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Is treating marine fish the same as treating tropical fish when it comes to ick? I also have a reef system set up. I have blue tang, yellow tang, green chromis and clownfish that are infected with ick and it's getting bad. What can I do to help?

u have to take the sich out and dip him. get stuff like kick ich or rally and u use so many ounces of the poduct per like ounce or gal of water and u dip them for no more than like 10 min then u put them bak into the tank

First, don't put anything in to your main tank. It may say reef safe, but many really are not. And most do not work very well. Your best bet is to move them to a Qtank. If you have an extra tank, do your best to move them in the most stress free way. Chasing them down will do more harm then good. Do this at night when the fish are sleeping, use a red flashlight if possible. Copper base meds are the best, but you need to be VERY careful with them. You can't get any of that water in to your main tank. And the levels need to be monitored closly.

In your Qtank set your temp a bit higher, only up this about 1 degree per day. You can also do a hyposalinity treatment in your Qtank if you wish. Here are a few sites that will help.
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/hyposalinity.html
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/marineich.html

Keep in mind there are 1001 different cures for ick, most do not work well. The best bet for the fish is to be stress free, and fight it off it's self.

Your main problem now is you have ick in your main tank. Your only real choice now if to run the tank fallow for 6 to 8 weeks. Your only other choice is to hope your fish develop an imunity. So try to keep the tank as stress free as possible. Good luck.



Dan

What are your tank and water parameters?? If your water parameters are less than ideal, one of the first things you should try is getting their environment back up to where it needs to be.. Stress from an unhealthy environment can be enough to make a fish susceptible to the ick parasite.. Stress from aggression or lack of swimming room can also be factors..

If the infestation is light and your tank stock is compatible, skunk cleaner shrimp can be useful in helping to control ick.. However, if your tank parameters are off the shrimp will not be suitable..

As already mentioned, I'd not treat the main tank with any medication and would move the fish to a quarantine tank while attempting to treat the ick.. It's safer to your system (you mentioned it was a reef) and depending on the size of your main tank, will be easier to dose correctly..

Good Luck with it..