Royal gramma has ich.  need advice

J

JumboAg99

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[It appears that my royal gramma has a slight case of ich. It's barely noticable so far so hopefully I've caught it early. His tail fin is starting to show some spots and he's been acting unusual for the past two days.

Here's the problem: I tried for over an hour, but I cannot catch him and there's no way I'm willing to tear apart my entire tank to get him. Also, even if I could catch him, I only have a 10G to q/t a fish in and there's no way everything from my 90G could live in something that small. (The gramma has ich, but there's no reason for me to assume that the rest of the tank won't come down with it in a week.)

SO... what are my options. I'm looking for something I can put in the tank that's not going to kill my corals or inverts.

Hopefully if I can treat it quickly I can save the fish and prevent it from spreading to the rest of the tank.

All of the fish in the tank have been in it for over a month.]
 
[Amanda is the expert on this so hopefully she'll chime in.....

You can try feeding garlic on the food to see if it'll help the fish get over it but that won't guarantee anything. Hyposalinity will work but since you have inverts you'll need to QT the fish. I don't know of anything you can put in the tank that will help as most of them are harmful to corals and inverts.

There have been several threads and most of them have the link for ich info. lemme see if I can find it for you.]
 
[There are 3 firefish gobies and a false perc.

I tried a local search in "ich" but because those letters are common in words the search came back with 10+ pages worth of stuff. I got frustrated after page two and posted a plea for help.]
 
[The false perc was first. The gramma and firefish were added together about 7 weeks ago.

Until last week I had a 6 line wrasse in a 10G q/t tank, but he jumped late one night and died. I never had a problem with the clown wanting to jump from that tank when it was my only setup so I never gave the six line much worry. He seemed to prefer staying in hiding most of the day. I have built an egg-crate cover for that tank, but I have not yet had a chance to replace the six line and start the q/t process all over again. Now that one of my display fish apparently has ich, it's pointless to replace the six line until my display is cured.]
 
[If I tried to put all five fish in a 10G q/t tank they'd probably all die from stress before they dropped from ich. If that didn't kill them, the tank could never handle the bioload anyway and the water would kill them in a week.


Only the gramma is showing any signs right now, but eventually the others will too.]
 
[You might try some chem-marin Parasite Stop to help keep it off the other fish. While it probably won't cure the gramma, it will enhance the other fish's ability to keep it from settling onto them as well. I would try it at the 1/2 treatment level and it doesn't bother soft coral, invertes, or fish even at full dosage. While it supposedly will cure ich too, I've not been real successful with any cure for ich (including fresh water dip, potassium permangate dip, formaldehyde dip, and copper). They either seem to get well or die. My powder blue came down with it about 4 weeks ago and I've finally decided he will make it or he won't, but I used the Parasite Stop as a safe guard at 1/2 dose to try to keep it off the other fish too. So far no new infections, but the powder blue worsens and then gets better then worsens...but I know anything else except maybe hypo-salinity would probably just be signing the death warrant early. So...for now I'll hope his immune system will overcome it eventually. Hate to lose him cause he eats like a piggy and will almost take food from my hand now and I've had him for 8-12 months already.]



Edited By waterbeing on 1107319055
 
[i would soaked their flake food with some of the juice from a jar of minced garlic. recently did it on my tank after seeing some ich on my tangs. cleared up in about a week of the garlic soaked feedings. btw, the fish seemed to really like the garlic flavoring....]
 
[I had a regal tang that brought ich into my system. Here's what I did and it worked.
First I stopped skimming and treated the tank with ruby reef kick ich - the cheapest way to get it is on e-bay. I have used it several times with varying degrees of success depending on how bad my fish had ich. My general feeling is that it will not cure your fish, but it slows the parasite's ability to spread. It's never bothered any of my inverts.
I drop my salinity down slowly just a touch. I like about 1.020 but I have been told you can go as low as 1.017 with out negative effects. This also will not cure ich, but it makes it less confortable for the parasite and I like that.
Then I get a whole bulb of fresh garlic remove all the paper-like stuff so it's just the cloves - it has to be fresh. The immune boosters in garlic are released by the plant when the plant is cut. That's the plant's defence. Fresh garlic is the key.
I get beefheart at the regular old grocery store. I semi-freeze it so it's easier to cut. I cut all the fat off and trash it so that it's just the very dark heart meat. I cut it into about half cm cubes and set it aside.
Then I put all of the whole cloves of garlic into the food processor (blender will work) and grind it up tiny then add the beefheart and continue to grind until its like a paste, maybe a little coarser than paste but small. add some zoe or other vitamin suppliment and maybe some scallops or shrimp.
put a bit in the tank. They eat it like you've been starving them.
freeze the rest on a cookie sheet and break into serving sizes for later use.
I was at my wits end when I tried this and I had lost a regal prior to this by chasing him around and streesing him out further and confining him to a smaller tank. I can't explain it but It worked. No ich - Fat Happy fish.
Warning: this smell of this stuff will make flies run in fear. It's rank, but the fish like it.
I hope this works for you as well as it did for me. I hate to see my fish suffer with this yucky parasite.]
 
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