Ick, question.

[aquanut]

Hi , My name is Zack. I have been searching the web to try to help my fish. I have a blue tang and it think he has ick. He has a few white spots on his fins and 1 or 2 on his body. I read a little about quarantine tanks. I am in high school and don't have the money to get one. I saw that there were some treatments but they can hurt my corals. I asked the guy that works at my fish shop. He told me to put garlic extreme on the algae that it eats and that should take care of it. Is this true or can you give me a better way. Please help.

Zack

 

[michealprater]

Garlic is a excellent preventative. So it cannot hurt to give it to it now. However with no quarintine or no uvsterilizer you may want to cross your fingers. Just try to stress the fish out as little as possible. Use the site search engine to search for ich.

 

[SquishyFish]

Fresh water dip.

http://www.reef-aquarium.net/resources/disease/ich.html

That article will have alot of useful info in it. It will educate you on the life cycle and treatments. Freshwater dip is just like it sounds. Freshwater that is at or near the same temp....dip the fish for 4-8 minutes. He will look like he thinks he is going to die while he is in the fresh water...thats normal. Read that article, it should be helpful.

 

[steve-s]

FW dips will do nothing for the long term success in being rid of this pest. Once the main tank is infested, dipping the fish and placing it back in the display is only prolonging the issue. All fish need to be removed from the display to a proper quarantine tank and treated properly with either hyposalinity or copper. Anything else will be hit and miss at best and as long as any fish remain in the display, so will the parasite. Dipping the fish while transfering to a QT may be effective but if caught early enough (and a proper treatment used) it is not usually needed and will only add to an already stressed fish. Michaels suggestion on the garlic will help reduce the level of parasites on an affected and also aid a proven cure fish but it is not a cure in itself.

Cheers
Steve