Ich =/

[Lady Blast]

I've been treating my tank since Friday with Para-Guard. I have a fish and live rock only tank. I was raising a bannerfish and lost him to it, and now my clown has it. Should I just do a 50% water change and buy some copper treatment? I don't have a QT tank, I dont have the room right now until I move next summer, unless I try to hide it in the garage from my Dad ....lame? My fiance promises me a fish room or I am stealing the garage from him when we move next spring. Right now I have 4 chromis, 1 true percula clown and a fuzzy dwarf lionfish who spit out the fish I fed him last night. jerk. halp me plz im a saltwater nooblet This ich seems way harder to cure than freshwater ich.

 

[Lady Blast]

I should add, I bumped my temp to 80 last week, and I have a 6 gallon eclipse that I can setup somewhere ....I don't know where ....damn it if I didn't have 3 parrots, 2 rabbits and 2 male hamsters...oh wait...petco sold me a male and female and now I have 8 hamsters ....gahhhhh... Can't wait to move T_T and get some big tanks!!!!

 

[Kevin8888]

Ick has been done to death on this forum... I hate even looking at the threads but since no one is replying I figured I'd throw in my 2 cents none the less. First, what are your parms like? Generally Ich problems stem from issues with respect to water quality. Since you can't QT the only way to deal with is medicating. Period. Raising the temp will NOT help, (contrary to popular belief) and can in fact make it worse, it speeds up the lifecycle of ich (meaning more ich babies sooner) and can stress the fish, thus increasing the problem of the infestation.

 

[Kevin8888]

If you had the ability to set up a 50gal+ quarantine (min tank size for a dwarf lion) then I would say follow the instructions listed here http://www.chucksaddiction.com/ich.html, but since you have only a 6 gal available you cant really, as you'd have to quarantine all your fish in a 6 gal for 30ish days... not going to work...

 

[Orcajoe]

Marine ich, crypt, is not at all the same as fresh water. While this protozoan is harder to kill of its not impossible. The best way to avoid this is a minimum medicated quarantine of 30 days. However in cases like yours where it is not possible a ph corrected freshwater bath is the next best thing before adding new additions to your tank. Once crypt is introduced into a tank it is hard to get rid off. It is only visible during the reproductive stage, even with copper medication earlier stages of the protozoan can live up to about 72 days dormant on rocks and substrate. UV sterilizers can be used to control on outbreak however rarely cure a display tank complacently. Cleaner wrasses and shrimp can also help, however with a lion fish even a dwarf they will end up being snacks.