need help

[ldf99]

My tank is 220gl with total water over 300gl...I set the tank up in Dec..I never had a fish die on me not in the 3 years i have been into reefs.....I now lost 2 fish that have been with me for 1year or so......I would say the fish have ick.How do you treat fish in a reef tank for ick...My water quality is perfett and has been so ........The only new fish in the tank i took out and is now dead .............Is thair a way to stop ick from coming back...........i was told to use garlick as a food for fish but most foods have garlick in it ....Would the use of a UV held stop this from coming back ...........

 

[The Jester2]

The amount of garlic in some foods is minute at best. I feed my fish every other day with frozen food that I thaw with tank water and 3 or 4 drops of garlic extract. When I feed the water and food go into the tank. I have never had an Ick problem but have seen some signs once in a while. I then add garlic everytime I feed and in a day or so the Ick has disapated. The garlic in the water even in small amounts seems to help keep the Ick in control. Even the directions on the package tells you that can help. There is Ick and who knows what else in your tank all the time. In most cases a healthy fish will be able to ward off anything. IMO I would try the garlic cure and use it as a precation. It can't hurt. At least I have not heard anything negative about using it.

 

[witchdoctor]

The key thing to start with (which, I must say, it sounds like you skipped), is careful quarantine of your additions!

Treating ich in a reef can be tough. In my experience, garlic has helped(?) prevent ich, but not really treat it. Optimizing all of your parameters will certainly help the fish recover, but if they are dying, you may need to take more aggressive steps.

There are a couple of products for ich treatment that claim to be reef safe. I have had a(single) good experience with Kick-Ich. Didn't seem to do anything to the reef, and the ich did go away.

UV will probably help, but there are many who say that you shouldn't use UV in a reef. Personally, I think that short term use of UV while treating active infection is okay. I don't think you should use it long term(more than a week or two).

 

[bwoolfrey]

I've been using the garlic oil in minced garlic but now my whole house is smelling of garlic. What does everyone else use to avoid this?

 

[ldf99]

I am using sick ick .I dont want to lose any more fish . I will be more careful when adding new fish to the tank.I was thinking of adding a UV to the tank but i dont understand why having a UV on a reef could harm anything?

 

[witchdoctor]

Wouldn't specifically harm the reef, but it works by killing off bacteria and other microfauna that normally circulate. That's good when it kills free floating parasites, but may reduce the nutrition that the coral get when it kills off the other microfauna. The longer you use it, the more of the microfauna that get killed off. That's why I don't think it should be used long term. Admittedly, I know of some people with very nice reef tanks that use UV full time, so it's probably not that big a deal.

In some cases, if I've had a fish that was more ill, I've pulled it out of the main tank and put it in a hospital tank until it recovered. I don't like to do that, because I think that it adds to the stress on the fish's system, but if it is really sick, then you may have to.

 

[Cheetos]

The only sure way to cure ich is with copper! All the other remedies just help control it. So get the fish out of the reef tank and put them in another tank and treat them with copper sulfate for at least 2 weeks!

 

[NateHanson]

Hyposalinity is another sure kill for Ich, and is less likely to kill the fish than copper treatment.

Apparently UV isn't a big help for controlling Ich, because it's not often in a free-swimming phase.

What are your water parameters? What fish do you have in the tank? Addressing the root cause will help you prevent the fish from being in a weakened state, and succumbing to Ich.

 

[IffersTankSlave]

The only sure way to cure ich is with copper! All the other remedies just help control it. So get the fish out of the reef tank and put them in another tank and treat them with copper sulfate for at least 2 weeks!

I would say that is an inaccurate response. We have used Kick-Ich, and there are many other ways (garlic). We used the Kick-Ich once, and never had another occurence. However, if your fish get stressed for one reason or another, Ich can happen again...even after treating them with copper.