need your thoughts on my ich issue

[Apone]

Well, I have ich.

I have been treating with reef safe meds, Kent's RxP.
I have used this for about 2 weeks now, and my fish are not much better.

I would now like to swith gears and treat my tank using hyposalinity. I am not using a Q tank, just in tank, reef safe treatments. So, I would like to continue treating my display tank using hypo as well. A Q-tank would be best I know, but in order to get my wet/dry out of tank stand, I have to completely break down my display tank, which I would like to avoid.

So, back to my idea of treating ich using hyposalinity. As I said I use a wet/dry as my primary means of biological filtration. MY tank is essentially a FO, with a few pieces (about 9lbs.) of LR with some nice coraline. So unlike others, I dont have to worry about killing corals or other inverts with a hypo treatment.

My one question though is will the hyposalinity kill my corraline on my few pieces of LR? If so, I can do a reverse Q-tank, where I remove my LR to keep it out of the hypo treatment. If the lower salinity wont kill the corraline I will just opt to keep it in my tank.

ANy thouhgts you have for my plan would be appreciated!

 

[theLIQUIDzoo]

i have been using garlic.
one of my tanks has it.
it goes away and comes back, which can't be good.

i had been cutting up garlic into tiny pieces and mixing it with the food.
now i'm soaking pieces in with live food...not sure how effective that is.

no idea on your plan. i have a reef tank so i'm not using chemicals.

 

[dpnshnks]

Just a few qestions:1. what size tank do you have, 2. what fish are you keeping, and 3. what are your water parameters. Often Ich is in response to stressed out fish. When my hippo tang was tiny and being harassed by my GSM, he was constantly covered in ich. Now that he is bigger and not continually being stressed, he's a happy fish.

My guess is that the coraline algae wouldn't be hurt by the hyposalinity (and if it is, I'll scrape a few sheets off the side of my tank for you ) and your plan may work. Unfortunately, it's probably not treating the root of the problem.

Eric

 

[Apone]

Eric, my tank is a 90G. I am well stocked with a xanthurus angel (my avatar), a juv. Annualris, yellow tang, 2 damsels, 2 perc. clowns, and a gramma.

MY parameters are all fine..
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
NItrate - 2.5
SLight PO4 - .1
Alk is in the high range
pH is 8.4
Ca is about 320 ( I am trying to build this up to about 400)

My fish have lived fine together for awhile now and no signs of aggression. I just placed some LR into my tank right before my ich issue. SO I am thinking that the ich came in on the LR. At the same time I added a SEIO pump, which was mounted too close to the surface of the tank and was causing the pump to suck in large amonts of air. Each time this happened my fish would get spooked, even I jumped the first few times cause it was soo loud. I corrected this, but I think the stress the pump noise caused and not QTing the LR may have intorduced the ich. I agree with you that ich is normally a repsonse to stress in fish, but my water params are what they have been for the past few years, so all I can think of is the pump and LR.

From now on though, I am QTing everything I place into my tank, no matter how insignificant it may seem to be....I am just glad I have no corals/inverts so I can mess with the Na level in my display!

 

[APISTOBORELLI]

Going hypo in a FO tank should be easy. You may get some coralline die off but it will come back sooner or later. Just remember to drop and raise your salinity slowly. Once it's down to 1.009, you will need to leave it there for a few weeks. Then begin to raise it back up over the course of at least a week.

 

[MarkO]

Going hypo in a FO tank should be easy. You may get some coralline die off but it will come back sooner or later. Just remember to drop and raise your salinity slowly. Once it's down to 1.009, you will need to leave it there for a few weeks. Then begin to raise it back up over the course of at least a week.

I agree 100%. Go for the hypo and keep the tank at 1.009 for about 1 month, then over a week or so, gradually bring it back to norm. Don't worry much about the coraline. It will come back.

 

[bonzai888]

Everyone is right! Definitely coraling will not be an issue if you go hypo.
Another method you could try is UV.
Try to borrow one or even better invest in one.
Just try it you have nothing to loose!

 

[Apone]

as soon as I get a little free $$$ I will be getting a UV....thanks for the feedback all!

 

[JayM]

Been running UV for almost 2 weeks, Tang still has ich on it's fins. Water looks OK for pH, Ammmonia and nitrite/nitrates. Don't want to hurt the anemones and other inverts in the tank, so hypo / CU is not the answer. 100+lbs of live rock in the tank and refugium, lots of coraline too, so a reverse QT would need to be large. Anyone had any experience with the ich cure advertised at www.nosickfish.com ? Just curious, and open to other suggestions as well.

 

[NateHanson]

Others on here have pointed to articles that conclued that UV is not an effective way to control Ich. It can keep Ich from spreading from one tank to another through a shared sump or something, but it doesn't really reduce the effect on infected fish in a tank.

Do you do a lot of water changes? I'm suprised that your nitrates are 2.5 with a big wet-dry filter. That would make me a bit suspicious of your test kit. Since you're having a problem, it would probably be wise to get your water tested by a friend with different, high quality kits, or take it to the fish store.

What kind of kits are you using? In my experience the color variation (0, 2.5, 5, 10, 20 ppm for various shades of the same color) type kits are very inaccurate, and a titration type kit (where you drip in a reagent until you see a sudden color change, then calculate a result) is a necessity.

Hypo sounds like a perfect treatment since you're in a fish-only tank, but I'd do some more investigating to find the root of the problem.

Good luck,
Nate