Help I think I may have ICH!!!?

Question

Help I just recently had a bad outbreak of ICH in my 55 gallon salt water tank. It killed all my fish. So I did an ICH treatment and let the tank sit without any fish for a month. So I thought that the tank would be ready for a new comer. I picked up a little Fox Face rabbitfish and have had him for about a week and a half now. But yesterday I noticed 3 tiny white specks on him.

My question is: 1. Could the ICH be back? 2. Was I supposed to have changed the sand? 3. What to do?

Anyone who has had any experience with ICH please help...

also thought maybe it could be air bubbles on the Fox Face fish?

Answer 1

There is a possibility that they're simply air bubbles, but they wouldn't really look white...  Without a host, the parasite (C. irritans) will starve within a day.  I would guess you just keep buying sick fish that don't appear sick in the store, and then with the stress of traveling and acclimating, the parasite is allowed a foothold.  In a quarantine tank, start treating with copper or malachite green + formalin.  If you don't notice any change within a week, I would strongly recommend treatment with quinine sulfate, as there are several strains of the parasite strongly resistant to virtually everything but this.

Answer 2

theres ich cure tablets you can buy at walmart for like 4 bucks and they work great. drain your tank to about 4 inches of water and remove all the decor you have coral plants rocks ect. and wash them very well you can you use a little ammonia to help clean just rince very well! add the the tablets to the 4 inches of water and let them desolve them stir the subtrate making sure that all the sand is moved  so the chemicals in the tablets can do there thing. i'd recomend filling the tank with fresh water and then wait a week. that should help.

Answer 3

Here is the problem with marine ich called Cryptocarayon irritans. The problem is that no matter how long you let your tank sit, it's not the tank itself, you may or may not have any ich in the tank, but it appears. The reason for this is due to the fact that there is ich in the pet shop fish tanks. That is main reason why they recommend people to have quarantine tanks.

Majority of the time, people have live rocks, live corals, live anemones, feather dusters, and invertebrates in their tanks. If you have any of these, you should NOT treat fishes in this tank. You must remove ALL fishes from your display tank and move them into a cycled quarantine tank. The reason for this is, Hyposalinity and chemicals will kill the live rocks, anemones, live corals and invertebrates. They need a specific salinity to survive, otherwise, they'll die.

So once you have a quarantine tank set up, you put your fishes in the tank and start the treatment. I would recommend Hyposalinity at first. The reason for Hyposalinity is to reduce the stress on the fish. Mind you, you must treat the fish for at least 30 days. What hyposalinity does is, since it reduces stress, some marine ich cannot live in hyposalinity, so because of this, the marine ich that falls off, will eventually die. The reason to move it from the display tank is because Cryptocarayon irritans, needs hosts which are fish to survive, without them, they'll die. So due to the fact that your display tank has been emptied for a month, the percentage of ich being in there is slim. However, when you add fish or new fishes to the tank, you should quarantine those fishes in a different tank to monitor for marine ich.

However, whenever you buy fishes and bring them home, you must acclimate the fish with water from your display tank into the bag or a bucket. You should NEVER mix the water from the pet store tank to your display water, the only reason to do this is when acclimating the fish, do not acclimate it in your display tank. Besides, the pet shop tanks more than likely contains the ich. However, there are several types of diseases, and also, there are new strains of marine ich that is not sensitive to the treatments that I am going to explain below. You can also do freshwater dips, I mean for 2-5 minutes, however, if you see your fish stress in any way, please remove the fish from the freshwater dip in a bucket and place him inside your display tank. The theory for this is because freshwater is known to make marine ich explode and they'll die. However, it doesn't necessarily work, so there are options and methods that I am going to explain.

Here is a link, please read up on this new strain so that way, you'll know how to treat this new strain of ich. http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/ichpara...

One, you should treat the fishes in a Hyposalinity environment, by dropping the salinity down to 1.010 - 1.009 in 3 days, you do not want to drop the salinity significantly fast, you change the water and don't add water that has salt in, you take out a portion of the water, and add freshwater. This will help reduce the salinity of the water. Treat the fishes with Hyposalinity over a period of 30 days.

Second treatment option, for common marine ich strains, If Hyposalinity doesn't work, you should consider these as options, either Copper Sulfate, Formalin or Formaldehyde as chemical options. However, Just for a warning, these chemicals are very toxic to fishes and to you. You must use care and take proper precautions before using these chemicals. These chemicals will kill off live rocks, invertebrates and live corals. So please use care when using these chemicals. Treat for the amount of recommended amount of time on these labels.

Another way to treat these that are safer than the chemicals, you may want to consider using Garlic enriched foods. The reason and purpose for these foods is it helps boost their immune system to help and fight off this pesty parasite.

UV Sterilizer is also good to have. What this does is kill off the free floating parasites. However, it will not get all of it, it will not kill the ich on the fish, so you may have to use the proper precaution for using this item as well.

Diatom filter, Not only does this polish the water and lessen the hardness of the water, what this does is, it also helps removing free floating ich. So this equipment is not necessary but good to have.

People makes the mistake by assuming that an aquarium heater will kill off the marine ich. But this is not true. Heating the water will only speed up the life cycle of the marine ich, it will not kill the ich, so once the ich falls off of the fish, This would be the best time to use all but the Garlic flakes methods listed above.

So here's my summary, Ich doesn't come from your tank itself, it comes from the pet store, because the ich is present in their tanks, They recommend that you quarantine the fishes for at least 30 days before you place those fishes in your tank. Some people believe in this method, some people don't. It is very important that you take a look at the fishes that you intend to buy. You should be looking at their colors, the eyes, look for white spots the size of a grain of salt. Don't be afraid to ask the pet shop to feed the fish in front of you.

I believe that the best time to buy fishes is when they come in from delivery. The reason and my theory for this is because I want them to get acclimated to my tank instead of the pet shops infested tanks. However, I am warning you, you should have the experience and the knowledge of how to take care of a stressed out fish, otherwise, by doing what I do can also prove a fatal error.

Remember a trick is don't add too much fish in a fast time period. You will or might want to add fish slowly.

As for airbubbles, you may want to take a close look at the fish, sometimes, airbubbles look like marine ich, but it's not.

Anyways, diseases that you may want to watch out for is Marine Velvet, Clownfish disease, Marine Ich, and Black ich. You should conduct researches to find out ways to treat these diseases.

Anyways, I hope this helps, thanks for asking..................

Answer 4

you should have changed a very large percent of the water. and i suggest getting some copper safe treatment it is really good. and some aquarium salt to boost up the power of the coppersafe. but beware the salt will make your aquarium cloudy.

Answer 5

You can go to the pet store and get ich stuff. But you have to treat it really soon, cause ich is really deadly for fish.