Have ICH looky here!!!!!

well i have now lost another of my most loved fish, He was one of my first fish that i purchased over 3 years old, now died due to ich.(lemon peel angel)

I am trying to remove all fish from my aquiaram but they are so hard to catch, so far only court one powder blue tang!


I have made a trap out of an old sprite bottle, see if that works

anyone have any ideas?

thanks
 
Thanks Scott, I was getting tired of looking up Calfo's thread on unsportsman like ways to catch fish. :D
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13938529#post13938529 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by WaterKeeper
Thanks Scott, I was getting tired of looking up Calfo's thread on unsportsman like ways to catch fish. :D

well we could always suggest that they drain their tank right down to catch the fish;)
 
thanx sufunk
i am new my tank is a 3 month old and now i got and ich i think velvet my tomato clown and my blue tang r the most attcked and have in it mashroom and polyps i did not change the water i think it is the reason
why ......i changed today 20% of it the tomato is not eating and covered ....and hoope the change will help .......
any advice ??????
i can not QT ......
 
Hi Spicy
[welcome]

This doesn't sound good. First off, velvet and ich do not attack corals and other invertebrates. They are solely a fish diseases.

Changing the water is not a cure. You need to use one of the methods on the first page of this post and with velvet copper is the clear choice. However, you cannot place copper in the display or you will kill the invertebrates. You said you cannot QT but does that mean you cannot move the fish to some other container for treatment. If you can then you need to start the copper treatment ASAP. If it is just something like a bucket you can use an airstone for aeration and do a 30% water change every day to keep ammonia levels in check.

You sound like the case is very advanced. If you cannot treat it there is not much chance for survival unless they have that "natural immunity" Surfunk was talking about.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13950280#post13950280 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by WaterKeeper
Hi Spicy
<img src="/images/welcome.gif" width="500" height="62"><br><b><i><big><big>To Reef Central</b></i></big></big>

This doesn't sound good. First off, velvet and ich do not attack corals and other invertebrates. They are solely a fish diseases.

Changing the water is not a cure. You need to use one of the methods on the first page of this post and with velvet copper is the clear choice. However, you cannot place copper in the display or you will kill the invertebrates. You said you cannot QT but does that mean you cannot move the fish to some other container for treatment. If you can then you need to start the copper treatment ASAP. If it is just something like a bucket you can use an airstone for aeration and do a 30% water change every day to keep ammonia levels in check.

You sound like the case is very advanced. If you cannot treat it there is not much chance for survival unless they have that "natural immunity" Surfunk was talking about.

Does it make you feel better to twist my words and flat out make up things i never even said???? You edited out almost all of my comments and explanations so you and capt could be the gods of ich on RC so leave it at that.

You will NOT allow me to post in this thread as you made clear via PM since i disagree with you and capt. so STOP bringing up my name with your condescending little comments just because you disagree with me and want to retain your little power trip over this forum!;)
 
So frustrating to be posting in this thread, but I think that all my temp fluctuations stressed my fish enough and yesterday i noticed a small white spot or two on the blue tang. No abnormal behavior though. I'm interested in finding out more about using Metronidazole in the DT as it would be much easier to get the snails and crabs out than to QT the fish in a 20gal for 4-6 weeks! All I am finding are brief mentions to putting it in food, but as these protozoa are surface organisims, I don't see why treating the water won't be successful.

I don't mean to challenge anyone on the effectiveness of standard treatments, just trying to come up with a Tx that would be easier for me and I'm trying to use my veterinary brain to accomplish that. I have an old (1992) Tetra book on Fish Diseases and it has a doseof 250mg per 10gal for freshwater fishes and a dose of 3-6ppm for saltwater, but does not talk about using it for Cryptocaryon although it is a protozoan and should be susceptible.

Anyone have more info about in tank treatments that I haven't seen. I did read the links to treating Ich given in the first post, but still no details.
 
I'll do waterkeeper and capt's job for them,

You saw a spot or two of ich? You must IMMEDIATELY tear your display apart and get your fish into qt for copper or hypo or EVERY single one of them will die guaranteed! :rolleyes:
 
Hey! Leave me out of this and GROW UP!
Water Keeper is a backbone of this site and offers his extensive knowledge for everyone else's benefit. I, at least, respect his professional opinion and think this is no place for unjustified catfights.
 
Flagyl is used mainly to treat anaerobic bacterial infections. Its use as an antiprotozoan is a secondary benefit. There is not a lot of info about how effective it is against ich but it probably might have benefits as it seems to work on human protozoa. The problem is that it will also kill anaerobes and that might cause problems if added into the display. They are usually beneficial in the LR and LS. It seems it is being used in fish farming but there is not a lot I can find on long term use and side effects on fish. Try posting over on the disease forum and see it they have more input as I never used it.

:lol:

WK wonders why he is explaining this to a vet. Fish Doc, want to join in? ;)
 
Well, it's not exactly the most common antibiotic and is pretty much resserved for GI situations, but I have used it for Giardia a fair amount. If no one here has much experience with it maybe I can do a little more looking into it and ask some of the parasitologists and pathologists at Purdue. Wouldn't it be nice to have a great, reef safe treatment for Ich?
 
I'm just going to respectfully disagree with one bit of info. I don't agree with the advice of raising the temp. While FW ich will speed its life cycle I have read that this is not true w/ crypto, or at least minimally so. I have not myself checked the validity of this but it came from reliable source so I believe it. Even if it did speed up crypto life cycle it is stressful for fish to change temp. With adding stress of copper or hypo I think the temp change is adding unneccasary stress.

I would generally reccomend stablizing fish if possible b4 catching them and QT. I think that everyone has to judge that on an individual basis. JMHO :)
 
I think you are partly correct. It is possible to treat Ichthyophthirius, FW ich, by raising temperature but not Cryptocaryon. Increasing temperature does speed up the lifecycle and, thereby, hastens the quarantine period for SW fish infected with ich.

News from the Warfront with Cryptocaryon irritans
Part Four of Five
byTerry Bartelme, Advanced Aquarist, Feb 2004:

Raising the water temperature to a lesser degree has also been suggested as a means of speeding up the life cycle of Cryptocaryon irritans. While it is true that the life cycle of this parasite is temperature dependant, speeding up the life cycle may not be helpful to the fish. Raising the temperature can change the blood pH causing further stress to fish already weakened by disease (Bartelme, 2000a. McDonald & Milligan, 1992). If the water temperature was not too low to begin with, then it may be better not to adjust this parameter. If the temperature is adjusted, any change should be small and take place slowly.

This may be the statement you are talking about but when I mention raising temperature I only mean by a couple of degrees. Say from 80°F to 82°F. That fits the above author's criteria for gradual change while insuring the life cycle completes in a 4 week period. Hobbyist, especially new ones, get impatient and often cut short the quarantine period. Raising the temperature a few degrees just helps shorten the process. Many reefkeepers, especially in Asia, routinely keep tanks in the 82-84° range without ill effects so I am not too worried that it will be harmful here.
 
well, WK
that reference is certainly newer than the research I was looking at. It came from a researcher whose actual acedemic work with crypto was back in the 70s. It is posted in another forum and in general I try not to cross link to other forums as that can be a touchy subject. I think even at 82 degrees I wouldn't be confident that it had gone through its life stages after 4 weeks as I was under the impression 6 weeks was the point that 95% of the time the lifecycle was complete. I think 6 weeks is safer but I'm a worrier ;)
 
What about the invertabrate safe ich treatments? I found some this morning on DRfoster.

My CB is starting to get a few spots on it's head. I guess almost freezing to death is a bit stressful
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13960029#post13960029 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jenglish
I think 6 weeks is safer but I'm a worrier ;)

But you also know what you are doing and that helps. You move around the NTTH forum enough that you probably have figured out that our readers are not always that patient. That is why I try to make isolation techniques as short as possible.

The reason I picked Bartelme's article is it pretty much mirrors your concerns on the temperature question. I've always wondered about alkalosis in fish being caused by temperature changes. Many fish move to different levels on the reef routinely, often to areas of fairly high temperatures. It doesn't seem to cause problems albeit the transition is usually short term.
 
Hi Jason,

Another ice storm incident; do you have power back yet?

There are several available but in general they either don't work or are not reef safe. That is why gwenvet and I were discussing the use of metronidazole as a tank safe treatment. There is some literature that indicates that ich may have higher infection rates at lower temps than it does at normal reef temperatures. Have you had the fish for long and have you had ich problems in the past?
 
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