2 triggers with ich

[zemuron114]

hello all
Well i made the mistake of keeping my holding system at close to natural sea levels. With lots of fish coming and going ICH is bound to explode. Also, 2 fish decided to take the PVC waterride to a 5 gallon bucket which is my bioballs (needless to say they decayed and made my water quality crap)

So right now i have in my system
female crosshatch (6")
goldenback trigger (11")
dwarf eel (9")
saddle wrasse (3")

both triggers are covered. I hypoed to 1.009-1.010ish. The crosshatch i still eating everything. But the goldenback stopped eating. He would eat 2 raw shrim a day until a few days ago. He then would only eat live shrimp, but now nothing. He looks at the shrimp, but does not go after them.
So i decided to add cupramine. I shut off a few tanks to lower the water volume to about 210 gallons. So now the salinity is at 1.009ish and im running cupramine.

anything else i can do? I dont want to lose the triggers as they are expensive..

thanks

 

[Rondelet]

Are you treating you fish in the system or a separate tank? It sounds like you're treating them in your system. You would be much better off moving them to a treatment tank. All the hyposalinity and copper your adding, if this is the case, will take out your biological filtration and just compound your problems. You're much better off moving these fish and letting your tank go fallow for a month or so. Sounds expensive in the short term, but is much easier to manage from a treatment perspective (that is will probably mean the different between a successful vs. failed treatment), and will probably be cheaper in the long run!

Either way, focus on your hyposalinity treatment/protocols. In particular, make sure you are using a refractometer to accurately measure the salinity, but also be mindful of swings in pH and use a pH buffer as necessary. I would not use copper in conjunction with hyposalinity as this is contraindicated (that is copper can be more toxic!). Hypo should work, but you need to give it time and pay a lot of attention to your water quality (ammonia/nitrite, as well at the pH and temp etc). Changing the water often will help manage water quality, but will also help, to a certain extent, reduce the number of infectious agents in the system.

Hope this helps.

 

[zemuron114]

Thanks! It says that cupramine wont hurt the biofilter? It isn't hypo hypo just about 1.014 and it is a low dose of copper (because i knew it would be more toxic)

so far my female crosshatch is doing great. No signs anymore. I just added a hawaiian cleaner wrasse to the goldenback it went straight to work on the ich!

ill see what happens in a few days!

thanks for the help

 

[Rondelet]

I guess I should backtrack a little. You're correct in that copper or hyposalinity is not toxic to your biofilter per se. Although, at the right concentration and under the right conditions copper sulfate can be bactericidal. What I was getting at was that a big change in your water chemistry through the reduction of salt content with the added copper may alter the composition of the bacterial population in your filter. While the bacteria population will adjust, you may see a temporary ammonia/nitrite spike as a result. However, sounds like you're getting on top of the problem.

 

[zemuron114]

Thank you very much for the help.

I get free water at the waikiki aquarium. NSW that is filtered and then they offer it to members, and i can take as much as i want! or as much that will fit in my car.. lol

I do water changes frequently. Why not, i have the water. I add freshwater to bring the salinity down and i try to keep the waterthe same salinity when i change it because an increase in salinity is much worse then a fast decrease. Im probably going to do a BIG water change on monday (probably 100%) and re-add some more copper if i can get it.

Hopefully that will help as well and take care of any nitrate/ammonia problems as well.

thanks again

 

[MickyB]

Glad it got alot better forr the 2 triggers.
Hey you better not lose that goldenback.
Ick has always been in my system on and off in a very small amount . But have never lost a fish to it. Cleaners will help and adding garlic in the food really does work. Never had a fish covered and not eating because of ick. After alot of reading about ick seems like the only ways to really eliminate it is hypo all the fish. Have seen UV keep it in check also. In your case when you have no fish in the system you can empty out all the the water, clean up the entire system with bleach or something. Then add all new water from waikiki Aquarium then add a UV system to prevent this from happening again.