"ICH FREE TANK" Quest Begins

[guyguerra]

Brian, your results are the type I have consistently heard. I'll find out and post it. If I would have heard this from anyone else I wouldn't have brought it up, but as I said, these guy's know their business. I'm fortunate to have a shop this good so close to my house. (six blocks away). Wait a minute, if they were farther maybe I wouldn't stop by so often, maybe it's too tempting to buy more when I have to pass their store every day! hum........

 

[Triggerfish]

guy..awesome tank pics..love the torch..darn,,i miss mine.
good luck with the gorg..should be a challenge.

 

[pecan2phat]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6587833#post6587833 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by guyguerra
Brian, your results are the type I have consistently heard. I'll find out and post it. If I would have heard this from anyone else I wouldn't have brought it up, but as I said, these guy's know their business. I'm fortunate to have a shop this good so close to my house. (six blocks away). Wait a minute, if they were farther maybe I wouldn't stop by so often, maybe it's too tempting to buy more when I have to pass their store every day! hum........

It's probably the product that's labeled "Bacteria".

I have a bottle but haven't had the occasion to try it yet.

Since I latched onto guyguerra's post mentioning NSF, maybe I won't be scolded and dipped into hot oil this time

 

[BrianBell1974]

I still have quite a lot of the NSF ich left in the bottle I wonder if I should try it again. I really do not want to turn the skimmer off for that long again.
I may give it a shot and run my skimmer a few hours after feeding and see what happens

 

[Triggerfish]

anyone yet been able to discover what's actually in that tiny bottle?

 

[guitarfish]

Another one bites the dust

Another one bites the dust

Well folks, I just can't win for losing. My coral beauty died. She was doing so good, I know my Cupramine wasn't too high. I reach in with a net to pull her out this morning and, hey this water is pretty warm. 88 degrees.

THANK YOU EBO JAGER

Heater stuck, cooked the fish. Sometimes I don't think I'll ever get new fish in my display. I don't know what I'm going to do right now. I need some time to think. Quite unhappy.

 

[Triggerfish]

that blows, how long was it at that temp? unless the fish was stressed to begin with, i wouldn't think it would die quickly

... i had similliar situation with 2 pers and anemone
tank was at 100..small 10g. they survived.

 

[guitarfish]

I don't know how long it was like that. I don't look at the thermometer as often as I should, I suppose. Unbelievable.

 

[xvinnyax]

Well I posted a few months ago about a certain stop parasite formula that I had gotten and said that I thought it worked... Well it didn't. I have since bought a big 30 gal tank and bought some pvc pipe for an artificial reef so my fish can play sick for 2 months while I let my tank go fallow.

I learned the hard way. But Hopefully am a little smarter now and I will use a sick tank for new fish. I think I got the parasites from a piece of coral I bought which was in a tank with fish. I didn't think it would come over with the coral, but I was wrong....

I am going to have to buy a little mini lamp for a shallow 10 gal to let new corals sit.

We live, we learn.

 

[guyguerra]

My tank will always be living proof that a QT is invaluable and that there are no short cuts. I mentioned in an earlier thread that the batch of fish that were in my QT right now were looking good with exception of some Lymphocystis on a coral beauty. Well, I scraped the Lymphocystis off and though they were getting ready to make it to the big tank. This morning I checked and thought that the coral beauty had some spots that looked different than before, more like ich. I had one of the guy's at the LFS stop by to see if he agreed, and he felt the same as I did, so I added Cupramine today and will see how they look in a few weeks. It is hard to maintain an Ich free tank, but it is possible. You just have to own and observe a fish for more than 6 weeks before you put it in your display, no exceptions.

 

[guyguerra]

Guitarfaish, I haven't posted for a while, so didn't see your recent post till I did the one above. Sorry to hear about your trouble. It also makes me wonder about the overall acclimation of coral beauties. I don't have much info to go on, so I'm just wondering aloud here, but I lost my first coral beauty in the QT process three months ago, and this group of fish are as healthy as any you will find, except the CB. Now I have to put a cleaner wrasse that eats great, a jawfish that isn't too shy, and a beautiful Sailfin tang thru copper treatment all because the coral beauty is looking bad. I have avoided hippo tangs due to ich problems. I wonder if CB's will be the next on my list to avoid?

 

[guitarfish]

Guy, some people say avoid angels. To me, they're some of the most beautiful fish. My CB was doing great, then my heater got stuck and she cooked. After I shake this one off, I'll be at it again...

 

[jeffbrig]

Victory over ICH!!

Victory over ICH!!

I haven't touched this thread in a long time, but I wanted to share the outcome of my ICH FREE TANK quest.

Here's a quick recap.

9/22: Achilles tang and 2 perculas in QT (tang with mild ich breakout). Sg set to 1.009 with refractometer
9/26: Moved clowns into their own QT (one clown showing brook)
10/3: No more visible ich on the tang
11/7: Hypo complete (46 days total, 35+ since last visible spot). Started raising salinity by .001-.002 per day
11/14: Sg at 1.017, tang shows abdominal swelling. Listing and trouble with swim bladder function. Added epsom salts and antibiotic to the water.
11/17: Tang fully recovered. Swelling may have been kidney-related, caused by extended time in hypo.
11/20: Sg back to normal levels

For a handful of reasons (equipment headaches, holidays, other tank projects, etc.) the fish remained in their quarantine tanks at normal salinity an additional 2 months. No signs of ich developed, everyone seems perfectly healthy.

Last night, I finally moved everyone over to the display tank.

Wow, 4 months from purchase to being in the tank. I should be able to shave that almost in half for the next round of additions. Everyone wish me luck so we don't see a reappearance! But at this point in time, I fully believe that I've beaten Ich (knock on wood).

 

[Triggerfish]

great job jeff..sounds like you're good to go there. 4 months, that sure was a long while...that achilles is sweet...

my cb has been doing very well that i took in from a trade..very active, healthy looking fish..the ich never really took hold of him that badly. the fish spends most of the time within the rock structure,not really an open water fish at all...also doing well with hypo treatment.

 

[plaz]

Congratulations Jeff! They are looking good!!!

 

[guyguerra]

That's a nice looking tang! This morning the ich was much more noticeable. I added the second dose of Cupramine, and as usual, I had to use 4 times the dosage stated on the bottle, but the tank is at .5 now, so I will hope they all make it. We'll see in a couple of weeks. Of the four groups of fish I've added to my tank, three have had to go thru this, and I've only lost one so far. All the corals I added to the tank are doing fantastic. I had a tough day at work today, and coming home to see my display doing so well helped me appreciate the fun things in life.

 

[jimmyj7090]

gee, after all of these hypo not working stories I'm beginning to wonder why it worked for me?

All I know is my CBB has grown a lot, my PBT is a lot bluer, my clowns are getting obeast, and nobody has shown any spots since treatment. I guess I was lucky or something?????

jk

 

[jimmyj7090]

Duh, I just looked back more than 1/4 page.

I wish I had enough space to keep an Achilles, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who appears to have been successful.

Seems like an interesting topic to look into, why does hypo seem to work for some and fail for others.

I would guess possible reasons would include:

-vairaible strains of crypto (some may be more resistant to hypo than others)
-misidentification of the parasite
-infection by multiple parasites (think LFS tanks, could have crypto, amyloodinium, and or brookneylla in various stages of infection)
-inadequate control over treatment factors (not checking SG frequently enough or using an inaccurate instrument)
-what else?

Can anyone who hasn't had luck with standard hypo treatments cite any of the above as possible factors, or add other suggestions about possible shortcomings of hypo treatment?

could make for a useful seperate "sticky" thread?????

good luck to all
jk

 

[Triggerfish]

guy..the cupramine should take care of it..gl

jk-
possible reasons you cite are all valid given the fact that it is ich and ich only. oodinium kills quickly and is not treatable by hypo from what i have read. brook shouldn't look anything like ich so that wouldn't be confusing.

i believe the areas of issue with hypo treatment would be:
1. not measuring salinity accurately
2. not maintaining proper salinity continuously through treatment
(the proper min level seems to be debatable recently)
3. not maintaining treatment long enough(most likely from
unnoticed visible parasites remaining)
4. unknowingly adding parasite back in shortly after treatment
5. low salinity strain(not sure how likely this would be and is
last on the list of possible failure reasoning)

 

[jeffbrig]

Well, as a data point, here are some details on what I did:

Salinity was measured with refractometer, calibrated to .000 with fresh RO/DI measuring 0tds. Target salinity was .009, never went lower, never made it to .010 either. QTs spent 46 days at .009, at least 35 after the last ich spots disappeared. Either number is long enough to outlast the typical ich life cycle (28 days).

Also, the QTs were bare bottom, with only a few PVC fittings to provide cover. Lack of substrate/rock makes it harder for ich to reproduce. Tanks were siphoned of detritus every few days, which may help remove reproductive ich from the bottom. Temperature was maintained around 80, which keeps the life cycle from slowing. Water changes were salinity matched and buffered with washing soda to maintain pH near 8.0 in the QTs.