequences. whats the cheapest fastest method of setting up a QT. how can i just set it up out of the blue, it wont be cycled or anything at all.

 

[JohnS]

The cheapest fastest way to set up a QT is to get a small (10 or 20 gallon) aquarium and hook up a bubble filter and a heater. You could probably get away with something less the $50 for the set up. Catch the tang and put him in there and do frequent water changes to keep the water quality good. Ideally, you would have the media from the bubble filter soaking in your sump for a while to allow it to build bacteria. Since time is of the essense though, you would have to use water changes to keep the quality up.

IMO, you need to remove the fish from the rest of your inverts and coral to effectively treat it. Fortunately, you only have one to worry about. Could be a lot worse . . . .

As Phyl said, the people here are a wealth of information and will be able to help you through this. Good luck!

 

[klubvibez]

the ick just sort of went away on its own. i dont understnad

 

[quarryshark]

the ick just sort of went away on its own. i dont understnad

It goes through a life cycle. See article
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/marineich.html