Ick in my aquarium

So after seeing it happen to so many others, it has finally happened to me, I have ick in my and my singapore angel along with my yellow tang are now showing it very obviously.. i turned up the water temperature, it was always constant at 26 but now i turned it up to 28.5.. i believe that will help with the ick cycle.. i also prepared some garlic guard food to feed to the fish for the next 1-2 weeks.. other than this, is there anything else i can be doing? no i'm not going to do a quarantine tank nor will i dose the tank, i want to find a natural way to put these fish back into perfect health.. fish are still moving very healthy and still eating, no scrapping against rocks yet

i have a pair of occelaris clowns which don't have the spots appearing (assuming they are more healthy)
1 watchman goby, showing no signs either
1 twinspot goby, showing no signs
1 green clown goby showing no signs
1 lawnmore blenny showing no signs

i have 2 cleaner shrimps that cleans fish when introduce new fish to the tank, so i assume they will probably do a minimal job helping or trying ot clean ick off the fish as well..

would a neon goby or a six-line wrasse do a little bit here? or what are some natural ways to make ick disappear in your display tank? anything lighting would do?

water parameters
ph 8.6
ammonia 0
nitrate 0
nitrite 0
calcium 460
phosphate 0

thanks in advance guys, love this site!;D

 

6 line wrasses have been said to eat parasites but they typically eat "larger" isopods if anything and I would not put faith in them to help w/ an outbreak of any kind. Neon gobis or cleaner shrimp/wrasse can help but if the out break is bad enough it would erradicate it only minimalize it.
I agree w/ the warming of the water but that is mostly effective if you are planning on treating the tank w/ some type of medicine, and the food thing, I would feed the fish heavily in a balanced diet, many people think that feeding copious amounts of brine shrimp is a GOOD diet. The downside of the heavy feeding is of course, subpar water quality, which at this point more than ever needs to be the best as possible.
I would try to bring the O2 levels to full saturation is possible and remain diligent on the W/C.
There are a few things you can do to treat the tank "naturally". There are a few HERBAL medications out there, such as Ich Attack by Kordon, it works well, at least the first time you use it. Unfortunately if it is a reoccuring problem the "medication" will get progressively less effective as the ick becomes "immune" to the herbal blend.
Stop Parasite by Chem Marin is also pretty effective but needs to be refrigerated and can lower the pH is the tank is not adequetly buffered-which I have rarely if even seen in a marine tank. Lastly Kick Ich works very well as well and that is made by Fish Vet I believe, I have had probably the best results w/ that product.
If you want to skip the med route entirely I would feed the fish heavily-at least 3 times a day, make sure the tang is eating as much algae as possible and same for the Singapore. Then I would do the old flush the tank technique. By that I mean do, very, very frequent semi large W/Cs to "flush" the ich and its cysts out of the water. Many hatcheries and wholesalers will use this technique. I don't believe you mentioned the size of the tank but I would do if you can 10% a day if not more for at least a week, more being the better route. Like I said this will keep the water quality stellar as you over feed and flush out the parasites and distrupt there reproductive cycle.

Good luck
Joe

 

Not sure if you have a reef tank or not but if you do you probably don't want to use the ich medications because they contain copper and will kill your corals. I have a fish that used to get ich all the time because he almost died and was very stressed. I have a reef tank and could not use medications. I am too lazy to do the Celsius conversion so I will say in Fahrenheit my tank was normally about 78, after a lot of research I found I didn't have many choices since I had a reef tank but to increase the water temp. I raised the water temp to 82-84, the ich fell off the fish over night. I then lowered the temp again, the ich came back, then I left the temp at 82-84 for a couple weeks and since then it has not come back. The parasites will fall off and live in the substrate therefore my fish kept getting it back. I believe that since my fish was stressed he kept getting it and leaving the temp high for a couple weeks gave the fish a chance to de-stress, therefore his immune system is capable of fighting it off now. Just remember, ich (Cryptocaryon) is found in all marine environments, so it's always going to be there, keep you fish happy and stress free and you should be fine.

 

Hello "m", since you want to try something all natural I will suggest 2 products. Marine-Max by Tropical Science and Stress coat by API. The problem with Tangs (especially) is they have a very thin slime coat and this makes them susceptible to ick outbreaks. The stress coat has Aloe and helps get their slime coat to replenish making it more difficult for the ick to stay attached. Marine-Max is probiotic bacteria with ant-oxidants and vitamins to build their immune system to ward off ick and other diseases. I use both and the science is behind them.

 

Sorry again unclejed, but again I have to disagree. Stress coat is NOT a viable ich preventative or medicine. Yes tangs have "drier" slime coats, just like butterflies and most angels, stress coat will NOT add to the slime coat. Stress coat contains aloe vera which causes the fish to expell the current coat and produce another coat. It does not add to the existing coat or make it "slimier". If you want to produce a "synthetic" slime coat you will need to use a conditioner w/ PVP, polyvinylpyrolliones, which will "coat" the fish. There has been some anecdotal reports of people that give the fish a freshwater bath WITH Stress Coat the irritation caused the fish to expell the coat and some of the bore in parasites.
If you are relying on stress coat as an effective remedy, good luck!!

Good luck
Joe

 

Frag, read the post more carefully. I said stress coat "replenishes" the slime coat. Here is an excerpt from their site;Purpose and Benefits:
"Stress Coat forms a synthetic slime coating on the skin of fish, replacing the natural secretion of slime that is lost during netting, handling, shipping, fighting and other forms of stress. Stress Coat is a patented water conditioner suitable for fresh and salt water aquariums, water gardens and ponds. Stress Coat contains Aloe Vera, which acts as a liquid bandage, to protect and heal damaged fish tissue. Stress Coat instantly removes chlorine and heavy metals such as copper and zinc from tap water. Stress Coat also removes chloramines by breaking the chlorine-ammonia bond".
If you don't like the product (don't know why) don't use it but don't knock it. I've used it for years with great success. Oh, by the way, what was your suggestion? You can disagree with something but offer some valuable idea to "M". He said he wanted "natural" means and you offered only "chemical" remedies. Water changes? You can't get the cysts out of the substrate with water changes. Nice to see you found this forum and we can debate but since you never tried what I suggested you really can not comment.

 

Unclejed, if you like we can finish this in a PM if you would like to "debate". What I am saying is yes, you had/have luck with Stress Coat, but it is not a medication, if you were to contact Mars Aquaria they would not imply in any way their product is used to "cure" any outbreak. Yes, it can help "replenish" the slime coat as you say, but it flushes the existing coat off. Unclejed if it worked for you, great, but it could've been something else you were doing as well. Maybe you feed well or kept the water quality stellar. If we believe everything manufactors say about their products then we would all go out and buy the zero water change devices and whatever other Popeil infomercial type products out there.
I DID mention "natural" ways that could be used. The flushing will work, I've done it here at the store, also how would stress coat get the cysts off the substrate? I mentioned a few medications that are HERBAL REEF SAFE medications. If aloe vera is safe and natural why isn't echinacea or other healing herbs? Why don't you ask a wholesaler, breeder, importer and so on about the flushing technique, it is viable. The medications are also viable and reef safe. I don't mean to attack unclejed, but apparently our styles differ, I like to go on tried and true but also something that can and was proven as compared to anecdotal type info like the stress coat. I also mentioned heavy, healthy feeding in conjunction w/ W/C to keep the fish healthy letting them fight it themselves which is THE MOST NATURAL way there is.

Good luck