Ich

R

rinconmike

Member
I think I have another outbreak of ich. I had it back in June and used cupramine and thought it went away but was always concerned I did not have the levels high enough.

I noticed the white spots last night on my blue tang and tonight they are worse.

The other fish are:

Panther Grouper (4”-5”)
Snowflake Eel (15”)
Porcupine Puffer (5”-6”)s
Heniochus butterfly fish (4”-5”)

Tank is a 150 gallon with no live rock, rather, a sump with bioballs. I do have a chiller to maintain the temps.

Along with the sump, I have a nuclear modular filter. The LFS recommened to change every two months, but Nuclear says to change every 2 weeks since it is really only mechanical. So the only thing I did different this weekend was change the filter (it has been 2 months) and planned on doing it every 2 weeks now. I also changed out by BFS GFO and BFS Rox Carbon.

So not sure if this caused the ich to pop up.

All Fish seem fine and are eating.

So should I wait a few days or start cupramine treatment.

thanks,

Mike
 
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If it was me i would just check my parameters and if they are all good let it go away on its own. My blue tang seems to get it every time he gets a little stressed. I just feed him well and do a water change and its always gone within a few days. Im a firm believer as long as your parameters are good your fish should be able to beat it themselves without any meds. Just my opinion though.
 
If you don't have any inverts in the tank then it may be a good idea to hit it again with cupramine. Get a good quality test kit that will work for cupramine and dose accordingly. Maintain the copper level in the therapeutic range for approximately 4 weeks and you should be good to go. If you have sand in there that is calcareous, maintaining the copper at first can be a bit of a task, but after it's saturated it won't be hard.
 
In your tank with no live rock or inverts IMO you should try hyposalinity. It is much safer and less stressful on the fish. And in my experiences is much more effective than copper.... I recommend getting your salinity down to atleast 1.006 over a 72 hour period, maintain this for atleast 6-8 weeks, and if the fish show now signs of stress I would even lower it a couple more points.I would also recommend keeping your temperature 80-82 degrees as a higher temperature will speed up the life cycle of the ich..... I'm sure many people are going to see this post and say that I'm crazy, but I'm speaking from experience. I have done this on numerous occasions and I have never lost a fish and it has always taken care of the ich... just keep any eye on your ammonia and always have some Prime or Ammo-lock onhand just incase...... I know some people say that they tried hyposalinity and it didn't work but I guarantee that's only because they didn't get the salinty low enough..... I swear by hyposalinity!!!!
 
Wow, I have been keeping my salinity at 1.008 and still got ich, but never thought to go lower than 1.008.

What is the lowest you have gone?

TIA,
Ron

Jdbrine said:
In your tank with no live rock or inverts IMO you should try hyposalinity. It is much safer and less stressful on the fish. And in my experiences is much more effective than copper.... I recommend getting your salinity down to atleast 1.006 over a 72 hour period, maintain this for atleast 6-8 weeks, and if the fish show now signs of stress I would even lower it a couple more points.I would also recommend keeping your temperature 80-82 degrees as a higher temperature will speed up the life cycle of the ich..... I'm sure many people are going to see this post and say that I'm crazy, but I'm speaking from experience. I have done this on numerous occasions and I have never lost a fish and it has always taken care of the ich... just keep any eye on your ammonia and always have some Prime or Ammo-lock onhand just incase...... I know some people say that they tried hyposalinity and it didn't work but I guarantee that's only because they didn't get the salinty low enough..... I swear by hyposalinity!!!!
Click to expand...
 
I have got mine extremely low.... around 1.000....... many people will tell you that that's too low, but like I said before I have NEVER lost a single fish while administering hyposalinity. And it has taken care of the ich every single time...... if you need any more detailed information on this feel free to contact me.....
 
thanks for the comments. Today the white spots are gone. From what I read, that does not mean the ich is gone, just a different stage.

So far no other fish show signs and the tang seems normal.

I still might do cupramine in a couple weeks when I have time to test it every day.

Could the white spots be something other than ich?
 
The common lifecycle of Ich is about 7 days long and goes from living in the substrate to attaching to the fish. Once attached to the fish its host reacts to the parasite by growing a calcium based cyst around the parasite. While attached the parasite progresses to a spore like state and burst off the side of the host and back into the substrate/water column. All this was read off the internet when I had a bad outbreak, it was also said that the higher water temp and lower salinity speeds up the life cycle to as low as 3-4 days. So effectively if they cannot latch onto a host in the 3-4 days then it will most likely die. Again I'm not any kind of Ich expert I just researched a little bit on the great old internet.
 
The white dots disappeared earlier this week. Right now there is some white, but it looks more like stuff floating around the water clinging than anything else. I do have a lot of messy eaters and when I did the water change last weekend, I did not clean the sand. Some of the stuff floating around looks like copods.

All the fish seem their normal selves and the hippo tang too. no cloudy eyes, not heavy breathing, no flashing.

I head out of town Tuesday for 10 days and do not want to start any treatment now unless it is urgent (and leave it to the wife to deal with).

Any comments on staying the course with no treatment now?

I will do another water change tomorrow as well as clean the sand.
 
Great!!!.... glad to hear it!!!.... the spots that are still showing on the fish are parasites that were already attached. Once these fall off and are not protected by living on the fish anymore the change in pressure from your hyposalinity salinity will cause the parasite to explode... just be sure you maintain your salinity atleast 1.006 or preferably lower..... maintain this for atleast 6 weeks and you'll be fine.... and once again I would discourage the use of copper. However I have successfuly used seachems Paraguard in conjunction with hyposalinity while treating a bacterial infection with great success, and Paraguard also kills ich...... good luck!
 
thanks jeff, but I did not do hypo yet. I have done no treatments and am concerned to start one now while I go out of town and leave it to the wife to deal with.

I am hoping any treatment (hypo or cupramine) can wait till i get back on 11/20 if needed at all.
 
One thing I do want to mention though is when you raise your salinity back up you need to do it very slowly, about 2-4 points per day..... it is harder for fish to adjust back to a higher salinity level than it is for them to adjust to a lower level..... this is very important to remember..... but once again I'm glad to hear things are looking better for you and.your fish......
 
Well the spots on the tang got worse again. no signs on other fish, but concerned they will get it. So I just added cupramine.
 
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