The Puffer Forum

I have marine ich an I bought this stuff called Ich Attack and when I put it in tank the first time, the ich was almost gone. Now it is back nd worse then before. Should I keep using this stuff or is there something I don't know about? My puffer turned from red to white today and I think it is because he is really stressed out. The spots are just really on his fins and is head a little bit, is this just ich? I don't know what velvet is but I am afraid of it! Please Help!!

We've tried Ich Attack twice, one in salt water and once in fresh. As best we could tell, the only effect this product has is to stink and turn your water brownish. We used Ich Attack in fresh water at double the dose, twice per day, as described on the manufacturer's site for tough cases, but it didn't work.

That said, marine ich often occurs in waves. It can seem to be cured one day, and the next day the fish is coated end to end with white dots. It is possible that if you continue treatment the ich could still go away if the Ich Attack works for you.

Rather than using Ich Attack for treatment of Ich, we've had success with hyposalinity treatments, copper treatments (cupramine), and most recently quinine HCL. Of these our favorite is quinine, but as with copper and hyposalinity, you can't safely use it with inverts or live rock in the tank. Unlike copper, quinine isn't absorbed into live rock and aquarium seals and later released to kill inverts. It also doesn't stain your tank like Quick Cure and other treatments using green stains. Treatment with any of these is best done in a bare hospital tank. Quinine hasn't killed our filter bacteria in any of the tanks where we used it. Quinine was recently made illegal to manufacture, so it is hard to find (FDA banned as a cure for leg cramps). Some LFS still have quinine, or it can be purchased online.

Which treatment to use for ich is based in part on personal preferences, so other people may suggest additional treatment modes. Also, there are strains of marine Ich that are resistant to treatment with one product or another. One dpcuemtned strain is characterized by very large white spots and is resistant to copper and formalin, for example.

ich has a cycle..

the visible spots drop off, but all they do is hit the substrate and reproduce, covering your fish in more ich.. and so on...

6 weeks hypo 1.009 buffered back to 8.2 ph (safer than copper) in a quarentine tank for ALL fish tankmates, leave the main tank fallow for 6 weeks to starve any parasites in the substrate...

only way to get rid of ich from your system permanently...

then 6 week quarentine for any new addition you add.....

Actually, it's 8 weeks to be sure.

Right now I don't have a qt tank but I don't plan on adding any new fish. I have lots of live rock and an anemonie (sorry I can't spell it!). I really don't want to do copper because knowing my luck it would kill everything. When I saw the ich I added the ich attack and then after a few hours did an 18 gallon water change (on the 55 gallon tank) We had the puffer in qt since he had ich the worst but then the tank exploded and now all I have is the 55. I can't afford to buy another tank or buy cheap small tanks for everything in the tank. I guess I'm gonna try and get a hold of some tanks and and keep using the ich attack. I really don't know what else to do, I don't have the money because my boyfriend is getting kicked out of his house and has no where to go right now so I don't have room/money for a new tank and I won't get any new fish till the tank doesn't have ich/I have a qt tank so I don't have to worry about that. I don't know how the ich happened, the puffer was in qt and then we added him to the big tank because of the tank falling apart but I saw no signs of spots on any of my fish now they all have spots!

Some fish recover from ich with time without treatment. When a fish we purchased from Drs. Foster and Smith came down with ich the day we received it, they recommended the following:
- Turn the heat up to 82 (The reason they gave was to boost immunity, but it will also accelerate the ich lifecycle)
- Add vitamins to the food (Can be done by soaking liquid vitamins into dried foods)
- Use garlic, if necessary to encourage eating the above (we've never had success with garlic, but many people have).
- Leave the lights off. (to reduce stress - this may cause your anemone to start shrinking so shading part of the tank may be an alternative. )
- Monitor water quality closely.

In your situation I'd do the above and stay the course with Ich Attack. If ich Attack helps at all, it is worth continuing. All the other treatments described here will kill your inverts and kill some of the life in your live rock resulting in decay and possible ammonia problems. Kordon provides a lengthy FAQ for this product at http://www.novalek.com/kordon/ich_attack/index.htm One part of this document that is particularly useful to know (and which isn't on the bottle) is the following:

"For well established or severe infections: double the dose. Continue treatments until a cure is effected. It is recommended that for double doses per day, one should be in the morning, the other later in the day. Note that some species of white spot disease (Ich) have only a few hours in the free-swimming stage at which time a treatment is effective in exterminating them. For these species of Ich treatments twice a day are essential for eliminating them to be sure none of the Ich escapes treatment. Do not skip any treatment. For Ich each white spot will produce up to 250 young (in marine species) or up to 1000 young (in freshwater species). If the Ich or other infection returns when Ich-Attack is used twice a day, it is safe to use a triple dose spaced throughout the day."

Thank you I am in the process of buying some vitimins and I have been using the Ich Attack for 2 days now and I hope things get better. I was told that raising the temp doesn't work in marine tanks. The temp is 80 right now. When I put the ich attack yesterday, my puffer changed from red to white. It was the strangest thing, but it could have been the new light right now we have a 50/50 light on one side and a regular light on the other side. I know thats crazy but they only had one and it was last and me and my boyfriend have to wait till next payday! I added an air strip since the bottle says it may cause the fish to breathe heavy and the puff was looking bad so I freaked out but it says that this lasts for 2 hours. After a few hours the puffer returned to normal color and started buzzing around the tank like normal. The fish seem to be doing well they are all eating and swimming around very well. I am going to use ich attack for the recommened time which I think is 5 days and then do a water change since it turns the water brown for awhile. I checked the levels and everything is pretty perfect everything is at the lowest it can possible and the ph is about 8.4. I just want to get rid of this, I haven't lost any salt water fish and I am very proud being a new salt water owner and I don't want to lose any form something that can be treated. Thank you so much!

I kept a reef tank triving and growing well for about 10 years (ending about 10-12 years ago) and never lost a fish. That's not saying a real lot because I only had 4 small fish in the tank and rarely added food. On the other hand, when Anne and I started keeping fresh and salt water puffers in fish-only tanks we lost several to inexplicable causes. Sometimes it just happens that way. Puffers, and especially small puffers seem to be difficult to ship and acclimate.

Hoping things go well

-Robert

Well thank you for your help. I really can't tell if things are getting better or not. I mean they still have ich but not really as bad I guess. After I am done treating the tank I am going to do another water change and see if things get better. I hope this works, I have been talking to my lfs and she said this is new to her and she said that if it doesn't work she will order me what she uses on her tanks or just let me use hers. So hopefully this works and if not then I have a back up plan!

With marine ich, I know fish will often get over it on their own if not treated at all. We've seen it happen. The danger in leaving the ich untreated is that the level of the infection can get severe enough to overwhelm (kill) the fish. Short of outright killing the fish it is also possible for gill damage to become severe enough that the fish takes many months to recover, if it ever does recover fully. If the infection gets much worse or if the fish starts showing signs of suffocation, you may need to take immediate action to save the fish. What I would do is remove the fish from the ich contaminated tank to stop reinfection and treat with a medication that has a high likelihood of success (for example Cupramine, Quick Cure, Quinine (if you can find it), or hyposalinity (if you know how).
-Robert

Thank you I think the ich is about gone only a few spots and I will vac the sand this weekend to try and get it all out of the tank. Now my friends porc has ich and the guy at the store told us that porcs get ich all the time and keep it for a long time. He is treating with the same stuff we are, but I talked to Lynn (my lfs owner) and she said the porc will carry ich for a long time and get it all the time but it won't really hurt her. Is this true, like I said I'm not too good with the marine puffers.

I don't know the answer to your question, but perhaps someone else here does. I do know that Porcupine Puffers are prone to ich, and that our lfs says they don't care if they have it, which is doubtful. When ours had it he used to squish his body up and shake himself back and forth, as if to try to shake it off. He got over it with copper treatment and hyposalinity. The ich was very visible on his eyes in particular. One of them started to cloud over where the ich was heaviest, but it cleared up when he was treated. As you can tell, we felt it was worth treating. Mainly we felt that the ich was a threat to his health in the area we couldn't see, particularly gills.

How bad is the ich?

At first she didn't have it too bad and then it got into her eyes and all over her body. I told my friend that he needs to treat her even though the lfs said she would get over it on her own. I just saw her Sunday and it looked much better, he is using ich attack just like me and my boyfriend and she seems to be looking better. We are both new to salt water so we don't want use copper because I have read some really bad stuff about using that. I can' t really see the ich on her eyes anymore, they are so big and the most beautiful blue I have ever seen. She is eating well and swimming around sometimes she likes to play hide and seek.

Happy_Puffer wrote:she likes to play hide and seek.

I know it's a bit off topic, but how does a fish play hide and seek?
-curious (Robert)

my porc plays hide and seek too..

from what i've seen on here porc's seem to be a little shyer than many of the other puffers, at least initially..

when you go up to the tank, my porc will run away and 'hide' behind a rock/filter etc.. then will poke her head out a bit, as if to say, 'i can see you..'

then when you leave the tank, she will come out again and come to the front, but if you return to the tank, she will scoot off again...

it's like hide and seek....


the reason LFS sometimes shrug their shoulders about ich is that it is almost impossible for them to irradicate it from their tanks.. as they'd have to fallow out all their tanks for 8 weeks and then quarentine every new fish for 8 weeks before adding them to the display tanks... that would lose them lots of money....

so in LFS tanks ich is almost always present in the water and the substrate, sometimes healthy fish can fight the parasite themselves and will not show signs...

puffers see far less resistant... and often show signs when other fish don't.. leading LFS to say they always have it...


I think your puffer should definitely be treated.. if the spots fall off, it is most likely that they will just hit the substrate and multiply, re-infesting your puff... causing more illness.. and on an already weakened fish..

short of dropping the whole tank into hypo (removing corals/inverts, live rock, live sand etc first) or taking out ALL the fish and leaving the whole tank fallow for 8 weeks then you will not remove the parasite from the tank..

and it will continue to re-infect your fish..


if nothing else, keep the parameters PERFECT, feed a vey healthy, balanced diet and hope... but if the eyes start going cloudy or your fish is breathing heavily then you must treat with one of the suggested methods. Good luck.