Please help!! ICH is on the attack.

[AJ]

Hey everyone,
  I have read through many threads about ich, but I am still shy of fully understanding. We have recently added a Blue Hippo Tang and are now seeing ich on 3 of our fish (Blue Hippo included). I have read so many different things on what TO do and what NOT to do. We have been treating DT with extreme garlic, along with soaking food in garlic extreme, in hopes of helping the fish fight it off. I am reading that I need to take all of our fish out to QT and treat with garlic and then do water changes. I understand that this topic probably occurs often, but if anyone has a little time to help me out with some feedback that would be awesome.
Thanks, Danielle

75g reef
150lbs LR
4 Green Chromis
1 coral beauty
1 Yellow Tang
1 Blue Hippo
1 Bangai Cardinal
1 Lawn Mower Blenny
2 Ocelaris Clowns
1 cleaner Shrimp
Snails and Hermys

[Travis8896]

What I did when I was in your situation is I pulled all the fish out and treated them in hypo salinity they stayed in the hypo state for 4 weeks after the sign of ich was present. Then you must leave the dt tank fishes for a period of 9-12 weeks to be 99% sure of getting rid of the ich.

[Wall_Tank]

You will need to pull every fish out of your display tank.   Any fish left in the tank, while it may not show signs of ich, will be a carrier.  The tank will need to be fish free for 6-8 weeks......minimum.

The Fish will need to go in a QT setup.....If they are currently fairly healthy, hyposalinity treatment has been the best method for me.   There are some hypo threads in this section of the forum

[AJ]

Thanks for the response.  We do not currently have a QT and are not sure what size would be do-able for the amount of fish we have.  We have "of course" learned the hard way of not QTing fish prior to adding to DT.  Someone suggested you could just use a rubbermaid tub (if so how big?), and also we could get our hands on a 29gl tank, but not sure if that would be too small during the process. 

Also, during this quarantine process, what is needed? Heater, filter, Power head, rock for hiding?

P.S. When saying that ALL fish should be removed does that also mean the invertebrates and cleaner shrimp?

[Viggen]

I just posted on your other thread

ich does not use inverts (snails, shrimp etc) as hosts so they can remain in the tank but like stated ALL fish MUST be removed

QT would need heater, pumps etc to keep the water moving.   I do not think a 29g would be a good size for QT however that partially depends on the size of your fish.  Hep tangs can and will outgrow your 75g and the Lawnmower Blenny can also get quite large with a huge attitude.  My blenny who is probably 4in long now.... chases everything in my tank (except my 10-12in Queen Angel) and leaves bite marks on the fish..... tank is 10ft long & hase several fiash over 7in long. 

Thus I would setup a 55G tank as a min..... I posted in your other thread that you are more then welcome to use on of my rubbermaid tubs for QT.  It will easily hold the fish over for a few months....  I held most of my fish in there this past summer

Larger the QT the better..... I used two of these tubs

[AJ]

Well we decided to get a QT from one of the members here on the forums.  He had a 50 gallon for sale.  Now we have to find some accessories to go with the tank.

[550jim]

I keep mostly tangs so have had ich a couple times. The garlic does not do any think much more than promote them to keep eating while sick. Ich goes thru stages the only stage you can do much with is when it is off the fish in the sand reproducing. This tends to be where the fish sleep since in a tank they cant roam and sleep in differant places on the reef. Do your water changes from the bottom of the tank where the fish sleep and do them more often than usual. Try not to do much moving around the tank to startle or stress the fish. Get cleaner shrimp and or cleaner wrasse will assist in keeping parasites down as will uv light. Try not to have an open door or any thing that could change your water temps. Its my thought that ich is always there as in the fish you bought maybe the bag of water on the way home dropped temp or just the stress of the being caught and being moved into a tank with all new fish. Turning the lights down some could help also to reduce some of their stress while sick. Tangs are grazers and need to eat often and in your tank will graze on live rock between meals. Hard to simulate in quarenteen tank. If you want to move a fish to a separate tank I would only move the new fish and keep up water changes and garlic on the fish you have always had and not stress them with a move. When adding a tang put the fish in a tank where it can see and be seen by the fish in display and keep it there till they pay no attention to each other, may be several days. Good luck

[AJ]

Thanks everyone

[Bucknutz]

I've battled ICH before and had success with hypo treatment. I've never used copper before but remember it will ruin the tank and anything in it.