Ich on my flame angel?

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Neptune555

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Nov 18, 2013
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Sadly I think my Flame Angel has ich? I purchased two new fish at the LFS an Anthias and a flame angel about 10 days ago (I did not freshwater dip). I have a 55 gallon FOWLR set up for 10 years. I have never had ich in my saltwater tank... and my fish so rarely die that I never have been able to experiment with new fish...

The Anthias died about 6 days after getting him.. NO SPOTS he just ended up going pale in two lines. I learned this is caused by stress and common to anthias? My flame angel was doing AWESOME.. and then today he looks timid? and I notice the tiniest of two white spots around his face... What do I do? I was thinking to go and get a cleaner shrimp tomorrow morning? Will that help? Any saving her now?

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50 gallon bow front FOWLR: Coralife skimmer / HOB filter / two powerheads / power compact lights / 50 pounds rock / 20 pounds live sand / 2 clown fish / 1 yellow goby / 1 sick flame angel / clean up crew.
 

Neptune555

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Nov 18, 2013
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any suggestions? Please help?

I am feeding frozen food mix soaked in garlic already? Formula one / spiralina What else? Anything else? Will adding a cleaner shrimp help? I am waiting on a scotts fairy wrasse but that is not a cleaner wrasse as I have heard they help also?
 

Khemul

Sea Bunny
Oct 14, 2010
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A cleaner won't touch it.

The main two choices for dealing with Ich are copper-dosed quarantine before introduction or keeping the fish healthy and hoping the infection is kept managed.
 

Neptune555

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Nov 18, 2013
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flame angel looks horrible today. He is laying on one side breathing heavy. I went to LFS and they were very supportive... I have a cleaner shrimp / and fire shrimp to add to the tank hoping that they will help eat the parasites from the fish. I am also heating my RO water now to do a freshwater dip. The ich is now in the tank so I plan on just ensuring pristine water conditions... and not introducing new fish for some time. Other links or suggestions others have to share would be great. Would love to hear how others handled this?
 

greech

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May 13, 2009
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Not much else you can do from what you're doing. I wouldn't necessarily be concerned about the fish you have had for a while but if you tear the tank apart trying to catch the angel, you do risk stressing them and they may become more susceptible. If the angel is lethargic, this may not be a problem. Keep your water parameters as good as you can, feed the tank well and try and keep your hands out of the tank.

Edit: If you have never done a FW dip, you should read up on it before trying it.
 
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Neptune555

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Nov 18, 2013
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flame angel died...

Now what to do with tank? Do I treat the entire tank or just provide positive tank parameters? When I introduce another fish wont that fish suffer from Ich also?

neptune
 

ThatNewFishGuy

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May 4, 2010
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Sorry to hear that. I can't offer any advice as to what to do next but I'd like to also in case I ever deal with this situation.
 

greech

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Don't treat unless you see signs on another fish. There is a good chance that won't happen. Keep everyone well fed, your water quality up and don't add anything new to the tank. Not because the new fish might have ich but because stressing the fish with a potential ich introduction might start something.

If you want to be proactive, you can setup a hospital tank so that if you do see signs, you can treat all fish and leave the tank fallow for 6 to 8 weeks. Its really the only way to rid your tank of ich.
 

Ace25

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I am in the same boat right now, lost my pair of orange spotted filefish to ich and my kole tang and spotband butterfly are showing signs. Since it wasn't possible for me to QT the fish, I just took out all the rock, inverts, and coral, putting them into a much smaller tank, and made my display the hospital tank.

I have been carefully dosing/testing curpamine for the past 2 weeks now, and ich is slowly dying off on the 2 fish that I could see had issues. They were scratching on the sand pretty bad when I started but now are acting fine and all fish are eating like pigs, so I believe I can cure my tank of it by dosing curpramine and waiting the 8+ weeks to let the parasite run its life cycle so hopefully I can be positive my tank will be ich free. Cupramine is very easy to remove from a system when treatment is done, so I have no fear I can make it a nice reef tank again as soon as treatment is complete (8 weeks for treatment and 1 week to remove the copper medication via cuprisorb and carbon). I will also replace all the sand at the end of treatment, I just left it in because my wrasses need a place to sleep. It did initially absorb some of the copper medication, meaning I had to test a lot of dose a lot more than normal to maintain levels in the .4 range.

I hadn't added any new fish or corals in the last 18 months and fish have all been healthy, then out of the blue one filefish got sick and died quickly of what appeared to be ich, and the second followed in less than a week. So in my case I believe it was a case of 'ich was always in the system and once it found a host it could take down it multiplied'. While I am sad of the loss of the filefish, they were a mated pair, they are also by far the cheapest fish I had in the tank. If I had lost my collection of leopard wrasses I would be devastated.
 

greech

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Sorry you lost those Ace. Beautiful fish.
 
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