Untraditional ick treatment?

I purchased a well established 90 galling reef setup a couple months back which involved an hour drive/move. The move went fine the tank was setup using 100% of the original water. A month into the new location my blue hippo tang came down with a pretty nasty case of ick! I planned to catch all the fish to place them in a qt tank (to treat and allow the remaining ick in the reef tank to die off) but the tang looked much better in the morning. I did notice the blue tang making several visits to my lone cleaner shrimp who seeme to be helping him with the pests. Two days later the ick came back pretty strong and the shrimp looked to tired to clean anymore. I purchased two more shrimp to help out and have been treating everyones food with selco to boost their immune system. So far every morning the fish are almost completly clean but every night if you look hard enough you can find a couple specs. My question is should I give them time to fight the ick on thier own or treat them in the qt tank? I am trying to avoid a full tear down and causing more stress to the finicky tangs.

 

Welcome to 3 reef Daniel521

my opinion would be to allow them to build up immunity by continuing as your doing now
all the time the fish are healthy and eating well, your in with a great chance of them beating it.

stripping the tank down to get the fish out can make the situation worse (added stress) or due to stress and or parameter issues, cause the problem to affect fish that at this stage are not affected.


Steve

 

Cleaner shrimp and fish won't eat ich - it gets under the fish's skin, and the part we see is only a cyst. Cleaners will only eat parasites that are on the surface of the skin/scales/gills, not underneath.

Ich won't be cured with garlic or selcon. The only scientifically proven (just for anyone that's going to say "garlic!!!1!") ways to eliminate ich are hyposalinity, copper, and the "Transfer method", where you move the fish between two tanks, and clean the tank they're not in by bleaching, then fill with saltwater again. There's another, called "pray every single fish becomes 100% immune [optional: 'with the help of garlic/supplements/x/y/z'] and hope ich goes extinct in my tank", but that's a gamble.

 

Don't forget, if you use this method, you're not going to be able to safely add any more fish to the tank. They won't have the immunity your current fish do, and will be hit really hard during the next outbreak cycle.

 

I would say leave be as well. If you have good water quality and they are eating well enough, they will soon be ich free in no time. People always compare it to the common cold for humans and i believe thats quite an accurate representation. There is no point in going to the hospital, getting injections and taking all kinds of medication. The best cure is just rest in bed, or sofa, in front of tv with lots of comfort food. Soon your cold will be gone either way, as time is the best cure of all.

 

Thank you to everyone who responded so quickly. Waiting it out seems to be my gut feeling so it was comforting to hear a couple similar thoughts. I've already up'd my water changes to allow them to eat a little more than average. I'll be keeping a close eye on the group and cross my fingers.