Hyposalinity not curing my ich, Help!!!

[jstlsn]

My clownfish and yellow watchman goby have been in the QT tank with a SG of 1.009 for 51 days now and the clownfish had multiple white bumps on him again yesterday. The SG is measured with a refractometer that has been properly calibrated. I don't know what else to do. Am I doing something wrong? Should I raise the SG back up and try to treat with copper?

Thanks
Brad

 

[amike5]

You may need to verify that what your clown has is really ich. There are also fungus and bacterial problems that you may be confusing with ich.

 

[frederickk]

Can you post a pic of him?

 

[jstlsn]

I wish I could. I have been trying to take a picture of him, but I don't think my camera is good enough. They all come out blurry. I will see if I can get my friend with a better camera to come by.

What else could white spots be besides ich?

Thanks
Brad

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9942275#post9942275 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by frederickk
Can you post a pic of him?

 

[pledosophy]

I would enrich food with garlic and beta glucan.

How much flow in the tank?

IME if it was bactrial or fungal the fish would be dead by now, although I do have very limited experience with fungal infections in fish.

 

[amike5]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9943239#post9943239 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pledosophy
IME if it was bactrial or fungal the fish would be dead by now, although I do have very limited experience with fungal infections in fish.

I had a clown with a bacterial infection that I thought had ich for a longer period than this. Though he eventually got near death when I decided to try antibiotics, he made it through and has been healthier in the last 4 months than he was the first 2 months I had him.

 

[FutureInterest]

clowns very often get lil white bumps that look like ich when they get stressed out. i've rescued my clowns from the sump and every time they have lil white bumps on them that fade away and no I don't have ich in the tank.

 

[GreenSarco]

I don't think you have ich. You're probably stressing him out with such a low S.G. If had ich, it would be all over his body. Clowns are pretty tough and can usually fight it off pretty well.

 

[Icefire]

Use Macro mode on the camera (flower like drawing)

 

[TriniStylez]

I recently thought my new Stars and Stripes Puffer had ich and put him in hypo for about 6 weeks with no results...turns out it was not ich at all. He had Lymphocystus "Cauliflower disease", a viral infection that usually clears up on its own over time. It looks like ich but the spots are usually a little bigger and often end up growing into "cotton" like growths I think. As soon as I realized that it was not ich, I raised the SG and in about 4 days it was mostly gone and after a week it was all gone.

What happened in my case was, I brought him home from the store and he got stressed. He got even more stressed from being in QT where I had some PH problems. Basically a combination of stress and poor water quality in his QT cause the disease and as soon as he was put into the main display tank with great water quality he was fine.

Anyways, hope that helps. You should look into it anyways.

 

[wayne in norway]

I can believe it was ich. I saw a strain on a Cirrhilabrid last summer that would disappear when the salinity was down at 1.009, 1.010 and would start to reappear whenever I started to raise the salinity, and yes, I know what ich looks like. That wrasse was in QT for about 4 months eventually.
I used copper. That sorted it out,as always, and as I don't think clowns and gobies are copper sensitive, maybe you could use that.

 

[jstlsn]

Ok, here is the best picture I could get with my camera on macro mode. Any thoughts?

Thanks
Brad

 

[jstlsn]

bump

 

[Brenden]

Looks like ich but there is no way ich could last 51 days in 1.009 unless you are not keeping salinity low enough. Are you keeping your PH up? Check this out. http://ich.willbedefeated.com/

 

[wayne in norway]

Except there are low salinity strains of ich.

One or two dots aren't much to worry about necessarily. Try raising the SG - when I did that I found the ich would start to appear a lot more. What's on that photo is not necessarily ich to me.

 

[Icefire]

I can barrely see them.

Is there only 2 spot? always in the same place?
is he eating well?

 

[jeffbrig]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9982823#post9982823 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wayne in norway
Except there are low salinity strains of ich.

Exactly!! I've used hypo multiple times successfully, but recently I encountered what I believe to be a hypo-resistant strain. After 4 weeks of hypo (1.009) in QT, I was still seeing fresh breakouts on my achilles tang and pbt.

So, I switched gears raised the salinity, and added cupramine a few weeks ago. Over the next few days the spots dropped off the fish, and I haven't seen any new eruptions since. That's going on 2 weeks now.

For me, this pretty well confirms the existence of hypo-resistant strains of ich.

 

[Brenden]

I have never seen "hypo-resistant" ich but I guess there is a first for everything. I have also not had to treat for ich in over 2 years.