ICK

[kcobra73]

This is my first attempt at saltwater fish. I have a 90 gallon tank with a Amiracle wet/dry filter with a Eheim Pro II. I also have a Euroreef protein skimmer. Heating the tank are 3 200 Watt heaters.

I currently have a golden tail eel, a wrasse, and a yellow tang. I have, in the past 4-5 months added 3 fish to my tank. I first added a box fish. About 2 weeks after I had the fish, it came down with ICK. I tried to treat the fish but no luck. It died about a week after that. I then purchaced a wrasse ( the one in the tank now) and had no problems with that. I purchaced another box fish about a month after buying the wrasse. It came down with the same ICK problem and died 3 weeks later. Currently, I have been seeing ICK show up on my yellow tang.

I have tried to treat the ICK with copper addatives (SeaCure) and icreasing the temperature to 84 degrees. I have since brought down the temperature to 80 degrees and the tang still has ICK.

Does anyone have any ideas of what I can do to avoid this on going ICK problem.

Thanks,
One who is tired of ICK (Bob)

 

[RodneyCK]

There are tons of threads on this forum about ICK and many suggestions on how to prevent and treat it.

One preventative method I use which several do not agree with is freshwater dips before introducing them into the tank. Bring a bag of freshwater up to tank temperature with a bit of chlorine remove in it. Float your new fish in the tank for 20 minutes or until he is equal to tank temp. Add a little water from the tank into the bag if you wish. Then transfer the fish to the freshwater bag for 2 to 2.5 minutes. My LFS guy recommended 5 minutes, but it depends on the fish. Watch him for extreme signs of stress. Then transfer your fish to the main tank.

I have used this method and have never experienced ICK. Like I said, some people will disagree stating this is to stressful on fish and that you should use a QT tank for three weeks and monitor. I would rather have a fish stressed out for 2 minutes than have to go through the medicines for weeks and possible worst, die on me. Your call.

RodneyCK

P/S The rant above was geared for preventive measures. I would suggest making sure you have completely eradicated the ICK from your tank. ICK will stay in your tank as long as there are fish present. You need to move all your fish to a QT and just let your tank sit empty for about 4 or 5 weeks until the ICK has gone through its cycle and dies. Good luck.

 

[Smonkey15]

yea, to get rid of ick you definitly have to use quarantine tanks. you need to take all your fish out of the main tank and leave it fallow for 4-6 weeks so the ich can die off in the tank. the ich can live for weeks in a dormant stage in your tanks substrate so you will think everything is fine and then boom, they're back. i hope you dont have any inverts in the tank because the copper will kill them all! hth
steve

 

[Fishboy-from-NY]

Please don't do what was suggested

 

[Fishboy-from-NY]

I had an ick outbreak in my tank and if one is infected usually all are. Here are the following three products that you should use and the way you need to use them.

Cupramine- use it until it reaches a .5ppm level of copper, PLEASE Make sure that you have a realiable Copper test kit for Chelated copper since it can get confusing when purchasing those test kits. After is reaches that level, test your water everyday to make sure that it stays at .5PPM. If it doesn't, just add until it does.I PERSONALLY DID IT ONE TIME AND THORUGH THE WHOLE 4 WEEKS I DIDN"T HAVE TO RE-DOSE.

Focus(Seachem)- when you feed your fish during treatment, you mix one spoon of the one that comes with it with your food along with Metronidazole(Seachem) which help with the secondary possible infections that may occur during the ich treatment.

PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT DURING THIS TREATMENT, ALL CARBON IS REMOVED & UV STERILIZERS & SKIMMERS ARE TURNED OFF SINCE THEY WILL DISSOLVE THE CONCENTRATION OF THE COPPER WHICH KILLS THE ich parasites.

 

[possum]

Please don't do what was suggested

elaborate what should they not do?