Ok, what gives.. what REALLY causes ick?

RyanR

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 28, 2007
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Alright, long story short, I work at a LFS, I picked out all the fish i wanted for my tank, ordered some in, ect.. they all sat in a small display tank at my work for FIVE weeks, all eating, and colors were just great, one of my tanks was finally ready, so i bring home a couple fish (a week ago, one false clown, two days ago, a pair of black clowns) all ate in my tank, got along, and established there own territories, the blacks together, and the orange alone.. last night i noticed very few white spots on the orange clown.. tonight theres more, and the blacks have a very few... They were healthy for so long.. what exactly caused this outbreak? There are inverts in the tank...Boss said try soaking the food in Garlic, will this actually help anything, or whats the best approach here? I refuse to loose my black clowns, took me MONTHS to hunt down even two.. and i wanted alot more, if i have to ill skip out on inverts and use copper, but i would rather avoid that, i like my cleaner shrimp!

Any info will be great,
thank you

RyanR
 

Reefscape

All Gr8KarmaSF's fault....
MFK Member
Apr 2, 2007
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Ich is a parasite which predominantly effects fish when stressed and thus makes its appearance. Its been documented that fish can actually carry the Ich parasite and not actually show the physical signs (white spots). So, to that end, sometimes you really cannot tell sometimes that a fish does actually have it. Its only under stressfull circumstances that the ich will actually start to show..

It does sound like Ich is starting to show up on your clowns, and i would suggest removal into QT and treat with hyposalinity as per my article found here..

A general guide to Hyposalinity

Feeding garlic is not going to stop ich or even fix Ich. All garlic does for a fish is to bolster the fish's immune system. Once infection is there, its not going to help that much, beside help the fish to fight the parasite..Sort of like shutting the stable door "after" the horse has run off...
 

RyanR

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 28, 2007
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Canada
Honestly, If this is the case im taking the copper route, I do not have the time, or patience to deal with it that way, I will give the inverts the boot, This actually makes me quite mad that, you can watch fish for so many weeks, only to have everything blow up in your face.. what the hell is the point of QT, if once there out of QT... what your trying to avoid happens anyways?

Once im done work tonight, ill begin copper treatment.
And if that doesn't work.. I will step out of the SW hobby already,
If its this much work, to maintain a FOWLR tank, I won't even bother setting up a bigger reef tank, :S
 

RyanR

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 28, 2007
318
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Canada
Well, I just have one question quickly then, will copper KILL Ick? I have a nice display 55 i was going to use for a Discuss display tank, BUT.. if copper can actually KILL ick, then i will get rid of the inverts, for now.. dose the tank with copper, and in a month or two when im ready to set up the 55, I will do so. The only thing i need to know, Is if i dose this tank with Copper, I can't use Any of the filtration or live rock for my 55? What about the heater? I just went out bought new Heaters (stealths) and Filters, and powerheads, does this mean i can't use them on the next tank?

Any info, let me know.. Thanks again

RyanR
 

sweeTang21

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 10, 2007
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to be on the safe side, yes its best advised to get all new hardware.

What reefscape was saying is that through transit the fish picked up the ich at some time. When they arrive at your store and they ate great and what not, they still had the parasite but were not stressed to the point were the parasite is going to show. After transit from the store into completely different water, this close to last move for them is just too much. Finally the ich starts to show. When it does then you have to take action. Read that article closly and you will understand that sometimes a disease is just hard to avoid, but taking corrective actions quickly is the way to go.

On that note, i would suggest the hypo treatment. You can use the display tank there in now, to avoid further stress, Just get rid of the inverts. IE corals, shrimps, stars etc.... Hypo will kill of the bacteria after time. It kills it in its hatching cycle i believe, thus once the parasite on the fish, drops off and it will run out its livecycle. There will be nothing of the parasite left in the tank. Its the same idea with a QT tank. Letting the parasite lay in the QT and die in the QT will prevent 100% transfer to the DT. Not a guarantee but its better then getting it for sure.

I would hate to see you jump out of the SW hobby all together. When times get tough we as fellow hobbiest we band together to get you the best results. Give it some time, and please have some patience. You will see that in a few weeks things may turn around for the better.
 

RyanR

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 28, 2007
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See the problem is, I only brought home a few of the fish so far.. there are still 8 more at work, im going to be bringing.. so now they all have the parasite.. so i will have to treat these ones to rid them of it, and then i will have to set up a QT tank, and have a bunch of fish in it for two months!? I assumed since i had space available to me at the store that i could watch them for anything bad and make sure they were eating there, guess i was wrong. I figured having them there for five weeks, would be enough to make sure they were healthy, which they all seemed, and now i get hit with this.. and now im going to have to spend even more money to set up ANOTHER small SW tank, I was hoping to get the bigger tanks running soon.. I guess that won't happen.
 

sweeTang21

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 10, 2007
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it does not sound impossible. If you leave the fish at work longer, if you can, and work on getting the tanks going and cycled. This is an easy task really. Setting up a QT tank should only cost you about 50 bucks. Not really cheap but better then 100 lol. They dont need to be fancy. The tank at the store should be ran without any other tanks on the same filtration system if possible. This will deff. not help your case. If you can isolate the tank from main filtration and filter in other means then this will allow you to run the tank in hypo treatment which will effectivley kill the parasite before the move, which will also cut the chances of getting the parasite again.
 

RyanR

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 28, 2007
318
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Canada
Well, if im to use an isolated tank.. why wouldn't i just use the copper treatment, all these fish were in the same tank at one point, so we can be pretty sure they all have it.. so why not isolate them, use copper to KILL the ick, and treat my current fish with copper, and then when i set up the bigger display tank in the living room, i will have nothing but CLEAN fish (all the fish going into the big tank, are already at my hands..)
 

RyanR

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 28, 2007
318
1
0
Canada
Alright, Its getting worse, I don't know how to do hyposalinity, So, I Refuse to risk it.. Even more so since black clowns are so hard to get up here, if i screw this up.. I screw up 8 months of searching.. Id rather loose out on inverts, then my black clowns..
So i am going to dose the main tank with copper, And they will be moving to the bigger display tank around the end of June, This should give me enough time too completely get rid of the ick, and have fat healthy fish...

my only concern is, with the new tank comes new filters and everything, BUT.. in the current tank, there are two VERY nice pieces of live rock... Will the copper kill the good green Algae? and if i only run the copper as long as needed, will the live rock have time to cleanse itself of any copper residue before they move to the display tank, where i wish to have inverts,


Ill sum this up quick i guess,
If i use copper, Will it kill the live rock, if not.. Can i use the live rock in the display tank still? If not.. then no inverts for me and its fish only tank
 

Reefscape

All Gr8KarmaSF's fault....
MFK Member
Apr 2, 2007
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Quick and simple answer, yes, copper will have a large negative effect on the live rock, and i would never use it again...Why not buy a rubber maid, fill it with saltwater, heater and powerhead and keep the rock seperate from the treatment? its what i would do....

Its a hard thing to say, but patience is the key with anything to do with marine keeping....
 
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