I feel like a monster

[Ooulophilia]

The first thing that you said that raised red flags for me was that you put copper into an established tank with live sand and live rock. The copper is going to kill of a large percentage of the organisms in the rock and sand and potentially case a fairly nasty spike.

Ideally one should have a sterile hospital tank for treating with medication/hypo, then an established QT tank with live rock/sand and parameters matching ones main display (at least IMO).

 

[LisaD]

for a puffer, 1.008 should be okay, but watch water quality really closely. a stressed fish may not recover, so minimize stress by keeping water as pristine as possible. are you sure it's ich and not velvet? if velvet, hypo will not help.

be careful in your reading, some people call Oodinium (aka velvet) marine ich. IMO this is much worse than another parasitic disease called ich, Cryptocaryon.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Velvet can consume a fish (especially a scaleless one) & kill within a week.

 

[rssjsb]

Update: He's better, I think. Still scratching, but the cysts are almost gone. Here's hoping that the hyposalinity/UV combo is enough to interrupt the cycle and kill the swimmers and that they don't come back.

He's not eating as well as he was when I first got him, but he is eating enough that he's not getting skinny. He's also started coming out to greet me in the mornings again, looking for food, and is generally swimming around more.

I'm as sure as I can be that it's ich. He looks like someone sprinkled salt on him. No labored breathing, no "dusty" appearance. Frankly, from what I've read, I don't think he would have lasted this long if it was velvet, since it's been well over two weeks since he first showed symptoms.

Ooulophilia - I'm certain that I caused a large spike when I removed the sand bed. That was the reason for the title of this thread - I thought for sure I had killed him. So far, he's a tough little thing.

Fingers still crossed.

Thanks for all the help, guys.

 

[Zestay]

Re: I feel like a monster

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13489491#post13489491 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rssjsb
I bought a little dog-face puffer three weeks ago. He showed signs of ick in QT (a very well cycled 20 gallon tank with sand and liverock), so I asked for advice at a trusted LFS. T

first problem

trusted LFS

 

[rssjsb]

Yeah, I was waiting for someone to say that.

I only asked him because there was a conflict in the information I was getting. He's been doing this for a long time, and, to his credit, he acknowledged that others might disagree with him. If it hadn't been for the fact that his advice seemed to agree with Bob Fenner, I might have disregarded it.