check my plan please (Ich in 220 reef)

[desjardinii]

For myself the easiest and least stressful solution was going to be treating the fish in the dt after removing everything else. I only have LR, soft corals and inverts which wouldn't have been too much trouble to house in a big tub for 3 months. On a lighter note I've seen several Hermits and other crabs, which I never knew existed, venture out into the open now they know there's no fish around. I haven't added any rock or inverts for years!

 

[scooter31707]

Your best bet than is hyposalinity for the DT that was mention above by Roewer. Do you have any corals? Take all inverts out and bring salinity down slowly to 1.009 and let it stay there for a month and gradually bring it back up as Roewer mentioned.

 

[downset21]

Hospital tank 55gal being set up asap


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[downset21]

Hyposalinity is the plan... anything else I should do?


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[lagatbezan]

you will definitely need an auto top off system if going with hyposilinity. you need to make sure there is no change AT ALL to the SG level or you will have to restart the whole process over again.
I personally had very poor luck with hypo, copper and the wait and see approach. TTM is much easier and less prone to errors and mistakes.
Also get an ammonia badge and keep an eye on it since you are going to be removing all live rocks and sand and might get a spike.

 

[downset21]

Would you do ttm with over 20 fish? I'm just not sure I have the resources to do so


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[lagatbezan]

Oh man thats a lot of fish. what are they and how big? you might have to do two separate TTM at the same time maybe with 20g tanks but thats dependent on the type and size of your fish.
If your only option is to do treat in the DT then I would personally do copper instead of hypo just because the margin of error is less then hypo. Thats just my opinion from personal experiences.

 

[cknreef]

Whatever you end up doing, best of luck to you and your livestock! Godspeed


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[ThRoewer]

Actually, the salinity swings from evaporation will be rather small at 1.009. You would have 3 times the evaporation volume to get a 0.001 change compared to 1.025.
Covering the tank and marking the level is usually enough.
Also, the therapeutic range is between 1.008 and 1.011 - a rather large range. Checking the salinity with a refractometer is easy and quick, so it is no problem to check often until you get a feel for it. Only make sure that the refractometer is calibrated to 0.000 with distilled water.

Copper levels are much more finicky to maintain since the rocks, sand and even the calcium in the water will bind it. So, the therapeutic range is less easy to maintain and requires at least 2 measurements a day.

I have so far not found a single teleost fish that reacted negatively to hyposalinity, my barnacle blennies even continue spawning.

The only thing to watch out for are bacterial blooms or infections as the lower salinity doesn't inhibit bacteria as much as full salinity.

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[downset21]

Hypo it is... thanks folks


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[downset21]

setting up a ATO with the quarantine tank. how often do you do waterchanges during hypo? weekly? as needed?

 

[downset21]

Whatever you end up doing, best of luck to you and your livestock! Godspeed


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Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

 

[microlady]

If I were you, I'd wait a bit before I tore down the entire system. Some fish can beat ich and develop immunity. If you aren't experiencing heavy losses then I'd slow down. Don't add anything new for several months. You stress them more by moving them to an inappropriately setup or uncycled quarantine tank. If it is spreading quickly and they stop eating, begin breathing rapidly, or begin hiding, then by all means proceed. I've encountered this parasite many times in the past couple of decades and it could go either way. Good luck!

 

[ThRoewer]

setting up a ATO with the quarantine tank. how often do you do waterchanges during hypo? weekly? as needed?

Depends on the fish load and other treatments done at the same time.
With hyposalinity alone I usually do water changes every week or every other week.
If I also treat with antibiotics I follow the water change recommendations of the used antibiotic.

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[ThRoewer]

BTW: I would not use an ATO - covering the tank and manual refills are safer.
If you accidentally get below 1.008 you may have losses.

My target salinity is always 1.009

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[downset21]

day two of trying to catch the fish has been unsuccessful. I have a hypo tank ready and a fish trap baited. The angels are getting closer.

I wanted to report a development that I'm very wary about. It would appear that the three fish that had spots (Kole Tang, Swallowtail Angels), are not showing symptoms. The female angel might have a small spot on a pectoral fin but without a doubt, the spots have subsided. I understand that ich should still be in the tank, (I am 90% certain I diagnosed this correctly.) I plan on moving forward with catching them and acclimating them to the hypo tank but I wanted to report this to get some feedback from you guys.

I also want to add that your feedback is very much appreciated and it has at the very least forced me to think outside the box and set up a quarantine station. I even went as far as to install a utility sink in my cellar to hook up to an ro/di system. I have all of you and my sick fish to thank for that!

 

[ThRoewer]

I just had to start treating my Jawfish biotope tank and there was no way that I would catch the fish and put them through the hassle of TTM (very stressful for jawfish and a really bad idea with BSJ) or chemical treatment. So I just collected the handful of hermits and snails out, siphoned out roughly 70% of the water and added as much RO water as needed to get the salinity down to 1.010. There was no noticeable bacteria die-off.
Four days in now and they seem to have largely cleared up. The only loss was a Nicaraguan Ekemblemaria myersi - likely due to the low temperature and not due to the salinity drop (they survived a previous treatment fine).

The benefit of hyposalinity (below 15 "°) in the DT is that it also kills the cysts within 48h, so 2 weeks of treatment are fully sufficient to clear the fish and the tank from Cryptocaryon.

Reference: Aspects of the biology of Cryptocaryon irritans, and hyposalinity as gilt-head sea bream Sparus aurata

The only obstacle to DT treatments would be corals and other inverts that can't be removed.