Ich

[mattfish123]

I just got a flame angelfish roughly a week ago and this morning I noticed about 6-7 white dots on his side and tail fins. From what I've researched, I'm assuming this is marine ich.

 

What steps should I take to help the fish overcome it? I'm assuming it's very early as this is the first day I've noticed it and there aren't too many spots. Unfortunately, I don't have a quarantine so taking him out isn't an option. The tank has corals, invertebrates, and other fish so whatever treatment I do has to be safe for them as well.

 

I know I should quarantine, but as of right now, I don't have the room available.

[ihatesears18]

pic? if it is ich, you could try feeding it with food enriched with garlic. Your best option (once again, if it is indeed ich) is to quarantine and treat with copper

[mattfish123]

Here are the pictures. They're terrible because the fish is way too fast to capture a good picture of it. Especially trying to focus on small white dots. These pictures do not show much of anything. I tried to circle a couple of the white dots. There are about 4-5 total on the tail fin and 1-2 on each side fine. They all look like what I circled, albeit you can see them much more clearly.

 

 

 

pic? if it is ich, you could try feeding it with food enriched with garlic. Your best option (once again, if it is indeed ich) is to quarantine and treat with copper

 

Unfortnately, quarantining is not an option. I can just buy garlic from the grocery store and dip food in that? Such as frozen mysis, or something?

[ihatesears18]

it's really hard to tell from that picture. I know how frustrating it can be to try to photograph highly active fish.

[SWEETLOU]

it looks minor. if you feed mysis shrimp just soak it in some garlic additive from the LFS. if you feed other stuff just put the garlic additive on it too

[ihatesears18]

a quarantine tank does not have to be large or expensive to set up. you don't need a light, rock, sand or anything else fancy. a simple 10 gallon tank with a small HOB filter plus a heater is all you need.

[cheryl jordan]

Lymphocytosis, a self limiting disease that eventually goes away and is viral. Not known treatment, but making sure the fish gets adequate nutrition, maybe supplement with garlic.

[mattfish123]

Here is a much better picture. This is almost exactly what I see if I'm close to the glass, albeit more blurry.

 

 

Lymphocyctosis, a self limiting disease that eventually goes away and is viral. Not known treatment, but making sure the fish gets adequate nutrition, maybe supplement with garlic.

 

Alright, well if it's this, then that's definitely good that it won't spread. I'll pick up some garlic tomorrow and add it to the food.

[cheryl jordan]

Besides the spots, your fish has good color and looks otherwise healthy. If it was marine ich your fish would be exhibiting other signs by now ie: not eating, gasping and decreased coloring with white spots or batchs on the main body. The white spots seem to be limited to the fins, judging by the pics. I would research lymphocytosis and see if you agree. Including garlic in the fishes diet is not going to hurt.

[mattfish123]

Okay, I just crushed up some garlic and let it soak in salt water for 10 minutes or so. Strained it and added the juice to a cube of mysis and let it sit for another 10 minutes. Fed that to the fish.

 

Should I feed this method daily until the Ich is gone?

[cheryl jordan]

Okay, I just crushed up some garlic and let it soak in salt water for 10 minutes or so. Strained it and added the juice to a cube of mysis and let it sit for another 10 minutes. Fed that to the fish.

 

Should I feed this method daily until the Ich is gone?

Lymphocytosis and marine ich are two different diseases. Marine ich ( Cryptocaryon ) is a parasite and requires treatment. Feeding your fish garlic will help with both, but ich should really be treated quickly. Lymphocytosis may take some time to go away, weeks or days.

[Arkayology]

You would know if it was Lymphocytosis, trust me. I wouldn't worry about the spots unless the start to grow or spread.

[mattfish123]

I tried researching Lymphocytosis and I really couldn't find many pictures on it to compare. Oh well, right now I suppose I'll chalk it up to a very mild case of ich. I'll feed garlic mysis daily and see what happens from there.

 

If the spots do grow and spread, what other action should I take? Like I said above a QT isn't an option due to space...

[Asureef]

I tried researching Lymphocytosis and I really couldn't find many pictures on it to compare. Oh well, right now I suppose I'll chalk it up to a very mild case of ich. I'll feed garlic mysis daily and see what happens from there.

 

If the spots do grow and spread, what other action should I take? Like I said above a QT isn't an option due to space...

 

 

I had two clowns that fought off the ich. Now my new baby tang has the ich and it spread to three other fishes. I've been using garlic to supplement their diet for the past two to three days, spots are going away. Tang was the worst, as he had the most spots, but he's still very active and eating regularly. Unless your fish heath's start to deteriorate, I would not bother with QT.

[mattfish123]

Seems to be getting worse... There's about 5 larger spots each side fin and 8-9 small-medium spots on the tail fin.

 

Maybe it's time to try something like Kick-Ich, that's reef safe.

[ajmckay]

IMO it looks like ich to me. Being that it's a new fish makes me even more confident. Angelfish more often than not come in with some nasty stuff. A good quarantine period is IMO a necessity with these fish.

 

Kick-ich (& similar cures) gets mixed reviews. Some people say it cures their fish, but does it really? I think most people can agree that copper treatments (which the flame angel is more sensitive to copper than other fish) or hypo salinity are the only surefire ways of getting rid of crypto. One thing you have to keep in mind is that parasites have a life cycle. You are only seeing the parasites in their visible stage. Just because you don't see white specks in a few days doesn't mean that the fish is cured and ich is no longer a problem. There could still be parasites swimming, or they could be in the gills or other tissues of the fish hidden from your view.

 

You have to make a choice at this junction. You should either QT the fish asap and start treatment, or if you are going to keep it in the tank, in addition to the garlic supplementation, you should try to the greatest extent possible to reduce any and all sources of stress in the tank. If the fish is going to overcome the infestation then it needs the right environment to do it. Plenty of food, lots of hiding places, and safety from any overly boisterous tank mates. Keep in mind though that now you have the parasite in your display and if you stress your fish out too much or add a new fish it's possible that this could come back.

 

Good luck!

[geewiz]

if its ich

 

hyposalinity or....

 

daily water changes. this is the safest method imo.

 

stay away from the copper.

 

oh and this statement

 

"Keep in mind though that now you have the parasite in your display and if you stress your fish out too much or add a new fish it's possible that this could come back."

 

if it is ich, this would only be true for a while. if you remove all the fish from the "infected" tank, the ich will die out in about two months due to a lack of hosts. and even if you tried to keep ich alive in your tank by repeatedly offering it a new host well, for some reason the ich will naturally die out in.... i think it was six life cycles???

 

btw i agree with the dude, for now its in the tank so watch the fish for spreading and stress. ive done the same and all has worked out fine on its own.

[mattfish123]

The Ich always being in the display concerns me

 

If I just took the flame back to the fish store, would the parasite have already spread to my display? Or is it still only on the fish itself?

 

The fish's coloration is still great, his appetite is good, but the spots get worse and worse every day. I just bought Kick-Ich this morning, so I'm going to start trying this as well as garlic supplementation. I know you said to keep the environment as stress free as possible, but should I be doing lots of water changes? I heard this helps with containing Ich.

 

This sucks...

[geewiz]

The Ich always being in the display concerns me

 

it wont always be in there you are fine. you learned your lesson to qt first

 

If I just took the flame back to the fish store, would the parasite have already spread to my display? Or is it still only on the fish itself?

 

they probably wont take it back. its in your tank, its in your tank, done.

 

The fish's coloration is still great, his appetite is good, but the spots get worse and worse every day. I just bought Kick-Ich this morning, so I'm going to start trying this as well as garlic supplementation. I know you said to keep the environment as stress free as possible, but should I be doing lots of water changes? I heard this helps with containing Ich.

 

the thing is, copper does not kill the ich on a fish it kills the ich in the tank. as this is done and as the ich naturally dies on the fish the copper kills the ich babies before they get on the fish. the water change method must be done in a qt tank. you change the water and kill the ich babies in the tank then replace the fish. do this daily for about a month and you get rid of the ich with out using meds. i will use three salt buckets one with the fish, one with new water and one drying out. rotate the fish from bucket to bucket. move the fish to the new water, empty clean and dry out the bucket the fish was in, fill the the other with new water and salt mix. does this make sense?

 

maybe someone else could explain it better

[ajmckay]

As geewiz mentioned. leaving the tank fallow (fishless) for a few cycles of the parasite will clear the water of the parasite (90 days is usually enough). The relationship between a parasite and it's host is interesting.

 

Typically, a healthy fish will live with the parasite just fine. For example, in the wild the angel you bought might have had the parasite and many others. He still did fine though because his immune system was keeping the parasites from taking over. When he went through the process of being captured and acclimated to captivity though, the stress weakened his defenses and the parasite started taking over. The same will happen with the other fish in your display. They likely don't show signs of the parasite right now, but it's in the water and living in their tissues. When you stress the fish out (let the water parameters get bad, re-arrange the rocks, not feed enough, etc...) then the parasite could possibly start showing again.

 

I honestly would be weary of kick-ich & the like. They are still chemicals, and while they claim that they are reef safe, this cannot be 100% true. Any anti-parasitic will kill off many small crustaceans & worms. That and it probably only kills the parasite during 1or so stages of it's life cycle and certainly doesn't kill off the cysts (eggs), which can last quite a while in reef tanks.

 

I mean go ahead and try it, but don't be completely surprised if it comes back sometime.

 

*edit* The water change method described above I have heard about, but I've never tried. Theoretically it would work (look up the life cycle of cryptocaryon irritans) but you would really need to move the fish into a new bucket every day (in the morning) for several weeks and thoroughly sterilize the buckets in-between. The idea being that you interrupt the life cycle of the parasite. You isolate the fish until there are no more trophont's embedded in the tissues. You must remove the fish during the protomont or tomont stages, before the reproduction occurs. Note that you would need to do this with ALL fish, and still leave the tank fallow for 60-90 days for you to be completely free of the parasite. Corals & inverts are not affected. Then again if you're going to do this you might as well set up a simple QT ($25 from wal-mart) and just treat with a hyposalinity treatment. Also uses no chemicals. As mentioned though, flame angels are pretty sensitive to copper, so hypo-salinity would be a better choice anyways.

[cheryl jordan]

http://forums.saltwaterfish.com/vb/showthr...Fish-(Pictures)

[mattfish123]

Very strange update...

 

So last night, the fish had many more spots. Had about 15 spots total between the side fins and tail fin. I just went home to check on my aquarium and the fish for my lunch break... and he has maybe only 1 spot on his tail fin. No where else...

[mattfish123]

 

 

it wont always be in there you are fine. you learned your lesson to qt first

 

 

 

they probably wont take it back. its in your tank, its in your tank, done.

 

 

 

the thing is, copper does not kill the ich on a fish it kills the ich in the tank. as this is done and as the ich naturally dies on the fish the copper kills the ich babies before they get on the fish. the water change method must be done in a qt tank. you change the water and kill the ich babies in the tank then replace the fish. do this daily for about a month and you get rid of the ich with out using meds. i will use three salt buckets one with the fish, one with new water and one drying out. rotate the fish from bucket to bucket. move the fish to the new water, empty clean and dry out the bucket the fish was in, fill the the other with new water and salt mix. does this make sense?

 

maybe someone else could explain it better

 

Yeah, it definitely makes sense. Thank you for all the information.

[msholmes]

Bottom line there is no "Reef safe" cure for ich. What "appears" to be working is the life cycle of the parasite. The salt like cysts drop off the fish onto the rocks/sand and after a time they burst open and have now multiplied in greater numbers soon you will see more and more spots until the fish begin to have problems. The only real solution is a quarantine tank for ALL fish and use either the hyposalinity method of getting your salinity down to 1.009-1.010 and holding it there for several weeks ( google hyposalinity treatment for specifics". You must use a refractometer or something like a pinpoint salinity monitor to make sure you dont fluctuate the salinity levels. You will also want to rig up a baking soda drip into the quarantine tank as PH buffering is seriously diminished at that salinity level.

 

Your other option is copper using something like Seachem Cupramine in your QT tank. Also need a copper test kit to make sure you hold the level of copper at a certain point.

 

Personally, I would use hyposalinity if the fish appear stressed by the ich if they are doing great and eating well go copper. Its more effective at eliminating ich.

 

Another option is hyposalinity and Paraguard used together. NEVER use Copper and hyposalinity together.

 

Grab a cheap QT tank from Wally world or craigslist and go net all your fish, get them in the QT and leave your display tank fish free so the parasites wil die without a host.

[OClownsandNanos]

One thing you have to keep in mind is that parasites have a life cycle. You are only seeing the parasites in their visible stage. Just because you don't see white specks in a few days doesn't mean that the fish is cured and ich is no longer a problem. There could still be parasites swimming, or they could be in the gills or other tissues of the fish hidden from your view.

 

+1 What you're seeing is part of the marine ich life cycle.

 

+1 to what msholmes said too.