Ich infestation help

[surge408]

i just started my salt water set up about 1 month ago. It is a 50 gal tall tank with 20lbs live rock and live sand. temp is at 78F i have a jbo skimmer and a flovol 304 filter. i got the water tested at the LFS and said all i needed was some more enzymes in the water but everything else was fine. At first i had 4 damsels and a clown fish that seem to be living good they ate and everything. Then i put a flame angle, yellow tang, and blue tang. in a week the yellow tang was rubing itself against the rocks. then i saw lots of spots on the blue tang and yellow tang. all 3 big fish died in a week. i was treating to main tank with kick ich and it didnt seem to woork. then i read the big label on the container of how i was suppose to remove the carbon filtration. i moved the remaining fish to hospitol tank and put some kind of copper medication. i left a cleaner shrimp and 2 starfish in the main tank and im still treating the main tank with kick ich i. i also lower the the salt level to 1.020. iknow it helps when it is lower than 1.015 but i did not want to kill my inverts. right now the main tank is fishless. what can i do to get the ick to go away. should i let it satay fishless for 4-6 weeks? anything ells to speed it up? anu help would be appreaciated thanks

 

[RMPD109]

Leave the main tank fishless for 6 weeks. The inverts wont host ick so no further treatment is needed for the main tank. Changes in SG may damage the corals.

Treatment of all fish in the QT is great. You can use the copper treatments or hyposalinity for treatment. Dont use both at once though. I treated with copper for 4 weeks and then observed for 2 weeks and now the fish are back in the main tank with no problems.

 

[flame82]

this link is a pretty good start to finish on marine ich and should answer your questions. personally i have a blue tang and he was the number one source of ich for the first two month i battled that fish and the ich. Through feeding him flakes with garlic and i havent had an outbreak or any signs of the dreaded ich for 4 months now. I think on of the most improtant is to get your fish settled down and try to keep it totally stress free and then the ich problem seems to go away.
make sure you watch the copper levels it will kill the fish if its to high and i never had any of my fish die because of ich and at one time my angel and tang have several spots. so maybe you got some bad fish from the store that had more than just ich ????
hope this helps !

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ichart2mar.htm

 

[quarryshark]

First, welcome to the forum, sorry you are off to such a rough start.

i moved the remaining fish to hospitol tank and put some kind of copper medication.

Good move, but what kind of copper and how are you testing for the treatment level?

im still treating the main tank with kick ich i. i

Run some GAC and get it out of there, it is doing you no good. The 6 week fishless time will allow the parasite to die off from a lack of fish host, that is all the treatment you need for the main.

i also lower the the salt level to 1.020.

Go ahead and raise it back up to normal level, it is not nearly low enough to have any effect on the parasite and all it is going to do is stress your inverts.
Just treat the fish in the qt tank (make sure you get the copper test kit to help monitor the copper level) and leave the main fishless for 6 weeks, IMO 4 weeks is not long enough. This should do it.
Also for the future, make sure you qt all new arrivals for a 4 week period before adding them to your main. It will help keep the parasites out of your system.
I would also look for another LFS, it looks like you are getting some poor advise from this one.

 

[phishead]

I would also look for another LFS, it looks like you are getting some poor advise from this one.

Agree. a 55 is not big enough for 2 tangs, they would outgrow it very fast. Adding those three fish at the same time is a large bioload change for the tank. You are lucky you still have fish.

i got the water tested at the LFS and said all i needed was some more enzymes in the water

If you do not have your own test kits that needs to be your next investment. You will have a very difficult time with this hobby if you don't know what's truly going on in your tank. out of curiosity, what enzymes did you need?

good luck

 

[surge408]

ich

i am curently using the mardel coppersafe medication onthe fish. i am also going to invest on my own testing kit reall soon. just that i ran out of funs till next pay check. this hobby sure turned out to be expensive. the LFS did not metion witch enzymes i needed he just said they were bacteria that help the brake down of the waste. he sold me a bootle that would add more he said. i am also going to start feeding them garlic flakes to see if that helps. how many water changes should i do per week and what percentage?

 

[RMPD109]

The coppersafe is a chelated copper treatment so be sure the copper test you purchase covers that. I used the same treatment and was very happy. It was easy to use and keep constant levels correct.