# Help: Ick in my 55 Gallon



## Frank1971 (Aug 23, 2010)

Okay, I got hit with ick, already lost two fish and have set up a QT. I took all my live rock out of my DT and got my fish in the QT. However, as I went back to clean up the mess after working for hours and getting that rock out, and then putting it back in my DT tank, presto my little 6 line Wrasse managed to stow away in the display tank, I completely missed him. Question, do I have to take my entire tank apart again just to fish him out? He doesn't have any signs of ick, but I don't want the problem to persist. Do I need to get him out and in the QT to make sure i have completely rid of the ick in my DT?

Any thoughts would help.

Thanks


----------



## NeonShark666 (Dec 13, 2010)

I would leave the Wrasse alone. The trama of capturing him may worse tham the disease itself. Keep his environmental conditions stable and he will probably survive fine. Myself I would never tear down a Saltwater tank to get rid of ICH. This disease is always present and usually becomes visible when a fish's resistence is low.


----------



## Frank1971 (Aug 23, 2010)

NeonShark666 said:


> I would leave the Wrasse alone. The trama of capturing him may worse tham the disease itself. Keep his environmental conditions stable and he will probably survive fine. Myself I would never tear down a Saltwater tank to get rid of ICH. This disease is always present and usually becomes visible when a fish's resistence is low.


What do you do when your tank gets hit with ick?


----------



## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

I'd leave em alone also. No sense scaring the crap outta him again. Healthy fish will beat Ich. If you have no corals in teh DT, I would have suggested Hypo Salinity. Dropping your Salinity to 1.009, this pops the parasite, it can't stand the pressure variance. You now need to leave the fish in QT for at least 6 weeks, to weed out the parasite that is now in the sand.
Marine Ich/Cryptocaryon irritans - A Discussion of this Parasite and the Treatment Options Available, Part I by Steven Pro - Reefkeeping.com


----------



## Frank1971 (Aug 23, 2010)

Reefing Madness said:


> I'd leave em alone also. No sense scaring the crap outta him again. Healthy fish will beat Ich. If you have no corals in teh DT, I would have suggested Hypo Salinity. Dropping your Salinity to 1.009, this pops the parasite, it can't stand the pressure variance. You now need to leave the fish in QT for at least 6 weeks, to weed out the parasite that is now in the sand.
> Marine Ich/Cryptocaryon irritans - A Discussion of this Parasite and the Treatment Options Available, Part I by Steven Pro - Reefkeeping.com


Thanks Reefing. Now that I have removed all my fish except for the Wrasse, will the ick persist in the DT as long as I have a fish in there. In other words, am I healing my entire stock of fish, only to have the ick waiting in the DT because I didnt get that last fish?


----------



## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

Frank1971 said:


> Thanks Reefing. Now that I have removed all my fish except for the Wrasse, will the ick persist in the DT as long as I have a fish in there. In other words, am I healing my entire stock of fish, only to have the ick waiting in the DT because I didnt get that last fish?


Simple answer, yes it could. Its got to have a host in order to survive, a fish host. But, if that fish host is healthy, it can ward off the parasite. Just because you have 1 or 2 fish that got it, does not mean the rest of the fish will get it. The weakest fish will succumb first. And I say this truthfully, I have a Hippo in my DT that has it right now, and I am going to do nothing about it. As long as he keeps eating, and not going crazy on everything, I'm not going to stress him out. He has had it before, and likely will get it again, darn fish is just prone to it. But I have a tank full of Tangs, and i'll lay money, no one else gets it.


----------



## Frank1971 (Aug 23, 2010)

Reefing Madness said:


> Simple answer, yes it could. Its got to have a host in order to survive, a fish host. But, if that fish host is healthy, it can ward off the parasite. Just because you have 1 or 2 fish that got it, does not mean the rest of the fish will get it. The weakest fish will succumb first. And I say this truthfully, I have a Hippo in my DT that has it right now, and I am going to do nothing about it. As long as he keeps eating, and not going crazy on everything, I'm not going to stress him out. He has had it before, and likely will get it again, darn fish is just prone to it. But I have a tank full of Tangs, and i'll lay money, no one else gets it.


Thanks again. I feel like im making all kinds of mistakes. My lfs guy suggested qt tank. But now im looking at all my fish in the qt thank and they do not look good. There color is distorted and they are breathing heavy. Any advice? I already lost my bicolor dottyback this afternoon, and I dont want to lose anymore. Its been the day from hell.


----------



## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

Frank1971 said:


> Thanks again. I feel like im making all kinds of mistakes. My lfs guy suggested qt tank. But now im looking at all my fish in the qt thank and they do not look good. There color is distorted and they are breathing heavy. Any advice? I already lost my bicolor dottyback this afternoon, and I dont want to lose anymore. Its been the day from hell.


What size is your QT? And are there lights running? Do they have anything to hide in? Skimmer or just water changes for the QT? Has it cycled? What treatment are you using? Dont get me wrong, the majority would have told you to QT them, i'm just not that hot on QT's. you have to catch a fish, then stress teh crap outta them by putting them into a smaller tank, I just don' t like that idea is all. I've lost a few fish by the method I use, but not alot.


----------



## Frank1971 (Aug 23, 2010)

Reefing Madness said:


> What size is your QT? And are there lights running? Do they have anything to hide in? Skimmer or just water changes for the QT? Has it cycled? What treatment are you using? Dont get me wrong, the majority would have told you to QT them, i'm just not that hot on QT's. you have to catch a fish, then stress teh crap outta them by putting them into a smaller tank, I just don' t like that idea is all. I've lost a few fish by the method I use, but not alot.


Reefing, I have a disaster on my hands. More fish are dying. It's a 29 gallon QT thank, no skimmer, Rid Ick as the treatment, I've done water changes today, but they look horrible. No it has not cycled. Yes they have a place to hide.

Actually, i did use some cycled water and tested the parameters, 0 Ammonia .25 Nitrite.


----------



## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

Frank1971 said:


> Reefing, I have a disaster on my hands. More fish are dying. It's a 29 gallon QT thank, no skimmer, Rid Ick as the treatment, I've done water changes today, but they look horrible. No it has not cycled. Yes they have a place to hide.
> 
> Actually, i did use some cycled water and tested the parameters, 0 Ammonia .25 Nitrite.


I'd get them back in to the DT. Water from a DT does not carry enough bacteria to cycle a new tank. You may lose the fish because of the QT cycling on them. Are there any corals in your DT? If there is not, do no use any meds yet. Drop your salinity down to 1.009 in the DT. Just take out water and put in RO water to get it down. Leave the lights off, no need to spook the fish any more. If you do not want to go that route, take some of your rock or sand out of the DT and put that in the QT, this has the bacteria that will help the tank out. The O2 levels in there might be bad also, got a bubbler? Whats your flow in there also?


----------



## Frank1971 (Aug 23, 2010)

Reefing Madness said:


> I'd get them back in to the DT. Water from a DT does not carry enough bacteria to cycle a new tank. You may lose the fish because of the QT cycling on them. Are there any corals in your DT? If there is not, do no use any meds yet. Drop your salinity down to 1.009 in the DT. Just take out water and put in RO water to get it down. Leave the lights off, no need to spook the fish any more. If you do not want to go that route, take some of your rock or sand out of the DT and put that in the QT, this has the bacteria that will help the tank out. The O2 levels in there might be bad also, got a bubbler? Whats your flow in there also?


Thanks again Reefing. I got my fish out of the QT and back into the DT, and both my Flame Back Angel and my Coral Beauty Angel came back from the dead, and and the rest of my fish are doing just fine. But, I got to tell you, they were in really bad shape, after I put them back in the DT I turned off the lights and thought for sure they were goners. They both had turned white and breathing heavy on their sides. Woke up this morning and they had all their color back and for the most part had their normal personalities back. My Yellow Tang looks great as well, and my Chromis and Damsels held steady throughout. Thanks again for your help, things got really hairy last night. BAD, BAD, BAD rookie mistake on my part, going to do some more research on Hyposalinty and take it from there... thanks again!


----------



## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

WHEW!!! Nice going!!!

*W


----------



## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

Marine Ich/Cryptocaryon irritans - A Discussion of this Parasite and the Treatment Options Available, Part I by Steven Pro - Reefkeeping.com

Treatment Option 4 - Hyposalinity:

Low salinity has been demonstrated to be an effective treatment against Cryptocaryon irritans (Noga, 2000). A salt level of 16 ppt or approximately 1.009-1.010 specific gravity at 78-80*F for 14 days was reported to kill the parasite. I have never experienced problems when placing fish into a hyposalinity treatment, but have routinely witnessed fish showing obvious signs of distress when brought back to normal salinity levels too quickly. For that reason, I try to limit the specific gravity increase 0.001-0.002 points per day.

One of the alleged benefits of this treatment is the resulting conservation of energy for the affected fish. Reef fish have to constantly drink saltwater and excrete the salt to maintain the proper osmotic balance. Lowering the salinity of the surrounding environment eases this energy demand on the sick fish, thereby allowing them to expend more energy towards fighting the infection (Kollman, 1998 and Bartelme, 2001). On the contrary, keeping fish in low salinity means that they don't "flush" their kidneys sufficiently. After long-term exposure, this can cause kidney failure and kill the fish (Shimek, pers. comm..)

The drawbacks to this treatment are the same as for many of the treatment options discussed above. Invertebrates and certain fish will not be able to tolerate it, so you should not apply a hyposalinity treatment in a display tank. Sharks and rays are two fish groups that do not tolerate this procedure. I would also not recommend this approach in the presence of live rock or live sand. The hyposalinity treatment will likely kill the worms, crustaceans, mollusks, and other life in and on the substrate, causing a severe drop in overall water quality. 

I have another word of caution when using this treatment. I would strongly suggest the use of a refractometer or perhaps a salinity monitor. Swing arm style box hydrometers are notoriously inaccurate. The glass, floating style hydrometers are better, but easily broken. An accurate measure of the salinity could mean the difference between being inside the effective treatment range or being too high and ineffective or too low and jeopardizing your fish.

Even given its few drawbacks, hyposalinity is a great method of curing infected fish of ich in a proper hospital tank. Of the treatment options discussed this far, in my opinion, it is by far the safest. While none of these options is appropriate for use in a display tank, and all have their drawbacks, weighing the pros and cons of each leads me to recommend hyposalinity above the others.


----------



## Amazz (Dec 4, 2011)

*Freshwater dip method +*

I'm quite the beginner. However, I would like to share my newbie ich experience in hopes that it can help another fish lover. We have a 55 gallon tank at school. We had a locally caught Florida lionfish and grey trigger. They loved each other. I noticed strange behavior with the trigger.....rubbing it's body in the sand. Then the weekend came and the tanks were unattended for a long three day weekend. Well, ich set in, quickly, and BADLY. The trigger was dead. So sad. The lionfish was awful looking, lethargic, and eyes COMPLETELY cloudy. I thought he was a goner. Local fish place said screw the meds. Give that fish a freshwater dip. Leave in freshwater until it starts to barely list to one side. Then drop into a QT. I did it. It broke my heart. After dropping into the QT I thought we were going to lose him. But he sprang back. Much to my surprise, over the next couple of days, his eyes unclouded. I love this fish. This may not be the norm. These invasive lionfish can live through just about anything. We were desperate. He was dying. The freshwater dip seemed cruel. But he's now thriving. We medicated his tank while he was in the other QT.


----------



## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

*Re: Freshwater dip method +*



Amazz said:


> I'm quite the beginner. However, I would like to share my newbie ich experience in hopes that it can help another fish lover. We have a 55 gallon tank at school. We had a locally caught Florida lionfish and grey trigger. They loved each other. I noticed strange behavior with the trigger.....rubbing it's body in the sand. Then the weekend came and the tanks were unattended for a long three day weekend. Well, ich set in, quickly, and BADLY. The trigger was dead. So sad. The lionfish was awful looking, lethargic, and eyes COMPLETELY cloudy. I thought he was a goner. Local fish place said screw the meds. Give that fish a freshwater dip. Leave in freshwater until it starts to barely list to one side. Then drop into a QT. I did it. It broke my heart. After dropping into the QT I thought we were going to lose him. But he sprang back. Much to my surprise, over the next couple of days, his eyes unclouded. I love this fish. This may not be the norm. These invasive lionfish can live through just about anything. We were desperate. He was dying. The freshwater dip seemed cruel. But he's now thriving. We medicated his tank while he was in the other QT.


The less stressful way, and its almost the same thing, is the Hyposalinity I mentioned above. Except the fish can survive in that environment, whereas Marine Ich cannot. Freshwater dip is dangerous because you are stressing out an already stressed to the max fish. Luckily in your case it worked.


----------

