Ich.... Help!

i have noticed that my powder blue tang and my hippo tang had ich about two weeks ago. started feeding the tank with garlic soaked food for a couple of days and the ich went away.
3 days ago i noticed that the ich are back and is affecting the same fishes again. i have performed 30% water change and raised the temp to 83 to help them fight the ich and started feeding with garlic soaked food. i have ran out for ideas on how to help them.
i have not added any new livestock except for the cheato and red mangroove i purchased from reefcleaners.org.
anyways any help in fighting the ich will be appreciated.
this is a 135g fish only tank with inverts so copper is not an option. any other medication i can use? i cannot isolate the fishes for i have a big tank with at least 200lbs of live rock and i have to remove everything from the tank to catch them. by the way the fishes doesn't seem to be stressed for they are eating fine and swimming just fine. water parameters are all 0 except for nitrates which is 20.
any help please! thank you in advance

 

Ive had good luck with Ich-Attack by Kordon... Some says it works, some say it does... I would like to think that garlic soaked foods + vitamins on top of that and keeping up with water quality would be the major success attributed to that vs the Kordon, But Ill let it have its glory.

 

I have also had good luck with ich-attack as mentioned above. Good luck and I hope your fish make it through

 

you need to do the following.

1. seperate the inverts to another tank. this will be their temp holding tank for the next few weeks.
2. you will need to then tak your salinity to 1.009. you must use a refractometer to do this. the hygrometers will not work acurate enough.

from everything I have read, this is the ONLY way to truly cure ICH.

Garlic will not help. it is marginal for apetite stimulant at best. the only 100% cures for ICH are Hyposalinty or Copper. If you ever want to put corals in a tank, dont use copper. http://web.archive.org/web/20080514060735/reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/sp/index.php

I am currently doing this. so long as your fish is eating you shoudl be ok. Drop the salinity over several hours and your fish will adjust, but hte parasite that causes ICH will not. you have to leave it this way for 4-6 weeks to kill the ich on the fish, that in the water and teh eggs that will hatch over the next 4 weeks. if you dont, you will get it back.

I am doing this in my DT now. it is a 180 with 150 sump. I have no inverts at this time. I have a Large Sohal who had it and a naso who showed a few signs. the Sohal was itching badly and had a good ammt of white spots. he had them maybe 2 days before I went and bit the bullet and dropped the salinity. that was Thursday. today the spots are aabout 95% gone and he rarely scratches and acts much calmer. also eating very well. I only tried the garlic briefly before I read the article mentioned above.

this is my current thread on RC about my fish.
Ich - Reef Central Online Community

read teh articles I did in there and you will learn a TON about the treatment.

Best of Luck. I know it sounds very drastic, but if you dont get it killed, it can haunt you for a long time on each new addition and if you have a little disaster.

Oh I saw you raised teh temp. while that will speed up the life cycle of the parasite, it can also lower the dissolved oxygen in the water. when you are done with the salinity, raise it slowly. I plan on taking at least a week to raise mine. you can do down fairly fast. I did mine in about 3 hours.

This post is my opinion as I am facing the same situation at this time.

 

i would love to this method and get rid of the parasite once and for all but time is not on my side. plus i have tons of CUC. i probably put in cuc for a 200g tank in there.
i would try my luck at the Ich-Attack medication. is this medication safe for inverts? thanks

 

Ive used it with corals and inverts.

Another option would be to do Lower Salinity Baths on the fish, I did this when My achilles got it bad back in december. I Took about 2 gallons of tank water, and put 2 gallons of FW in it. Made the PH match and temp. and let the fish sit in there for bout 3-10 Minutes Depending on the fishes reaction to it. Its only a temp fix to releave the fish of some parasites, But didnt scare it to much.

 

the bath will kill what is on the fish, but not in the water. sadly the parasite will likely get right back on them. I do wish you luck on the meds. some work, some dont. yes, it is a long treatment....

best of luck.. I feel your pain. there was no way I could have caught the Sohal.

 

so basically it's like a freshwater dip. correct?

 

The best luck I have had fighting ich is garlic soaked foods and selcon. All the other methods just seemed to cause more stress and make it worse. So far both my tangs have been doing great for about a year.

 

I agree with Pickupman66.

Here's a quote of mine from last week to someone else who had a similar problem. Just reverse main tank and QT tank as you are not taking the fish out of the main tank:

"Minimum 4 weeks in qt tank. If you wait 4-6 weeks before putting any fish back in the main tank, the parasites will die off naturally. That is as long as there aren't any fish in the main tank. No need to raise the temperature or anything else being done to the main tank if it's devoid of fish as the parasites can not survive without fish to feast on. Inverts and corals are immune to them.

Fish in qt tank should be immediately placed in same temperature and ph saltwater that has a specific gravity of 1.010 to 1.013. The closer to 1.010 the better as this will literally explode the parasites. Keep fish in this hyposalinity tank for 4 weeks. After that, begin slowly raising the salinity of the qt tank back up to the same as the main tank. Raise by no more than .002 per day, so it should take 7-14 days to get it back up to roughly 1.024 (or whatever your main tank specific gravity is). Feed the fish food with garlic added to it and really would be great to feed mostly spirulina based foods. Spirulina has the innate quality of seriously boosting all fish's immune systems, so it should be fed on a regular basis. Don't believe me, google it and see what info you find on it. It's amazing. On top of all that, I would think about getting yourself some Formalin and following the instructions. It's one of the best medications for ich and other parasites. If the fish are reasonably healthy right now (not on death's door), they should survive if you follow those directions."