Issues with Ich

Maybe, I was a little hasty in moving my clowns in... things seem ok now, but the day before yesterday i noticed that the smallest of the clowns had what i think to be ich...

Marine Ich is a pretty serious parasite that causes a lot of loss in the aquarium trade. there are thousands of articles out there about it so im not going to write about it extensively. But basically it effects your fish when they are stressed or run down, its comparable to the common cold for humans (in terms of how common and easy to get it is)

many people will say that ich is present in all aquariums, its not until stress levels rise that it will rear its head. Anyway, i noticed about 3 white specs on one of my clowns which i hadn't been feeding because my LFS told me to only feed them twice this week and my nitrates had flared up to 20ppm.

I decided to do extra water changes and feed twice daily to help strengthen the immune system of the fish, so far I've done 3 water changes in the last 3 days of about 20% each. My nitrates are barely detectable now and the clowns have stop displaying symptoms of ich, hopefully it wont come back, as its a parasite I read that it will attach to the host then drop off and become free swimming until it attaches again blah blah blah.

I read that feeding with garlic helps to stimulate the immune system, other people say this is indirectly because it stimulates the appetite of the fish (which then stimulates the immune system - or at least provides nutrients to fuel it, either way the immune system is up and running) either way the food im feeding is New Life Spectrum Thera +A Large Fish Formula which is enhanced with Garlic. I also feed this to my fresh water fish. This food is amazing - in my freshwater tank all my fish (however dull their known to be) display the most vibrant colours, i have silver dollars whose anal fins are entirely red and their bodies shimmer with subtle yellows and greens (kind of like looking into a light prism) i have a green terror with golden edging on its fins that has gone from being hardly visible when i first got him to neon now amongst other fish!

Anyway, it seems to be, the food combined with the water changes has cleared up the ich. fingers crossed it wont come back.

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Ich