ich treatment question

Alright,
I have been treating the tank and the fish for ich for the past three weeks or so and it has been going well. The fish look good in the hos tank, the main tank seems to be killing off the crap inside.

My question is thus: most people seperate fish from tank to kill off all ich parasites in the main. However: I use seawater to do my water changes.. which can possible reintroduce ich to my tank. (I have read ich is present in just about all seawater).

Am I spinning my tires leaving the fish in the hos tank or should I continue with it? I figure it'll kill off the major bloom of ich that hit my tank originally and the fish get cleaned up (they look great now)

thoughts?

 

I use natural saltwater aswell but never had ich in my tank? Well if you think its the source you might want to mix some water yourself to try and find if it is the NSW:-/

 

Hey chap!

It's not possible to totally eliminate all ich parasites. You would have to sterilize all your substrate, LR etc... I don't think you would like to do it!

However, it is possible to control the level of parasites in our tanks and bring it to the level that is found in healthy tank. This is achieved not only by medication, but more importantly by proper feeding (vit. C/garlic enhancers), reasonable application of water additives (not to introduce to much stress) and general proper water maintenance that keeps our fish/inverts immune to the parasitic infection.

Biologically speaking, if you detected ich infection:

1. the general conditions in your tank are bad. This affects your fish that can not generate popper immune response to the parasite that is normally present in their natural environment.

2. natural enemies of the ich parasite, that normally compete with it for the primary food source (I mean non-parasitic small protozoa) are not present or have been wiped out recently, moving your system out of microbiological balance.

I've red many articles about the ich, talked with some marine biologist and many of them consider ich as a stress related disorder!. In other words, most of them claim the cause of disease is stress and one of the symptoms is the parasitic infection!

 

Don't overlook other "natural" means of keeping ick and other parasites under control...

Cleaner Shrimp (Skunk, Blood/Fire)

Cleaner Wrasse (Not good choice except in very large tank - as will starve when no ick present - also a very aggressive cleaner.)

Neon Goby...gentle fish cleaner that will eat other foods besides parasite.

Others?? :-/

 

The puffer I had caught wild had the initial and worse case of it, He is no longer a part of the tank system
I have two skunk shrimp and a peppermint, as well as at least a dozen bumblebee snails and a handfull of other various snails. I have a sea cucumber now as well as hermit crabs galore (about 10 of them).

my fish include two blue damsels (One is going to be given to someone.. to aggressive) and also a Sgt Major (five banded damsel)
they all seem fine now.

 

ive got a neon goby that currently has ich (ironic?) but all the others dont, he cleans them all the time, but my params are on spot, 0 nitrate for two months! woot. but i believe that he hasnt gotten enough food in his puny mouth. if you want to get rid of Ich get one, but feed him very small pieces of food, otherwise hes bound to get it also.

 

Sounds like you need another neon goby...probably has a bit of a problem cleaning itself.

 

If you have any kind of crabs or shrimp, ich can host in them also.

 

I was told that it only can host in fish, which is why you remove the fish from a tank and treat them in a seperate hospital tank in order to protect the shrimp and rest of your tank from hyposalinity and copper based treatments?

 

A recent study by UM stated ich can host in almost any segmented crustacean, which would explain why some people say you can never get rid of it. If you have shrimp or crabs and remove your fish and treat your fish and do nothing to the shrimp and crabs, ich will host on them until something better comes along ie. you putting your fish back in the tank.