Fish have ick...

[elijones244]

Well today for the first time I noticed my two clowns and tang all have ick. They are currently in a 125g and I dont have a qt tank. How should I go about treating this?

[elijones244]

Just did a medicated FW dip on the clowns.

[Spar]

if you have the time to go purchase a QT system then that would be my vote. But if can't, then the best thing that has worked for me in the past is to soak the fish food/nori in Garlic Xtreme or a similar high garlic fish additive. This 'can' make the adult Ich parasites jump off the fish. Do some water changes over the next couple days as well (20% or so each). Better quality the water the less stressed the fish will be.

Do you have any cleaner shrimp? Well worth the investment if you don't have fish that will kill them in your tank.

Post how things go!

[elijones244]

Dont have the time right now, leaving to austin today for two days, bad timing... Im just going to hope it goes well... :(

[elijones244]

Is the chance of this episode being fatal pretty high? Or is ick not a HUGE deal? Newish to saltwater.

[Hook'em2006]

in my opinion, I dont think pulling the fish out and putting in to QT is a great idea. I think it would stress them more coming out of a 125G tank to a 30g or smaller. I had ich take out my entire 28g bio cube. In my 93g cube, my regal tang has come down with ich 2 times. Just make sure they continue to eat and they should be ok. Thats been my experience. If they aren't eating, you can pretty much assume they're goners. But as spar said, use some garlic additives in the food, this will help strengthen their immune systems, and help entice them to eat. Good luck, it can be stressful!

[Spar]

Putting into a copper system might be stressful, but moving them to a hypo system would likely keep them calmer. Stresses somewhat offset.

As to if Ich is a big deal or not, the severity of Ich varies substantially from case to case. Just depends on the fish at that moment on how stressed out it is. Also, greatly depends on how bad it scratches itself up scraping on rocks and the sandbed, etc. I personally never lost a fish to Ich in my pre-QT days. I had an Achilles Tang a while back that every time I added a new fish to the tank would break out awful with Ich, but somehow would always pull through. That said, I used Ozone, soaked food in garlic and had cleaner shrimp, so kept things in his favor.

[elijones244]

Thanks for the advice everyone, I can't give any updates as of now because I am in Austin since yesterday at noon and will be back until tomorrow night. Hoping for the best, expensive fish. I'll give an update when I get back.

[joelq]

Just curious - are these new fish? Or have they been established in your tank for awhile when the ich came from out of the blue?

[elijones244]

Just curious - are these new fish? Or have they been established in your tank for awhile when the ich came from out of the blue?

Got the clowns 2 months ago, the tang 2 weeks. But I just moved them to a new (well used but new to me) bigger tank.

[joelq]

Just curious - are these new fish? Or have they been established in your tank for awhile when the ich came from out of the blue?

Got the clowns 2 months ago, the tang 2 weeks. But I just moved them to a new (well used but new to me) bigger tank.

Gotcha - thanks for the info.

Keeping my fingers crossed that your fish recover completely! Good luck!

[elijones244]

Me too, thanks!

[elijones244]

Well returned home to find 1 clown dead. Other clown looks alright. Tang has less ick, but it looks like his fins have alittle rot. Dont have a hospital tank, if anyone wants to take him for awhile I would be willing to pay a little, going to let my system be coral only for 6-8 weeks. Let me know, Thanks :(