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Ich I don’t get it

So I had my yellow tang and mocha clowns in a hospital tank for almost 3 weeks because of ich. Yesterday everyone looked good and healthy. Today I come home and they both have it again but none of the others have a single sign of it. I know tangs are prone to it but why do the same 2 fish get it and they are the only ones to get it?
 

falconut

NJRC Member
The other fish probably get it too, just don't show the signs like these two. That's why if 1 fish shows signs, you need to treat all of them. It does suck, but it's the only way to rid them of it.
 
Treat all your fish as they all have it. Make sure, if you’re treating with copper, to keep it in the 1.75 to 2.00 ppm the entire 14 days. The best way to do that I found was to just spend the money on a Hanna Copper checker.


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njtiger24 aquariums

Officer Emeritus
Article Contributor
If you did not remove the other fish from your DT then yes the ich will return as it had host to contiune it's life cycle. You need to pull all fish and treat them. You also have to do the full treatment, not just until they ich seems like its gone. You also need to give your DT time to clear the ich.
 

DangerDave

NJRC Member
I see lot of talk about this. If you have a fish with it, lose the fish, none of the fish ever show signs, you would still pull and treat them all?

Asking for a friend.
 

Paul B

NJRC Member
Your other fish have immunity and if you fed them the correct foods your tangs would also get immune. But first they have to contract ich. Quarantining causes fish to lose immunity which is the reason for all the disease forums.
Of course 99.973% of the people here would disagree with me, but that is OK. I will have to deal with that as I love them regardless. :D
 
I’d like to follow up and echo what everyone has said as I’ve fallen victim to this recently also.

If you want to irradiate ich, you must treat every fish in your DT and leave the DT fallow for 72 days. The QT process is fairly straight forward and doesn’t need to be anything fancy.

I had ICH in my tank and due to good husbandry and stress free environment, the fish thrived. When the stress of moving tanks for my upgrade came up, their immune system suffered and ICH showed up. I thought I took every precaution but I didn’t QT coral or inverts (lesson learned).

Anyhow, set up a tank and pre dose 1.0ppm of copper safe. Then, over the next few days raise it to 1.75 to 2.0 and keep it there for the next 14 days. On the 15th day, move them to a completely sterile tank. (I moved mine to a brute can while I bleached my 40 breeder and equipment). Then moved them again into the 40b for 14 days of observation and will treat if anything else comes up. But I can say, they’re all healthy and I had one loss during the entire ordeal.

You can then move them into the DT once the 72 days has gone by.


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I want to thank everyone for the replies. Life happened and I couldn’t get on here. So my understanding is I need to somehow capture everyone and put them all in my QT tank? Which I need to setup again once again life happened and I had to break down and move my QT tank. I didn’t realize or even know it was possible a fish could be Immune to ich. Now with the diet part for my tang I treat him/her very well and have done a lot of research on how to. She gets meaty foods, dried sea weed, and live macros on a regular basis. She first got it when I added 4 new fish to the tank and one stole her bed which stressed her out to the point I noticed she was stressed.
 
Now I’ve also read you should only treat your fish in an established tank. Is this true or am I ok with throwing a tank together and throwing them in.
 

diana a

Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
Put a tank together and get some Dr Tim's to cycle it. Don't bring any rock, sand or corals from the DT. Monitor your water. Get something for them to feel safe while in the QT...example PVC tubes to hide in. What treatment are you going to use? The Transfer method you would need two tanks.
 
Well I setup my Hospital tank again and before it was even ready for the fish they both literally cleared up completely. Not a single speck of anything. So now I’m not sure what it was.
 

diana a

Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
Cryptocaryon is microscopic. It takes a pretty heavy case of it before signs are visible. Your fish can still have ich without you seeing it. Unless all of your fish develop full immunity to ich and it starves or you take action to get rid of it, the ich is still in the system whether you see it or not. It takes 76 days fallow to rid of ich
 
Great news that they are cleared up, but that just means the fell off in order to multiply and have more ich babies. It is definitely still there. Personally I would get all the fish out of your main tank and run hypo in the QT while allowing the 76-80 days for the ich to die off in the Display.
 

falconut

NJRC Member
+1 what the others are saying. You can wait & cross your fingers, but most likely you'll start seeing more fish with more spots. It's just the nature of the bug.
 
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