Ich without treatment

[Mark Gray]

I am on the Ick management side. Purple Tangs in my experience are tough fish. I bought a purple tang from a pets smart that was dieing covered in ick didn't have a place for him but I got him for 15 dollars. Put him in my tank, I started him out with live black worms, he loved them. He made it through his ick problem. I did re-home him about 2 years later due to him being a well trained new fish assassin. Hope it goes well good luck

 

[Rich Klein]

So here we go again. Even after being super careful and following all quarantaine protocols, I just noticed ich on my purple tang in the display tank.

I'm so done with this. I finally have corals in my tank so I can't do hypo or copper treatment. There is no chance of getting the fish out for quarantine without completely tanking out the rock work. Not going to do that.

What are the odds if I just leave everything in there and don't treat the fish? Will it be a death sentence to all?

Just feed them well and manage your water and the ich should go away. My tank is 9 YO and I had ich with my 1st tang and rabbit fish. The ich went away and hasn’t come back. Those original fish and all others are still alive and swimming.

 

[ErikVR]

Thanks all for your advice, insights and experiences.

Some people probably won't agree but after apparently failing I'll resort to management instead of eradication.
If I look back at everything I've done to prevent this, I feel like it's impossible for me to fully eradicate it. Obviously I must have made mistakes somewhere at some point. But if being as diligent as I have been isn't enough then it's not feasible for me. Maybe I will give it another try in the future with a new tank.

That doesn't mean I won't go through the quarantine steps anymore. I'll still do the same things as before but I will not be tearing down the rockwork to catch and treat the existing fish. It's too much.

 

[ryshark]

Thanks all for your advice, insights and experiences.

Some people probably won't agree but after apparently failing I'll resort to management instead of eradication.
If I look back at everything I've done to prevent this, I feel like it's impossible for me to fully eradicate it. Obviously I must have made mistakes somewhere at some point. But if being as diligent as I have been isn't enough then it's not feasible for me. Maybe I will give it another try in the future with a new tank.

That doesn't mean I won't go through the quarantine steps anymore. I'll still do the same things as before but I will not be tearing down the rockwork to catch and treat the existing fish. It's too much.

Good decision. I think Polyplab Medic helps to lower the levels of ich and then keeping the fish well fed and in proper living conditions will help to keep it from coming back.

 

[ErikVR]

Good decision. I think Polyplab Medic helps to lower the levels of ich and then keeping the fish well fed and in proper living conditions will help to keep it from coming back.

Is that a solution you apply when there is ich visible? Or is it a permanent (preventative) additive?
If it's permanent, it's dang pricy

 

[blecki]

Lots of people touting UV as a cure-all but it can't possibly have that kind of impact. Most of the ick drops off the fish at night and lands right in it's hiding spot; hatches from that same spot and the fish is right there - how much do you think is actually going through the UV? But - I'm not going to turn mine off either.

Anyway I'm at a similar point. Nothing known to be in the tank but if something got in I'd have no way to treat everyone. I'm QTing prequarantined fish now...

 

[Jeremy_d]

I have UV on all of my tanks, I’ve also successfully used Polylab medic and peroxide treatments…

through it all, I’d pull my fish and hit em with copper if at all possible

Edit add: not sure if wrasses or cleaner shrimp are of any help for ich

I have yet to luck out with my fish actually allowing my shrimp to clean them. He will get close to them and they will swim away. Halfway feel bad for him he just wants to work

 

[BionicReef73]

So here we go again. Even after being super careful and following all quarantaine protocols, I just noticed ich on my purple tang in the display tank.

I'm so done with this. I finally have corals in my tank so I can't do hypo or copper treatment. There is no chance of getting the fish out for quarantine without completely tanking out the rock work. Not going to do that.

What are the odds if I just leave everything in there and don't treat the fish? Will it be a death sentence to all?

I have had to deal with this myself on a number of occasions. So I feel your pain! What I have done and have had great success with is started soaking with garlic guard, then introducing a cleaner shrimp and a cleaner wrasse. Since this my blue powder tang has just recently gotten a tiny outbreak. The cleaner wrasse and shrimp have managed to clear him up in short work. He now goes for cleaner visits to the shrimp now. He seems to enjoy the attentionthe shrimp gives him. The only time he misses his appointment is when the shrimp is molting, the the wrasse gets the obvious ones. Hope this helps in your battle. At this point aĺ we can do, is ich management.

 

[BionicReef73]

I have UV on all of my tanks, I’ve also successfully used Polylab medic and peroxide treatments…

through it all, I’d pull my fish and hit em with copper if at all possible

Edit add: not sure if wrasses or cleaner shrimp are of any help for ich

I would say yes, along with the uv I have a cleaner wrasse and shrimp. They have kept my tang clean since the tang had a heavy case of ich a couple years ago and between the two I have yet to see a bad outbreak since

 

[MnFish1]

Also, fish get immunity to ich and velvet - diseases with off-fish life cycle. If they can fight it off, they can start a cycle of being immune to not being affected.

I am not going to treat some wrasses and butterflies with copper and I will not doing 78 day fallow for inverts or corals, so it makes no sense to treat my fish unless they need it. If this is where your tank is at, then QT just to get them eating, acclimated and ready to fight is about all that you can do. I do this in what I call introduction tanks since I do not want to confuse the term QT since I don't medicate.

My systems are very mature and have a wide variety of microfauna that would love to make a meal out of an ich tomont when they drop into the surface somewhere. In the olden days, people used to say to wait 6-12 months to get a hard fish mostly for this reason - tanks were started with live rock which just needed time to spread the microfauna so that disease tomonts had to fight for their lives. A pack of real live rock could do as much as anything for a new tank to help fight diseases.

You are correct, many people do not QT and do not have problems. Vice versa, many people that quarantine do not have problems. I would estimate - having read 100's of these types of posts that its more likely to have fish deaths/disease without QT than with QT.

Your situation is different. You have a mature tank, with an established population, and I'm guessing you're not doing what a lot of people who have problems are doing which is adding new coral and fish to a tank at a regular basis. For new tanks IMHO, a lot of success of 'ich management' depends on stocking density as well as the source and treatment of the fish.

However, I don't understand 'I don't treat my fish unless they need it'. It would seem that they should never need treatment? I'm just wondering what criteria you use for treatment and a guesstimate as to what percentage survive?

 

[MnFish1]

Keep your fish well fed, as said before almost every tank has ich. A given strain of ich will die off after about 100 generations, this equates to around 4 years. Until then keep your fish fat and happy and they should persevere. My tank had it but I’ve not seen any signs of it for years.

Actually, the data suggests that after 10 generations give or take, a strain can die off as the fish in the tank get immunity. However, flukes, and velvet may be different stories. @ErikVR the question you asked was 'what is the likelihood that you can get away with careful treatment'? My answer would be probably somewhere around 50 percent - with an increased risk for any new fish you might add. If you elect to do this, I would not add new fish, etc for some time.

 

[MnFish1]

I would say yes, along with the uv I have a cleaner wrasse and shrimp. They have kept my tang clean since the tang had a heavy case of ich a couple years ago and between the two I have yet to see a bad outbreak since

I think most of the data suggests that cleaner wrasses do not have any effect on the survivability of Ich, etc. The UV, may very well be helping.

 

[dricc]

I have to say I've never had a good outcome with ick with the exception of damsels without the intervention Im about to explain. Paul b and his methods I would say are the best way to go but if you don't want to go this route I chose to use lrs frozen food and rods Frozen food along with selcon soaked nyos pellet foods. I soaked the foods ( dried foods) and fed the fish two or three times a day with it and within one week all signs of ick disappeared. I had a coral beauty develope ick and several months later a purple tank develope ick. In both fish the ick disappeared at about the one week mark.

 

[MnFish1]

Is that a solution you apply when there is ich visible? Or is it a permanent (preventative) additive?
If it's permanent, it's dang pricy

There is some anecdotal evidence that it can help prevent, but not cure an active infection. I would just follow your plan - avoiding chemicals for now, If you want to try a product there are numbers of supposedly reef-safe products you can use to try in tank treatment - however there is also a rationale as to why they do not work/help.

 

[MnFish1]

@EricVR. I agree with your plan to observe carefully, if fish start dying or showing symptoms I would then figure out a way to treat them. Ich is a common disease in the wild - there are studies showing up to 60-70 percent of fish on the reef (in the Vietnam study) showing Ich with various seasonal differences. Since 60-70 percent of fish are not dying on the reef every year (as far as we know) the idea that ich is somewhat less virulent at least in the wild seems to be true, in a closed system - i.e. a tank, populations can rise significantly to the point that no matter what you do a tank can be wiped out. PS there ARE studies showing fish dying in mass die offs in the wild from Cryptocaryon, however they are less common. I would be extremely careful if you're planning to add tank raised fish to your system.

Good luck - and keep us updated!!!!

 

[dricc]

I have to say I've never had a good outcome with ick with the exception of damsels without the intervention Im about to explain. Paul b and his methods I would say are the best way to go but if you don't want to go this route I chose to use lrs frozen food and rods Frozen food along with selcon soaked nyos pellet foods. I soaked the foods ( dried foods) and fed the fish two or three times a day with it and within one week all signs of ick disappeared. I had a coral beauty develope ick and several months later a purple tank develope ick. In both fish the ick disappeared at about the one week mark.

 

[dricc]

The nyos isn't important just a way to deliver the selcon any decent dry food would work imo

 

[ryshark]

Is that a solution you apply when there is ich visible? Or is it a permanent (preventative) additive?
If it's permanent, it's dang pricy

When visible or before adding a new fish. And you only use it for like 10-consecutive days. It helps. Not permanent. If I remember correctly, it helps by killing them when they are in the water column, so it lowers the levels and does help with active infection.

 

[threebuoys]

A good thing is that many of the fish we purchase from reputable sources probably are not carriers of disease in the first place. When someone successfully adds a new fish to their tank without medicated QT, the likelihood is that the fish was not a carrier of the parasite in the first place. The tank doesn't have the ability to immediately to transfer some magical immunity to each fish added.

What are the odds any individual fish is a carrier? Way too many variables to be able to make a reasonable guess. Could be 0% if the LFS or Mail Order Vendor follows very rigid protocols or 100% if the fish was visibly infected when purchased.

Over the past several years I have purchased a number of fish from several different Mail Order Vendors. I have followed the medicated protocol recommended on this forum. Over that period, I have not had a case of either ich or velvet. Fish that expired while in quarantine died from obvious starvation or bullying. Fish that survived were successfully moved to the display tank.

Does that mean my QT process eliminated ich and velvet? I have no way of knowing, since the fish may not have been infected in the first place. Likewise, every fish I acquired may have been a carrier and the protocols vetted on this website did what was intended.

If I had placed the fish directly into the DT, and later determined the fish had parasites and "needed treatment", I would have faced a nightmare. To take care of the infected fish, to take care of the established tank population that had been exposed, and to keep my tank fallow without harm to my coral would have been a true headache with no guarantee for success.

Like everyone, I want to get new fish into the DT as quickly as possible. For me, the risk of failure and the repercussions does not justify shortcuts. Everyone has to decide for themselves what risk factor is acceptable.

 

[Paul B]

, ich management is an option. I recently posted my thoughts on that here:

Jay, I can't believe I actually agree with you on this. See, we do agree on some things.

How would ich tell if a fish is stressed?

Ich can't tell much as their brain is pretty small. I can't read their mind or even know if they have a mind but I do know, and so do your fish, that stressed fish are susceptible to "everything". Stress is the biggest killer of not only fish, but also us.

Stress lowers a fishes immunity enormously. I don't want to get into it now because of all the arguments but I have written on it extensively on forums and in my book.

I may be totally wrong about everything but my tank is going on 53 years old and none of my fish were ever quarantined or medicated not even the 32 year olds.

All I will say is this is a very easy hobby but we insist on making it difficult and feeding the right foods is far different that what most people think. It's not what the food is made out of, it's the living bacteria in the food that controls almost 100% the fishes immunity. Medication, no matter what it is or how much it costs is counter productive as far as disease is concerned because they are all poisons and poison causes stress.

Have a great day and I hope all your fish live disease forever.