Ich outbreak?

[Shawn D]

A week ago I added a tang and a cleanup crew in with my 5 blue green chromis and 3 yellowtailed damsels which have been in the tank for about a month. The day after I noticed that the tang had ich, and did a freshwater dip and it is now seperated in 18 gallon container and has been there for 6 days and it seems to be doing much better, but during those 6 days I was out of town and have come back to find that two of the damsels now have ich!

What should i do?

[reboot777]

Run a uv sterilizer,to at least prevent any future outbreak.I swear by mine.

[Jay]

Hey Shawn,

I would read the sticky articles on Saltwater Ich there may be some useful info there. You can be certain your tank is infected and will need to be treated.

A UV sterilizer will work only when the parasite is in its free swimming stage and then it is a hit or miss proposition as to whether you wipe out the entire infestation.

I have no experience with the saltwater variety of Ich, as to non chemical treatment, and hope someone else will spot this thread and pop in with some guidance.

Jay

[Tommy Gun]

I was just doing some research on Ich and found out that Ich in saltwater fish is NOT the same as the freshwater type, even though they are very similar in appearance and the problems they both cause to fish.

Marine ich is actually "Cryptocaryon irritans" and not "Ichthyophthirius", which is the freshwater variety. According to Wikipedia.com, the problem with marine ich is that it can last much longer in the little white spot form and is hard to treat because the usual remedies are harmful to corals and/or inverts. It also states that the best thing to do is quarenteen the fish and treat with copper salts or by using hyposalinity. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocaryon)

Hyposalinity is basically placing a fish that is infected in saltwater that has a very LOW salinity. According to About.com, in essence, this treatment would be the equivalent of putting a true saltwater fish into a brackish water tank with a salinity of 1.010 to 1.013. The advice also sounds as if it is generally ok to acclimate the infected fish directly into the low salinity water, however they state quite clearly that it is important to slowly raise the salinity back to normal levels to avoid shocking the fish. Their general guideline is this treatment being carried out over three to four weeks with the additional time that is needed to reacclimate the fish to normal salinities. In principle, the good thing is that Cryptocaryon irritans cannot survive at such a low salinity while a fish can and so this is the reasoning behind using this treatment. (http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/hyp...posalinity.htm)

I have also heard that some fish can be treated by using a 'freshwater dip' or 'medicated dip'. I know that a dip was most often recomended to me in the event that my puffer fish got ich, but you may have to check your spacific fish to see if this is an option.

I know that you probrably know this already, but it is worth mentioning again about the use of copper in saltwater tanks. From what I hear, copper can kill much more than its intended target (ich) and is EXTREMELY hard to get out of a tank. I have heard that the only way to get it out of a tank is to completely shut it down, drain it, and wash with myruic (sp?) acid or something similar to that. This is why a quarenteen tank is so highly regarded as a 'must have', especially with saltwater fish.

[Shawn D]

Thanks for the replies, but could i do a hyposalinity treatment in my display tank?

[Tommy Gun]

That About.com website did say that you can do the hyposalinity treatment in a display case. I would read that yourself but I believe you could be limited if you have sensitive corals/fish/other inverts that cannot handle such a low salinity for a relatively long period of time. Here is the link again:

http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/hyp...posalinity.htm

[Shawn D]

I just read the article about hyposalinity and seems like a very good choice, but would it kill my clean up crew, hermit crabs, sea hare, and snails?

[Jay]

Tom wrote:

I know that you probably know this already, but it is worth mentioning again about the use of copper in saltwater tanks. From what I hear, copper can kill much more than its intended target (ich) and is EXTREMELY hard to get out of a tank.

It's not getting it out of the tank it's getting it out of the fish

Copper Can and WILL kill. Copper is extremely toxic to fish, plants, critters, etc. in amounts above "trace". It is absorbed into the cellular structure, remains there, and kills when it accumulates to a high enough level.

Jay

[Tommy Gun]

Originally Posted by Jay

Tom wrote:



It's not getting it out of the tank it's getting it out of the fish

Copper Can and WILL kill. Copper is extremely toxic to fish, plants, critters, etc. in amounts above "trace". It is absorbed into the cellular structure, remains there, and kills when it accumulates to a high enough level.

Jay

This is what I meant about killing more than the intended target. The reason I brought up how hard it is to get out of a tank is because it will linger in a tank and, like you point out Jay, can accumulate in fish and inverts. In my opinion, if I was going to use a copper med, I would most likely get myself another 10 gallon quarenteen tank (apart from my 'usual' tank) for only copper med use. This way I wouldnt be limited to what I can quaranteen later on in life.

I am not 100% sure what effect a hyposalinity treatment would have on a clean up crew but I will research it out for you a bit more. I am interested in it as well because I have wanted to keep a hippo tang for quite a while and am leery to get one because of their Ich problems.

[Shawn D]

Thanks for the warnings about copper, I am planning to do a reef tank so i awill definitely not do copper