"ICH FREE TANK" Quest Begins

[Triggerfish]

good to hear you are back into the hobby...sorry to hear what has greated you...

pretty amazing you went through the whole thread..i am in basic agreement with your brief summary regarding hypo.

copper has it's own monitoring issues as well,,,specifically the varying levels that can result over the 1st 7-10 days of treatment until it stabalizes.
you will need to monitor minimally 2x/day to ensure it remains at least at the minimal level. I would probably look to keep a bit higher.
Regardless, i think i just have a bit more overall confidence with copper than hypo.

good luck....

 

[guitarfish]

Welcome markrovner!

For hypo, I'll say this: I don't think it's that hard. Once I get my QT to 1.009, I do it so there's always about 1/2 - 3/4" left at the top to add more water. The purpose for this is that if for any reason the SG creeps up, I always have space to add more water. My QT evaps at a pretty even rate, I have it so I need to add about 3 cups of water every 2 days. I've done hypo successfully about 4 times in the past.

I did Cupramine once, also successfully, but I found I couldn't really be sure of the colors on the test kit, it was as "spot on" (no pun intended!) as a refractometer measuring SG. Also, I almost killed my yellow tang using Cupramine. Some fish are more sensitive to copper than others, and tangs don't particularly like it. It is a toxin after all.

In any case, GO FOR IT! I hope it works well for you!

 

[Triggerfish]

less evap in cooler season may keep levels more constant.

 

[markrovner]

Thanks! I did manage to figure out (I think) after an afternoon realizing I have forgotten basic algebra, that 7 parts RO water and 3 parts water at 1.030 produces exactly 1.009. The salinity calculator post was critical, though it needs to all be in ppt to work (some of the fields say you can use ppt or sg).

For lurkers, the calculator is at: http://www.saltyzoo.com/SaltyCalcs/SalinityAdjust.php

 

[markrovner]

OK this is really embarrassing.

I am starting to be skeptical about my diagnosis. The main "patient" is an adorable little clown goby that lives in a corraline encrusted coral skeleton, and shows up every morning with a different array of white dots -- look like grains of salt -- on his body and fins. Today the royal gramma emerged from the same skeleton with a few dots of his own.

But now, several hours later, both fish are largely dot-free. the only other fish in the tank is an ocellaris that has shown no symptoms, and goes nowhere near the gramma/goby den.

I am beginning to suspect -- and here I am resorting to Yiddish in the absence of better clinical nomenclature -- that what I am really dealing with is morning shmutz -- crud from the coral skeleton that comes off over the course of the day.

Is that possible? The dots on the gramma that were there this morning are for sure gone now...

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and advice.

 

[guitarfish]

Generally speaking, an ich spot is going to be in the same place for several days, becoming larger until it falls off. If you're seeing different spots in different places each day, and they are disappearing within hours, that's not ich.

There are times when I see spots on fish and I can't tell if it's really ich or not. Sometimes it turns out to be just a tiny piece of sand, and it's gone in a little while.

Hope this helps.

 

[markrovner]

Yeah -- the getting bigger part does not sound familiar. I am becoming increasingly attached to the shmutz theory -- hope it's not wishful thinking...

 

[jimmyj7090]

Good for you for reading this whole thread, I'm not that patient. Also WELCOME!

If you have micro bubble issues they can sometimes mock ick spots, but they don't stay consistent. (Wouldn't it be a releif to realize your ick was just bubbles).

As far as hypo treatment (Am I the only one reporting success, albeit after only 13 days?) it isn't all that hard to maintain, I don't take days off from work. The effort part is more about setting up an extra hospital tank, feeding and checking it daily(5 min).

For me, I had enough spare parts and what not that I was able to set up a 75G with a good skimmer, sump, MH light (Not turned on often, but great for examination) exct without spending a $.

Maintence is simply checking the SG checking the condition of the fish, daily.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but, copper levels need to be tested daily at the least. If so, that's a lot more work than checking SG (with a refractometer). Hypo takes longer but it's really a patience thing more than a lots of work thing.

Best of luck whatever you do

jk

 

[guitarfish]

How can you have success with hypo in 13 days??

 

[kimoyo]

Actually, I'm wondering about this also. If ich can't survive hypo in its free-swimming stage then why couldn't you put your fish in hypo in a quaratine tank for 8 days and then take them out? If ich only stays in its trophont stage (attached to a fish) for 3-7 days then it should have dropped off the fish by then and couldn't reattach to the fish because of the hypo, correct?

Also does hypo/copper kill tomonts (when the ich encysts)?

 

[jimmyj7090]

"How can you have success with hypo in 13 days??"

I should have elaborated, I meant the fish have been back in the display for 13 days, treatment was 7 weeks plus about a month of transition and observation before and after.

 

[guitarfish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6228532#post6228532 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jimmyj7090
"How can you have success with hypo in 13 days??"

I should have elaborated, I meant the fish have been back in the display for 13 days, treatment was 7 weeks plus about a month of transition and observation before and after.

Ahhh, gotcha. That makes sense.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6227967#post6227967 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by kimoyo
Actually, I'm wondering about this also. If ich can't survive hypo in its free-swimming stage then why couldn't you put your fish in hypo in a quaratine tank for 8 days and then take them out? If ich only stays in its trophont stage (attached to a fish) for 3-7 days then it should have dropped off the fish by then and couldn't reattach to the fish because of the hypo, correct?

I believe it's when the cysts rupture and all the little invaders come out by the hundreds that hypo does its lethal work. When the cyst falls off the fish, it's not affected by hypo.

 

[kimoyo]

Right, so why do the fish need to stay in the QT for so long? All the ich fall of the fish in 3-7 days. And the hypo/copper kills the ich when the cysts rupture before they can infect the fish again. So shouldn't we be able to take the fish out of quarantine after 8 days? Am I missing something?

 

[guitarfish]

There's a few issues.

One, we don't know if all the ich in the tank is on the same schedule, so to speak. In other words, while you may see spots on day 8, for example, and they fall off 6 days later, there could be ich at other stages in the tank that aren't visible yet.

Two, we don't know if the hypo killed every single parasite in the tank. By waiting, you can observe the fish and be sure it's clean.

I'll give you an example. I brought a fish home, put in QT, left there for a week, until it started eating and was happy in his new surroundings. Then dropped to hypo. About a week into hypo, a spot developed. A week later the spot is gone. I thought to myself, "Great, this guy is clean now. He just has to ride out hypo for a few weeks and he's done." NOT. A few days later and he had 20+ spots on him! This second round of ich is at a different stage then the spot I saw earlier. He's gonna be in there a while yet.

 

[guyguerra]

markrovner, you've brought up some good stuff in your posts. These last two pages have had a lot of info.
Here is part of an article by Terry Bartelme in Advanced Aquarist's from Jan 2004, which would support shorter hypo treatments, but I think most of us have experienced longer treatment times to be required. At least I did. Three weeks just never worked for me, but as I said earlier, I have little confidence in hypo. As a contrast though, Jimmy had great success with it. Cupramine worked well for me in my most recent treatment, and I'm very happy that the treated group has been in the display for over a week and all looks well. You could try the transfer method, which would shorten the time required, but is tough to do without stressing the fish, IMO and IME. I'll see if I can post a poll to question the success of hypo verses copper.

Treatment should continue for a minimum of three weeks after a therapeutic salinity level has been reached. Unlike most other forms of treatment for cryptocaryonosis, hyposalinity does not target the "free-swimming" or theront stage. Hyposalinity therapy works by interrupting the life cycle at the tomont stage. Tomonts are destroyed by hyposaline conditions, thus preventing re-infection.

Here is a link to the magazine. There a 5 installments of this series, starting in November of 2003. http://www.advancedaquarist.com/index/ .
I believe the effort type of treatment required is about the same. Hypo needs to be checked daily for the entire treatment time, but the test is simple. Copper (I like Cupramine) also requires a daily test, but once the levels stabilize, you can reduce testing to every other day, but the test is a little more work. I've used Cupramine 3 times, and the first time I also had trouble reading the color scale. There were times when I would swear the color I had just wasn't on their scale at all! They include a reference water vile, and after using this several times I got used to what the color should look like, then it was a breeze. Seachem also sent me, free of charge, a larger sample water bottle. They are a great company to work with.
I've also had fish that showed spots, then later in the day they were gone, which turned out to be sand or stuff off rock.

 

[guitarfish]

In agreement with Guy's post above, I checked ATJ's Hyposalinity Treatment page, and he says "The low salinity causes the most of the tomonts to rupture, killing them."

 

[Triggerfish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6225243#post6225243 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by guitarfish
Generally speaking, an ich spot is going to be in the same place for several days, becoming larger until it falls off. If you're seeing different spots in different places each day, and they are disappearing within hours, that's not ich.

i have noticed certain spots on my fish that seem to disappear rather quickly,,few hours.. i am under the impression that the spots you see(hosts reaction to parasite) can diminish rather quickly as the lifecycle progresses.
i could have a fish loaded in a the am and then 8 hours later 80% of those spots are basically not visible any longer.

 

[guitarfish]

The time on the fish (trophont stage) is 3-7 days.

 

[Triggerfish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6227159#post6227159 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jimmyj7090
Hypo takes longer but it's really a patience thing more than a lots of work thing.

the thing with hypo i think is that it could take numerous cycles to fully eradicate the parasite. so how much longer could we be talking about here?

 

[guitarfish]

Honestly, I've never had an issue with having to go longer. Some here have had multiple "cycles", not sure why. Monitoring the SG is obviously big. Of course, I'll know in a few weeks if my current treatment succeeds. Both copper and hypo are regarded as 100% effective at killing the little creeps.