Chacha,
Thanks for the info. Ich in my opinion is always present in your reefs much like the common cold is found in our homes. We sometimes get it bad and we sometimes get it lightly.
In the reef tank, I have noticed that ich can and will remain dormant until the right conditions emerge; once this happens it will launch an attack on your fish.
This is my guess; your reef was fine up until your purchased the tang and brought him home. They are indeed carriers of ich on their gills and skin during transport. If you didn't quarentine it; most of us don't chances are you placed a strain into your tank.
As it arrived the immune system in the other fish drop by nature; excitement and anxiety which make them more succeptilbe to the infection.
Once the infection hits it only gets worse as ich comes in sets much like the waves in the ocean, they don't stop. In an enclosed ecosystem this spells certain death to all your fish as they are host to the parasite.
In the reef tank there is no where to go as in the ocean they can swim away to other areas less infected.
As the ich multiplies by the hundreds and thousands your fish cannot cope with the slaughter to come.
Why the tang is not infected is much open to debate, my analysis is it carries some immunity but it too will die if the tank is not medicated or action taken.
Okay, are you still with me? What to do? Here are two steps you can take.
1. You can medicate your reef with products like kick ich or No- ich. I've used the No- ich before with both positive and negative effects. If you have never added it before chances are it will work well the first time; second time I feel the parasites developed an immunity to it.
If you do add it in, please follow the instructions down to the wire, otherwise you are wasting your time, this product is expensive and one way to immediately start destroying the parasite at one of it's stages.
It works with a special indredient much like the medicine women take for a yeast infection; I've read that much on it. It does work.
I would also feed your fish pellets dipped in garlic extract, this opens there appetite to eat and is much like mom's chicken soup, building up white blood cells; do the same to your fish.
Okay, now you can raise the temp in your tank, this only speeds up the metabolism in the parasite to reach a stage that the med can attack.
Okay part two:
2. Purchase the Coralife Turbo Twist 36 watt and then get the Mag 3 pump and raise the unit to three feet of head pressure, you need to make sure the tank water that enters the unit passes slow enough that the parasite is destroyed at the DNA level, it cannot breed and then dies.
Once you do this you are attacking the parasite at the free floating stage. In one month of time you will see your fish recover 100 percent, I will not exaggerate, you will be impressed.
If you take all these precautions that I gave you, you will have a crystal clear reef free of the killers; well not totally free of all ich, but enough that the population is controlled and your fish can fight off any other smaller attacks; do the numbers, a healthly young adult can fight off smaller infections but place a healthy adult in a locked room full of reproducing infections on the thousands; you will kill the healthy adult.
I hope this helps you out...
MG
