Ich?

How do I get rid of ich?

Ich is a parasite, many people don't realize that if you see white spots on your fish than you have ich and there's only a few ways to get rid of it. Just because 2 weeks later you don't see the white spots doesn't mean you have gotten rid of ich. the parasite is in a different stage of it's cycle.

I suggest using cupramine, get some and follow the instructions.

Also if possible, treat it in a qt tank. No sense in risking your corals.

Like shortbus already said ich is in deed a parasite, to understand how to treat ich we need to first understand what ich is. Ich goes through stages throughout its life cycle, the first stage is the trophont stage, it’s where the parasite attaches and burrows under the skin of the fish feeding off of it, that’s when we can see the effects of the ich in little white dots on the body of the fish, that last for 4-7 days depending on conditions of the tank, after that the parasite goes to the protomont stage, where the parasite leaves the host fish and seeks out somewhere on the substrate (rock, sand etc.) to attach and encrust, this stage in the parasites life lasts less than a day, usually only hours. Once the parasite finds a place on the substrate and hardens, it’s now considered to be in the tomont stage to where the parasite starts to multiply into many more tromites, this stage can last as little as a few days all the way up to 4 weeks. After the tromites hatch they are considered to be in the theronts stage where they swim around the tank in search for a host fish, they only have roughly 24 hours to seek out a host fish and attach to begin the process all over again. If the theront cant find a host then it dies off.

As far as treating them there are 2 methods that I would recommend.

First is the hyposalinity method, to where you remove the fish and place them in a QT tank and drop the salinity down to 1.009 for 4-6 weeks, this suffocates the parasite stopping the vicious cycle. After the fish have been in the hyposalinity for 4 weeks you have to slowly raise the salinity back up to 1.025 (or what ever you keep your tank at) at the rate of 0.002 per day, so in roughly 8 days they will be back up to conditions of the tank.

Second is treating with cupramine. Remove the fish and place them into a QT tank and follow the directions for treatment.

There is such a misconception in the hobby that if the fish doesn’t have white spots anymore than the tank is cured of ich. Unless you treated with one of the 2 methods above then that is so untrue, just because we don’t see the signs of ich doesn’t mean it’s not there. I do believe that if a fish is healthy enough that after we seen signs of ich one month and the next couple months there after we don’t see signs, the ich is still attaching to the host fish but in other places where we can’t physically see it the signs. Ich can attach to the fishes gills and continue the cycle without us even knowing. Side note: It’s funny how a fish tries to mask symptoms and put on a front of looking healthy, in the wild a sick fish becomes a target as easy prey.

Another misconception is that if the fish has ich and feeding the fish with garlic infused food will increase the fish’s immune system to fight off the parasite and the parasite would eventually die off. I’m on the fence about the whole garlic thing building a fish’s immune system, but you can’t remove ich from your tank that way. Garlic may or may not make the fish healthier, that I simply don’t know, you can say I’m agnostic on the matter.

One more misconception that I read a lot about is all these “reef safe” remedies that work, unfortunately there isn’t a product out there that will treat and kill the ich parasite in a tank with invertabrates, because the treatment needed to kill ich will kill all your inverts as well. No one has developed a chemical that will only target ich and nothing else.

I know this is a lengthy reply but there are so many untruths out there about ich that the record needs to be set straight.

Dang SLP is there anything u dont know?

haha, there's plenty...

Wow, that's a lot of information, more than I'd ever think to know.

So out of the 2 ways which one is the best?

I've done both and think that cupramine is a bit easier, and as a bonus it treats for other things as well.

Hyposalinity works too but you have to monitor salinity and watch your PH as you drop the salinity down.