6line wrasse with ich....how to treat?

[apelaston]

I just purchased a six line wrasse today and I think that she has ich. I have never treated a saltwater fish with anything before and pretty scared to lose my new 23.00 fish who I already adore.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Will my cleaner shrimp take care of her? He has cleaned off another one of my fish before.........

HELP!

:help::help::help:

[SpockthePuffer]

Is he in a QT tank?

[apelaston]

he will be after I am done eating dinner...

[SpockthePuffer]

Well now that he has been in the main tank that means that the ich is now in there.

There are a couple different options. The most popular ich treatment is to put all the fish in the QT at hypo salinity and leave the tank fallow for 6 weeks.

I've also read about success with a med called kordon's ick attack. I'm actually using it right now in my fowlr tank because I didn't have a refractometer to do the hypo and I didn't want to risk it with a hydrometer. I don't know if I would use meds with corals though. The stuff says its fine with corals but it seems risky to me especially since you could just do the hypo.

[HaKs310]

If it has Ich then they're present in your entire tank. Heres a quick rundown on Ich:

1. The trophont stage will spend three to seven days attached to the fish. After that.. 2. The trophont leaves the fish and turns to the second stage, they are now protomonts.
3. The protomont will travel to you substrate and attach to the surface, it will encyst and enter the third stage, it is now a tomont.
4. The tomont will divide into hundreds of parasites, the 4th stage, called tomites.
At this stage it cannot affect a fish, it is just laying around waiting around maturing, which usually lasts about a month. After this...
5. The tomites will hatch and are now called theronts. They will swim around and infect a fish once it finds one. Once they do they are called trophonts, beggining the process all over again. If they do not find a fish or host within a day they will die.

Your best course of action would be to put all your fish into a QT tank and medicate, either with copper or formalin. Let your tank sit for about 5 weeks and you should be good.

[apelaston]

i can remove the corals that I have in my tank I only have 2 plus some mushrooms which I could take out easily.

As for leave the tank fallow I am not sure what you mean by that....

[apelaston]

You believe my other fish are affected as well since he has only been in my DT for 6 hours? He has just a few spots on him..that I noticed by focusing in on him with my camera.....

[SpockthePuffer]

fallow means leaving the tank empty except for lr, corals and hermits/snails. You put your fish into a QT and hypo or medicate.

[HaKs310]

I strongly advise against medicating the fish in your display/main tank. Yeah you can take your corals out but you also have a lot of beneficial matter that will die if you do: bacteria, worms, amphipods, copepods and mysid shrimp to name a few, not to mention all your LR.

[apelaston]

gotcha...i think I am going to try the hypo option....any suggestions on how to do this or at what sg i need to get it too..right now I am at 1.22

[apelaston]

Thanks for telling me that Haks....I didn't know that. I will not be using any chemicals in my DT now that is for sure!

[HaKs310]

Your gonna be doing hypo in a different tank correct? You wont be able to do hypo in the main tank for the same reasons I stated above.

[apelaston]

okk..this situation is a. starting to suck and b. a real pain in my neck....i will go dig out an extra tank from the garage attic...get some water mixing up and get that fish out. I am going to only treat this one fish at this point in time being that short amount of time that he has been in the tank. I will if it happens remove the rest of the fish if they show any signs of ich...

I am going to treat the fish with medication since he is going to be by himself in a bare tank....

[HaKs310]

That would be best, hopefully none of your other fish become infected. Good luck.

[SpockthePuffer]

Just keep in mind that if you add new fish into the tank there will be a risk that they will be infected by the ick laying dormant in the tank

[apelaston]

oooo i am going to be sure nothing gets added to this tank for quite a while to prevent further spread.

wish me luck..

hey what about these freshwater dips i am reading about? work or no?

[HaKs310]

Freshwater dips aren't that great. You'll be better of medicating with copper and increasing the tank temperature to 80-83 degrees.

[apelaston]

tank temp on the rise..

[HaKs310]

This will speed up the Ich's life cycle, hopefully making it much, much shorter.

I keep my tanks at this temperature either way, and it is the range I recommend to everyone.

[mwb1978]

I always wondered about proper tank tempature. I went scuba diving in the Cayman Islands last summer and the water temp was 86 degrees. I didn't see a single dead fish floating around. So, obviously 86 isn't too hot for them to live in the wild.

Hope your fish feels better soon.

[apelaston]

this morning i see nothing the fish is very active and eating. Yesterday I wasn't even 100% sure if he had ich...i am going to let him sit a few days before I call it diagnosed.....


Thank everyone for there help! I appreciate all the quite responses from everyone.