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Is it possible? Well one of my clowns, seems to have developed whitespot. he's been fine for nearly 3 weeks now!

I have the following:
50 gallon
Red sea Protein Skimmer
304 Fluval Filter
1 power head
40 lbs live rock
2" of live sand
2 clowns
2 yellow tail damsels
Scarlet cleaner shrimp, boxer shrimp, black sea urchin & horse shoe crab
Green button polyp & soft leather finger coral.

Water is. 1.023 salinity (or whatever it should be)
0.0 nitrites
0.0 ammonia
4.0 nitrate
8.2 PH

I have got something from the LFS called Esha Oodinex which isnt specifically for Ich, but says it treats it and is Inverterbrate friendly. anyone had any success with this treatment? my heart tells me i need an ich specific medicine. I've done the 1st days treatment and turned the skimmer off (is this wise?)

anything else i can do to help the little guy?

PS. i have no Q tank, but could possibly set one up if its the only way?

cheers Rob


[span class="edited"][Edited by robyoung 2004-07-02 03:49][/span]

The safest way IMO is soaking your food in garlic and letting your fish fight it off.I just did this with my Royal Gramma.I had 2 clowns that I moved to a hospital tank and treated last year.They died after the treatment when I moved them back to the main tank....Too much stress mabey.Hypo salinity,warmer temp and lights off worked on a Firefish.
This is only my novice experiance and most likley depends on how much the ich has advanced.Good Luck

Thanks for the info, so garlic will help the ich?

Lights off? for how long, all day?

and what salinity & temp?

how will this effect the other inhabitants?

Thanks
Rob

DO NOT change your salinity, this will kill your inverts. You can up the temp a bit, perhaps a few degrees and have less light during the day. Keep the tank as stress free as possible, keep your hands out of the tank, etc. The fish should be able to fight it off. One thing that might help is a cleaner shrimp. They remove some cysts. From what I have seen, invert safe meds do not work very well.



Dan

Ok, no salinity increase then. Slightly higher temp. (how much higher?)

I do have one scarlet cleaner, and the clown seems to get cleaned a lot more often now!

stress is kept to a minimum, havent put my hand in tank for weeks.

should i still go with the garlic? how much will this help?

thanks
rob

Sorry should have been specific that the hypo-salinity was in a Q.t. tank.Something I tried when I got my refractometer.

Azziza advised me to go lights out for a few days with 80f.This worked pretty well.I use Kents Garlic Extreme and follow the directions...3 times a week or every day if an outbreak occurs.The garlic is supposed to irratate the parasites.

(IF THE FISH SEEMS TO BE DOING WELL ONLY)
You can try a freshwater dip. I swear by it. That and the cleaner shrimp are my remedy for ich. So far I haven't lost a fish to ich. However, as stated above, don't do it if the fish is gasping, or seems severely ill with ich. You MUST match PH and temperature. I use baking soda, but you can use PH up also. Keep mixing until you can hold both water samples side by side and the color matches exactly. Then, dip the fish in the fresh water for 30 seconds to one minute. I wouldn't go over one minute, and watch closely for distress. He isn't going to like it one little bit, and you must avoid stressing him further. The freshwater will cause the cysts to burst. Any free-floating organisms that re-attach should be taken care of by the cleaner shrimp.

Raising your temp does nothing more than speed up the life cycle of the ich. It will drop off and then begin looking for new hosts after that. This treatment can backfire if you use it alone, because the ich just multiplies more rapidly.

Garlic is actually more of a preventative measure, really, IMO, but it does work really well. It is pungent and the parasites choose to avoid it. It is also good as a bug repellant for other animals, including humans.

If you are going to turn off your lights, be sure to turn them on for awhile so you can get a really good look at the fish and your corals. Low lighting makes it difficult to see the cysts.

Thanks for all your help people. Sad news unfortunately, i was going to FW dip him today as he looked fine & dandy yesterday. But woke up today and he seems to have disappeared i moved as much of the rock work as possible but cant find hhim! I presume he's a gonna!

Whats worse is that the other clown now has it, strangely the yellow tail damsels seem to be totally immune! So am setting up a hospital tank for him today, hopefully with more success.

One question though, clowns do best in pairs i bought my 2 clowns as JUveniles about 6 weeks ago, how long would it take them to become a mated pair? they seemed to get on really well swim & sleep together. So would it be wise to get the other clown a friend(obviously when all ich has gone) or would they be aggressive? or is it hit & miss

Thanks Rob
RIP Clowny