Ick or Ich question

[New2Salt]

Well I had posted about my two mated pair clowns that we had less than 4 days coming down with ick or ich, they were transferred to a hospital tank together on New Years eve, the male died on New years and the female died last night or early this morning. None of the other fish/critters are acting strangley or showing any signs, they are all eating great. This is what we have left, 2 scooter blennies (our favorites) 11 snails 6 Astrea and 5 Tigers, 10 blue legged itty bity hermit crabs, how they move those huge shells is amazing. Anyways, we have 2 cleaner shrimp that pick on EVERYTHING Constantly eating even the frozen brine shrimp. And last but not least a cool looking light green sea star.

Now this is all in our 29 gallon with live rock and sand.

I have read the other posts on the Ich subject and have read what FishFreek wrote about it being dormant until it has something to latch on to and also MichaelPrater mentioned about raising the temp, should we do that? How much of a water change should we do in the original tank?

We aren't sure about getting more fish, kind of afraid at this point. If and when we do we will probably do the isolation tank first for a week to make sure they are ok, but I'm afraid when we do that it will just happen all over again.

Corals don't get Ick do they? Is it possible after a lot of reading to just do a reef tank with the fish/critters we have and just not get anymore fish? I know we will have to do better lighting but it's just a question.

I don't want to see another fish suffer like that.

Thanks,

Kaurene

 

[michealprater]

I was convinced that raising the temp over 80 degrees(i run mine at 82) helps prevent ick. Some members on this site told me about it. I know it is not a 100% ick killer, how ever, I believe any preventative move would be good one. It doesnt hurt any inhabitants to run the tank at 82 and it might help thwart ick, so I say , why not try it. The author John Tullock would argue that water gets oxygen better at 76 degrees, but if you have good water movement that is not a problem.

 

[New2Salt]

Ok thanks Michael, I think we'll try that and just keep an eye out on what's left, we have big time water movement, we have two powerheads and a BAK2R protein skimmer so I know there's oxygen a plenty in there, infact we keep having to battle air bubbles now and then. Skimmer seems to get dirty a couple times a day been cleaning that often, don't like the smell.

Thanks!

Kaurene