sick damsels HELP

[pussycat]

day b4 yesterday i noticed a whitish area on one of my blue damsels on his tail fin bottom edge. i asked LFS and they said b/c it is the one that's bullied it's probably a bite and now a fungus area. not to worry. yesterday am i saw another area in the middle of his fin. again, they said it was fungus. last night i saw a white DOT on the neon velvet's pectoral fin and then this morning it looks like a flat white dot on the remaining blue damsel's back line. i have a 75g that already cycled (b4 i put them in) with 30lbs LS and 100lbs LR). these are the only fish in the tank. i do have a QT, but there is a royal gramma in there. its been there for a little over a week now. so i don't have anywhere to move these guys unless i switch places. i know that i cant return the damsels in this condition either. so what do i do? short of going out and buying another QT setup??

please respond quickly as i am concerned about the fish!

thanks,

pussycat

[kreblak]

From the sound of it you have Ich. Ich appears as small, pinhead sized white cysts on the body, gills, and fins of fish. You have a variety of treatment options.

The easiest option is to move ALL the fish into the QT and treat with copper. There are many medications available for SW Ich that contain copper, and all are highly effective. Copper will kill invertabrates, however, and will also leech into your sand and live rock and should never be used in your show tank because you will harm any invertabrates living on your live rock as well as your clean up crew. If you ever want corals in the show tank, don't use copper in it. That is what the QT is for.

Your other option is to treat the showtank with reef safe medication. There are two I know of that claim to be 100% reef safe (will not harm corals and invertabrates). They are NO-ICH MARINE sold at www.drsfostersmith.com and KICK-ICH by Ruby Reef. I have used No-Ich with great success against SW Ich. I must caution you here, though, you must treat the tank for quite a while with these medications, and this can get expensive, especially for a 75 gallon tank. You might want to move the fish to the QT, and treat there with reef safe meds, as the lower gallons size will greatly reduce the cost of treatment.

Your third option is to leave the fish be, soak their food in garlic, and let the strongest survive. Garlic seems to help boost their immune systems, and those fish that are strong will survive and get better. Unfortunately, in an aquarium, this option often fails, as the Ich parasite multiplies out of control very quickly.

One last thing I must mention: if you treat the fish, you must continue treatments for AT LEAST THREE WEEKS after cysts are no longer visible on the fish. This is because of the life cycle of the parasite. Ich is only vulnerable to medication during a brief phase of it's life. It is also not visible until it encysts. One cyst (white spot) can produce up to 600 new parasites within a week, and all it takes is one surviving parasite to begin the cycle anew. This is why you must continue treatment even after the disease is no longer visible.

If you have any other questions, please just ask. I left out the detailed life cycle info, because it is long. If you wish to better know your enemy, I will be happy to reply.

[pussycat]

thank you, thank you so much for replying. your info is easy to understand and i will choose one of your solutions.

one more thing, if i move the infected fishes to QT, do i have to worry about leaving any cysts back in the show tank to reproduce and reinfect new fish when they arrive? or will they all move along with the fish or just die off not having a host to latch onto after a few days?

thanks so so much,

pussycat

[kreblak]

Yes, you must definately worry about remaining cysts in the show tank. There is good news here, though. Ich is a parasite that cannot live without a fish host. If the show tank is left without fish for three to six weeks, there will be no parasites left to infect new arrivals.

Ich is a free swimming, cilliated, protozoan parasite. From it's brith it has roughly 18 hours to find a fish host or die trying. Once it finds a fish, it attaches and begins leeching nutrients from the fish. Once it has fed, it encysts (forming the white spot) and matures. The cyst then drops off the fish, and begins dividing into hundreds of new free swimming protozoan parasites. The cyst then ruptures, releasing a while new batch of parasites into the water, who then have 18 hours to find a new host...

That is the life cycle in a nutshell. Ich cannot parasitize invertabrates, it needs fish to survive. In the wild, the odds of any one protozoa finding a fish are something like one in 500, but in an enclosed space such as an aquarium, the odds of finding a host skyrocket, because the fish cannot swim away from the parasites like they can in the wild.

Raising the temperature of your tank's water speeds up this cycle. 80* to 84* seems to be the best temp for moving along their brief lifespans.

Just remember to quarantine ALL new arrivals for around 4 weeks. This may seem like a long time, but it is better to find out that a fish is sick prior to adding it to the main tank! ;)

[pussycat]

are you saying, that if i end up moving the infected fish to QT, i either have to treat the show tank with something or leave it empty for 3-6 weeks?

[kreblak]

To rid the main tank of Ich 100%, yes, you will need to either treat or leave it empty. I had quite an infestation of Ich some months ago. I treated my 46 gallon tank with No-Ich Marine. It required 3 weeks of treatment before the visible Ich was gone, and I then treated for 27 more days. I used two 1 liter bottles of No-Ich during treatment costing me about $24 (including S&H) per bottle.

[pussycat]

so, maybe the smartest thing to do is to leave the three damsels in the show tank and treat all of them there since i have to treat it anyway?
i just read fenners page on ick and he suggests moving all, even those not showing signs of ick, into QT. treating them there and then letting the show tank rest for 3-6 weeks. i don't understand why you wouldn't leave them all in the show tank and just treat them without movinging them in the first place?

he also says to do a FW dip.
i am sorry to rattle on, im just trying to make sense of all of this.

thanks so much

[kreblak]

The reason Fenner says to move all fish to the QT tank is so that they are easier to treat. Smaller amounts of water are less costly to medicate, and dosages are easier to control. With the reef safe meds, you can treat the show tank directly. Just keep treating until the Ich is wiped out. I know I keep harping on this, but you cannot imagine how frustrating it is to treat your fish until they are no longer showing symptoms, only to have the Ich come right back and put you back at square one.

Oh, Fenner suggests a FW dip because it will rid the fish of many attached cysts. However, dips can be extremely stressful on your fish, and should be done with caution.

If you are going to teat the show tank with No-Ich or Kick-Ich, I suggest buying a lot of it. No-Ich doses 2 oz per 25 gallons of water every three days. That means you are going to be using 6oz every three days. Definitily purchase two or three of the 2 liter size bottle. That way you don'y have to pay S&H fees everytime you run out.

[pussycat]

thanks,

the damsels are on their way back to the LFS. so can i treat the show tank with no-ich marine or kick ich and go through the cycle any faster than 6 weeks? b/c i have the royal gramma in qt for 3 more weeks and would love to be able to move him out then if my show tank is ready. but, of course, if i have to wait, i will.

thanks for your help

[kreblak]

Allright, just to make sure we're on the same page, if you are returning the damsles, why treat the tank? That would be a true waste of money. With no fish, Ich dies...end of story. If you are going to trade in the damels, you might as well just leave the show tank empty for three weeks or so at about 80*. That will rid you of Ich 100%. Once you are sure that the show tank is cleared, you may add the royal gramma.

One thought, while the tank is fishless your biofilter will go into decline, and there is no source of ammonia in the water. While my tank was without fish, I added 1 ml of pure ammonia each day, just to make sure my bacteria were fed.

[pussycat]

so three weeks with no fish will rid me of ick in the tank? you said when i was sure......how do i know that?

and thanks on the tip about the ammonia.

pussycat

[kreblak]

I would say that after three weeks, with no fish in the tank, and the temperature at 80*, you can be pretty darn sure that you nailed every last one of those little nasties.

Bear in mind that I have a 46 gallon tank, though, when adding ammonia. You may wish to double the added amount to 2 ml per day for your 75.

[pussycat]

many, many heart felt thanks from me to you.

pussycat

[kreblak]

That's what we're here for! ;)