chloroquine phosphate (ICK SHIELD) in reef display

[Grnorton]

ok so I'm currently treating my display tank with ick shield. it is technically just fish and live rock at the moment, but the plan is for it to be a reef tank once treatment is over and all the fish are healthy. I saw someone post that you can't add coral after treatment for a long time. My plan is to do a 40% wc every week for 3 weeks. as well as turning back on my skimmer, running all my reef lights and turning back on my uv. should i be able to add coral after the 3 week mark? anyone have experience? there is sand in the tank as well i forgot to mention that.

 

[GTR]

If there's any medications remaining when you turn the UV on you'll know it. The water will turn brown/yellow. lol

 

[mattcoug]

The water never turned brown in my experience so it isn't a reliable indication -

40% water change 3 time, is only a 78% water change - leaving 22% behind. I would push that 40% up if you can. You can also run carbon to clean it out. When algae starts growing in your tank again, it would be relatively safe to assume you can try with your first coral.

I would not dump all you coral back in at once. - Test with a cheap frag first. It takes ~ 1 week to see the coral die, so give the test time.

 

[Grnorton]

so 3 50% water changes? run carbon. do phosphate removers like phosban help as well since its technically a phosphate ?

 

[snorvich]

Treating a display tank with CP has had mixed results at best.

 

[Grnorton]

When you say mixed results are you meaning at disease eradication or being able to reintroduce corals

 

[snorvich]

When you say mixed results are you meaning at disease eradication or being able to reintroduce corals

Disease eradication.

 

[ThRoewer]

Treatment should always be done under controlled conditions in a clean hospital tank.
Doing it in a display tank with life rock can have all kinds of unwanted side effects. On of them would be that certain bacteria may be able to render CP ineffective.
The other issue is that many who tried it in the display tank reported heavy losses during the there required treatment time of 4 to 6 weeks.
When treating in a hospital tank you may get away with 2 weeks if you do a transfer before into the clean HT and after treatment into a clean holding tank.

 

[FishN00b83]

Treating a display tank with CP has had mixed results at best.

mixed results its being optimistic

When you say mixed results are you meaning at disease eradication or being able to reintroduce corals

If you are reading the threads on here about CP in the display I suggest you read the entire thing. I know their is a thread here that two people try it at the same time. One turned into a disaster and the other seemed to be going well until the last page where he says all his fish died. I did the same research on here over the past week and didnt find one case where someone dosed the DT with CP and had everything live.

This is why I decided to go the hypo route and not add any chemicals to the tank. If I had the QT tanks to hold tangs for the 72 day fallow peroid I would of definitely done so, but I just dont have the room for that size of a tank right now.

 

[Dmorty217]

mixed results its being optimistic



If you are reading the threads on here about CP in the display I suggest you read the entire thing. I know their is a thread here that two people try it at the same time. One turned into a disaster and the other seemed to be going well until the last page where he says all his fish died. I did the same research on here over the past week and didnt find one case where someone dosed the DT with CP and had everything live.

This is why I decided to go the hypo route and not add any chemicals to the tank. If I had the QT tanks to hold tangs for the 72 day fallow peroid I would of definitely done so, but I just dont have the room for that size of a tank right now.

I'm one of the ones who lost everything but am still using CP and have several times with good results. TTM is best with a single of a few fish but you start doing 10 or more fish it's not as easy. Cupramine is toxic to fish without a doubt and I don't like using it. Hypo doesn't work from my experiences with it so I stick with CP unless I'm able to use TTM

 

[snorvich]

Just remember that CP may or may not be effective with ich (whereas it is the treatment of choice for velvet) even in a controlled environment. As Dmorty217 says above, there sometimes is no other choice. Still TTM is preferred if doable.

 

[ThRoewer]

I feel the mixed results com from the fact that some use bacterial starters for their displays or QTs. Those bacteria starters are under suspicion to contain certain bacteria strains that may degrade CP into an ineffective form (maybe just ineffective for Cryptocaryon).

You also run that risk when treating in a QT with water from an established tank or in a tank that was started with natural live rock. That's why I would use CP exclusively in a sterile QT and rather forgo feeding the fish for a few days. And as I mentioned before I would always combine it with 2 transfers like done in TTM to be able to cut the treatment short.