ich advice needed

[electricblue]

i purchase an ocellaris clown just tuesday night that seemed to be healthy, however another clown in the same fish tank had ich. Now my clown appears to have ich around its tail. another clown i purchased that same night seems to be ich free so far. any suggestions as to what i should do now is greatly appreciated. Both clowns are currently in a small 7 gallon nano reef with 2 sexy shrimp so i know copper meds should be avoided.

[Darbex]

My answer is nothing. There isnt anything that you can do that will guarantee survival. You will hear many ideas that have worked for some people and not others. A couple of them are hypo treatment, copper, ich attack, heat, and so on. I have tried heat and ich attack and neither worked I ended up losing 90% of my livestock. Now I am on the all natural plan of doing nothing. If the fish is eating and is healthy then they will fight off the ich. Trying to catch a sick fish and then putting them into a QT tank can and will stress them out even more, IMO. Ich is like Staph for humans its always there but unless our immune systems are depressed it never harms us. Try to find what the cause of his stress because that is the single largest cause of ich is because something is stressing it out causing its immune system to be depressed such as fights between fish, poor water quality, or always jumping at the tank to scare them. Since I started the no treatment natural way I have lost 0 fish to ich out of a dozen or so fish.

[Darbex]

Plus many of the treatments are designed for fish only because they can be detrimental to corals and in my system my corals are far more important to me than my fish because they cost a hell of a lot more than the fish.

[alexrex20]

100% agree with Darbex. I don't fight ich. I just let it run its course. If the fish is eating and otherwise healthy, it will probably fight it off on its own.

Your tank is small enough that you could easily catch the sick fish and put it in a separate tank for medications, but even then I think it would be too stressful for a clown.

I will say that when my purple tang came down with a bad case of ich, I dropped in a few pieces of fresh garlic. The purple tang ate two pieces and the (visible) ich was completely gone the next day. By two pieces I mean pinhead size.

[alexrex20]

I've tried Ich Attack as well and it did nothing but drive my skimmer crazy for a week.

[patbran003]

I had a hippies tang that had ich pretty bad and I took some water from the tank and a clove of garlic and put it in an old blender and blended it until there was no pieces bigger than a pinhead and then poured the mixture into my tank and all the fish went crazy and swam through it and ate what they could. As alexrex20 was saying, the next day there was no signs of ich and have yet to see it again.

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[patbran003]

Hippo tang. Dang auto correct. Lol

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[CRUSHER]

would upping the salt level and temp work?

[Darbex]

LOL. I saw hippies I didnt even notice it at first then I was like wait what. Does that fish smoke pot too? Anyways back on subject.

@ Crusher - No you need to do a hypo treatment (lower sg). Like I said I dont do it because its a pain because you cant do it rapid it has to be over time and most corals dont like it so you have to do it in QT to be safe. I am to lazy to wast slowly lowering sg levels for something that may not work. There is no guarantee it will work so I personally feel I am just as likely to save the fish without doing anything as I am to do a treatment and I save myself time with my son.

[mnemenoi]

Definitely some great info on this page!!! We have been tossing around the idea of a small SW nano and its these posts that are treasures of tried and true advice. I can only say that garlic is very effective on our FW fish for boosting immune system and overall health. We mix a small amount of that crushed garlic into the fishes food and feed regularly and see very few issues.

[alexrex20]

My cleaner shrimp is pretty good at cleaning off ich from any fish that's willing to get cleaned.

[electricblue]

THANKS for the great responses. I guess my clown didn't have ich (maybe some white debris in the tank got stuck on him) or he was healthy enough to bounce back from that ich attack. he's been real active and looking healthy since i got him and both of them have been eating. regardless i'll try a bit of garlic just to stay on the safe side.

[myjohnson]

Fish is totally overrated in a reef tank.

[Darbex]

People only say that when they dont know how to keep fish. My reef will punk the same reef with no fish. You need them to make it look nice.

But I agree with Alex cleaner shrimp are a must IMO. They set-up service stations for the fish to come by and get a cleaning. All my tangs and anthias swim by for a quick cleaning everyday. I probably need more cleaners because the fish fight over them sometimes.

[alexrex20]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdm9q_ILCqk

I can't figure out how to embed.