Puffers With Ich

[Jordon]

ok i woke up this afternoon and saw that my dogface puffer is cuvered in whitye spots along with a few spots on my 2 valentini puffers. I put in the proper amount of rid-ich but is there a good chance all my fish will die? I'm getting rid of the Dogface tomorrow (I believe hes the source of the problem).



PLEASE HELP!

 

[SkiFletch]

Uikes, well, since you dont want corals, keep treating with the rid ich for as long as reccomended, even after the offending fish is removed. you dont want free-swimming ich to cill the rest of your livestock. Treating with formalin/malachite green many kill your inverts and turbo snail, so be prepared for that...

 

[cedyced]

That really sucks.. I had the same thing happen to me about 2 months ago. I used rid-ich but it didn't work for me. My advice would be don't get excited and over do it. I think that's what I did. It didn't look like it was working so I kept putting just a little more than recommended. It ended up killing everything in my tank.. A very expensive lesson..

 

[Jordon]

I think its really sad that two people are the only ones that replyed to my post. when i really needed help i also find it hard to believe that their the only two that knew anything about ich or how to treat it.

But thank you SkiFletch and cedyced for your help

 

[cedyced]

That is disapointing. I was looking forward to responses myself so I would know what to do if it ever happen to me again. Good Luck. Let me know how it turns out.

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah, disease is tough especially cause most of us have never had it in our tanks. The only disease I've ever actually treated in my tank is brooklynella (clownfish disease) and I didnt do anything special, just fed them varied garlic foods and let them beat it themselves. I think a lot of people are hesitant to give advice about diseases when they've never had them for fear of giving the wrong advice.

Hows the puffer doing? Better, or was the infection too much?

 

[DuganBolt]

Sorry to hear about your situation and I wish I could of offered some help on the subject. Unfortunately I had to deal with ich when I was new to saltwater fish. The most common treatment for ich is using copper base medication Ich be gone and such. The problem with this is copper = poision for inverts. I have no experience in the coral safe ich medicine so I can't offer you any help in that regard. Another a bit more risky option is hypo-salinty shock, I lowered my salinity over the course of several days down to .0017 and that helped protect the rest of the fish from the ich. ( I have been told that for hypo salinty shock to work the salinity must be much lower than the .0017 so I don't know what to tell you). As for the fish that brought the ich into my tank I treated him a (white cheek) tang with several fresh water dips (over several days of course). This is a highly stressful and risky procedure but it worked for me. I would say the best solution to ich is prevention. The use isolating new inhabitants, proper nutrition, and avoiding stress ising ich is parimount to preventing it in the first place. I hope this helps and good luck hope everything works out well. And I am sorry that I wasn't online to respond to your question sooner....

 

[andywg]

Best solution in a FO tank is hyposalinity. A few days around 1.014 should clear it out quite nicely.

For information on marine ich (Cryptocaryon irritans) read here:

http/www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php

Edit

Just noticed someone mentioned the use of garlic for treating this, to which the above link says this:

My biggest problem with the use of garlic is the mythology that has developed regarding it. This all began quite simply and innocently. Kelly Jedlicki was studying the use of garlic as an intestinal dewormer. For those who don't know who Kelly is, she is affectionately referred to as the "Puffer Queen" as they are her favorite fishes and oftentimes are brought into the trade polluted with various worms. As I said, she was examining the effectiveness of garlic against nematodes and cestodes on impacted puffers when she noticed a general decrease in Cryptocaryon irritans incidence. Later on, she proposed feeding garlic to fish as a preventative for Cryptocaryon irritans. From there the legend of garlic has spread. Feeding garlic to fish is now an accepted cure for Marine Ich by some individuals. Furthermore, I have read of people merely hanging cloves of garlic in their tank in an effort to ward off the parasites, like some sort of bad vampire movie. And lastly, I have recently heard of a surprising number of hobbyists who soak their corals' food in garlic in an effort to combat possible pathogens when target feeding them. It goes to show that garlic has become an all-purpose wonder drug in some peoples' eyes based on little more than anecdotal observations.

 

[Jordon]

I got rid of him last night and the tank is doing so much better i thing the added stress that he brought to the tank induced the chances of ich. so well see how everything goes.

 

[MoonTang]

Your tank might be too crowded, which caused the dogface to get ich. Dogface puffers are very shy and like to hide a lot if placed in a aquarium with not much hiding spots they will get ich a lot.

How big is your tank?

 

[Lynden]

I hope it's huge those are some big fish you have there.

I think garlic helps ward off ich, but it's best use is an appetite stimulant.

-Lynden