Does anyone know of a reef safe ich medication that is safe for corals,clams,etc...?

Personally, from past experiences, ich medicine that ARE REEF SAFE DOESN'T WORK. I had spend hundreds of dollar on the ich medications on my 265 gallons tank. I have found UV sterilize to work best. In my opinion, it's a must for tank containing fishes that tend to get ich easily.

I have had success using Garlic Guard fish food soak. The fish seem to like the taste of this "marinade" and I guess the parasites don't like the garlic in the fish's bloodstream. I soak the food in a few drops of it for about 15 min. before feeding time. I use it periodically as a preventive measure.

U V Sterilizer - hands down

Or ozone...

Another possible medication that can be added to food is Metronidazole, a protozoacide. Years in the past I have always been skeptical of hearing colleagues recommending adding metronidazole to food for external parasites as it has been primarily indicated for the treatment of hexamita/spironucleus (intestinal dinoflagellate parasites) and doubted the efficacy for an external protozoan, but it appears from further recent discussions that repeated food soaks enable the compound to become "saturated" in the fish's body and may indeed help by delivering it in a food pathway.
Seachem recommends their metronidazole be mixed with the binding polymer Focus for better food adhesion.

...And that is your Biology study guide for the exam on Friday! No one will be admitted after the posted starting time. Please leave your handbags, bookbags and purses around the perimiter of the room and TURN OFF all wireless devices during the exam period...Good luck and may God save the Queen.

Steven pro did a research study on xenia in a controlled environment with a lot of "reef safe" ich treatment. You can see his article if u search reefkeeping.com

If the fish are tangs, then you might need to build more room into your tank, and reduce stress. Aquazoa does know- it is his business and Mojo/Reef1973 are right about the UV too. Just guessing because tangs are magnets for Ick, powderblues especially.

William brought up a great point about the stress. What is your current tank setup? Why do you think they got ick? There are many infections that look like ich, but aren't. Are you 100% sure it's ich?

Kevin mentioned the Steven Pro article- there was also a podcast recorded on the topic at talkingreef.com, and the link should also be on the RK site in case u would rather have the audio format.

I wonder if Steven Pro will be around this Christmas to speak again to the club. I really like his presentations. Maybe he has done a few more experiments.

Thank you all. In the short time since i seeked these answers my yellow tang and my ocellaris clown have now passed. Im pretty sure that where i bought them they were infected. I will be buying a uv sterilizer here shortly to avoid this in the future.

thanks
Scott

Another possible medication that can be added to food is Metronidazole, a protozoacide. .....

Thanks for popping in, Porter!

sstraub, you will be happy that you decided to go with the UV sterilizer. It will be a very wise decision. Clownfish and many tangs are bad about getting ich. My clownfishes, powerblue, hippo, naso, sailfin, yellow and purple tangs are free of ich eversince I bought and installed the UV sterilizer.

I believe garlic extract works well also but THE SMELL!!!!!! I tried a few times but pass on it.

here's a good link on effective UV useage... :-)

Ant on UV (http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic21370-13-1.aspx)

hth,

Matt

use the garlic guard every day i do on my powder blue soak it for a 30 seconds and roll it up and put it in aclip.i use julian sprungs green seaweed. offer the tang seaweed 24hrs a day. if he gets stressed out he could get ich.feed as much of avariety of food as you can, pellets flake and frozen brine schrimp. i also run an corralife u.v

aquazoa- have you ever tried the med in feed before? I use this medication frequently for other animals (its called Flagyl in terrestrials) and have the darndest time getting it into them because it tastes aweful. I really dont know what fish "taste", but I was curious to see if there has been any success.

Actually I have never used metronidazole as such myself. I know that Flagyl is administered intravenously for some human amoebic issues (Giardiasis?). My understanding has always been that it is a rather specific protozoacide used for Hexamita/Spironucleus flagellates in the intestines of fish. I did not believe the recommendations for years of so many of my colleagues for Cryptocaryon but if it can work in the human bloodstream perhaps it can be used in the fish's bloodstream. I do know that we use metronidazole at the store administered directly into our freshwater quarantine system which is certainly effective. Here I am just passing on information and I know they say to use it with the Focus and garlic.

I think I should emphasize however that I am not saying for one to add the metronidazole directly to an invertebrate system.......any measureable presence of such a drug in the water would surely be bad news for inverts. It is only acceptable for adding to food only to fish that live in an invert system.

Yes, Flagyl is a rather broad spectrum treatment, used for many different ailments. Flagyl is the brand name (produced by a specific company) of metronidazole, so there are certainly other metronidazole based medications out there. At any rate, as such a broad spectrum agent, I would certainly advise caution when using it in a tank with inverts. Particularly with the potential for being distasteful. As I mentioned, I know many animals object to consuming it due to the "flavor", but I dont know if fish would be similar.

I've been communicating with Seachem regarding their brand of Metronidazole. I had first tried the food only approach. Then after a couple of weeks of the food treatment not working I added it to the water. Seachem recommended using the low end of their recommended dosage. I had asked about feeding metron and using kick ich in combination. They said all kick ich is, is metron in a low dose. Anyways added three treatment cycles, before I gave up and moved to hospital tank. The point is my inverts were fine, fire shrimp, soft corals, cleaner shrimp, blue legged crabs, amphlipods. This treatment did not work for me and a higher dose could have caused harm. I was trying to cure a powder blue tang, which may be more difficult than other fish.

Interesting. Physiologically invertebrates seem to be affected the same way protozoa are by protozoacides. Malachite Green is another so called "invert safe" drug. YEA RIGHT......nonsense! Malachite Green is noxious to inverts and is pharmacokinetically weak. Such a protozoacide would need to be maintained in the system for a full month to eradicate the parasite completely as it is usually in its tomite (swarmer) stage that Cryptocaryon or Amyloodinium would be susceptible to the drug. The trophont stage is protected by the fish mucosa and the tomont stage is encysted on the bottom substrate. One can clearly see the difficulties in an effective medication in an invertebrate system where eukaryotae are ubiquitous. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't work.