Ich (Cryptocaryon Irritans) Treatment

[kl3377]

I have been battling ich off and on for a while now and have finally set up a 6 gallon QT. I have put my three fish in the QT tank and am going to use hyposalinity for the fish. I thought I found this info here once before but I can't seem to find it again. How long should I leave the fish out of my reef tank after the hyposalinity treatment? My goal is too get the level of ich in my reef tank as low as possible and QT any further fish for a few weeks, my situation isn't the best for a second tank but it beats going through this #$%^& again. What about purchases of corals, anenomes and other non-fish? Will ich come in on these types of things? if so what is the best way to handle these types of purchases? Thanks.

[DaveK]

We have had quite a few good threads on Ich (Cryptocaryon Irritans) Treatment in the last couple of months. I have merged them all here, and made the thread sticky. Hopefully everyone will read this first for information, and only post if there is some additional question. With a few similar sticky threads, I hope we can provide information to everyone, without having to repeat the same advice multiple times.

[klc317]

As you may have read before, a blue hippo tang that we got came down with ich and I lost it and a clownfish in the process. I managed to save one clown which is still in a q-tank after being treated with a copper based solution and all signs of ich are gone on him. Suprisingly, the lemonpeel angel which remained in the infected tank never showed any signs of the ich along with a 6-line wrasse and a watchman goby which also appear symptom free. I would like to have put the lemonpeel in the Q-tank but trying to catch him would have been nearly impossible and he may have died due to the stress of having to take apart the whole aquarium anyway. Now, it's my understanding that the ich parasites will die without a host after several weeks so I'm not sure what my next step should be. The cured clown is pretty happy and stress free in it's own Q-tank so I can leave him there as long as need be but I'll need to eventually return it to it's original home. I have enough to keep me busy with a 24G Nano, a 75G, and now a 15G quarantine tank. Like I said none of the other fish in the infected tank show any sign of ich symptoms so I'm thinking I should let things ride for a week or two more and see what happens but I could use some suggestions. Thanks! If you need a time reference, the tang came down with ich 3 weeks ago, died about 1 1/2 weeks ago (along with the clown) and the surviving clown has been in quarantine for about 8 days.

[DaveK]

This is a tough call. In a reef system many fish often seem immune to the disease. Yet, because fish are in the system the disease is often still present.

In any case, you need to continue treatment for about 7 to 14 more days. Sometimes the disease has a very long life cycle.

After that time, about all you can do is reintroduce the clown and see what happens. If nothing happens, then all is well. If the fish gets reinfected, you'll need to move all your fish to the QT tank, and treat them for 14 - 21 days.

[klc317]

Ok, I'll leave the clown in his QT tank for a couple more weeks and keep an eye on him. Like I said he seems comfortable in there and acts and eats just like he normally did. Hopefully everything will turn out for the better regarding the other fish because all 3 or them will be very hard to capture if I would have to especially the 6-line wrasse. I guess if it comes down to the wire, it would be worth risking their death to catch and save them then face sure death from ich.

[DaveK]

Yea, to get the fish out of the reef, you sometimes have to remove all the LR. It's sure a pain to do, but sometimes you can trap the fish rather than remove everything. If you are careful you shouldn't hurt or damage the fish.

[jlouv]

A word about ich you may or may not know....it's actually a parasite...and while it's affects may not be visible in your display tank for the moment being you removed the involved fish, I promise you that it's still there in your display tank. Your "healthy" fish are currently hosting it and as long as you have fish in the tank, so too will you have the ich.

That's not to say that any fish you put in the tank will die. That's not the case. However, any fish you put in the tank that is stressed or unhealthy will have a better than good chance of subcumbing to the parasite.

Ideally, to rid a tank of ich, you have to remove it's host <fish> for a time greater than the life cycle of the parasite. In this case, a completely fish-less tank for about 7 weeks. <ich's life cycle is about 6 weeks>....

Truth be told, I cannot believe that any tank that has fish is ever completely free of ich. Any fish can be a host, but so long as it's healthy and stress free, there should never be a problem. Health can be ensured by proper feeding habits and a varied diet complete with vitamins and such....Stress is limited by ensuring the proper habitat is available to the fish...a large enough tank, hiding places, rock ledges or caves, ensuring a peaceful co-existance with the other inhabitants of the tank etc....

I've been following your threads, and you done good. Treating the affected fish in a seperate tank is the right thing to do. Now give it a few weeks to build it's strength up before you put it in the display again.

In the future, I'd hang on to that hospital tank....now that you know your display has the ich parasite, use the hospital tank to house any new fish to ensure that they are eating and appear healthy before you add them to the display. You'll save some more critters in the future that way. Additionally, to take it a step futher, ensure that any fish you purchase are happy & healthy in the LFS before you even bring it home!! Although, with the q-tank, you could try a rescue every now and then.....

[NUGIO]

one thing ive done is put the juice from minced garlic that you get in the grocery store in thier food. ive no ich since ive started doing this.and it helps new fish to feed

[klc317]

I've tried Garlic Extreme and it didn't do much but it hasn't been very long, maybe two weeks. I've started regularly soaking the food in it. The fish seem to like the taste though. I also regularly soak the food I serve in Vita-Chem or Zoe so there should always be ample vitamins for the fish. I alternate between flake and frozen varieties of Formula 1, 2, and Pygmy Angel formula and give some seaweed on the days that I don't feed food. And yes whenever this is all over I will definately hang on to the QT tank. I won't keep it running of course but I could have it up and stabilized in several days before I plan to buy any new fish from now on. I've often read that ich is in every tank that has fish (like Jlouv said above) but why does it spread so rapidly once a fish gets infected hard with it? Does it just make such a population boom of the parasite that others can get visibly infected also? I just can't figure how my laid back clown fish who never appears stress in the least would get it before my skittish and shy Lemonpeel angel who would at least to my eyes appear to be more stressed.

[DaveK]

I have merged the "Ich seems to be solved, now what?" thread with our main thread on this topic. This keeps all the good information in one place.