ich?

[jonathansruelas]

Ok so I bought a pinstripped wrasse, a clarkii clown, and a flame angel. All are in my 50 gallon qt. I noticed that the pinstripped had a couple of white dots on forehead, but is swimming fine and eating.. I didn't notice anything else on the other fish.. I checked today and the dots were gone on my wrasse.. I think this is ich. Should I treat it as ich? With hypo? And do I keep the other fish in tank while I hypo? I got them yesterday.
Thanks for helping

 

[MrTuskfish]

Flame Angels are extremely sensitive to copper, IMO, the best cure for ich. So, if it is ich; hypo or tank-transfer are really your only options. This may be a good time to try quinine sulfate, its gotten a lot of good PR lately. Read the hypo thread carefully and be sure you have an accurately calibrated refractometer. there isn't any wiggle room with hypo. Of course, all fish exposed to these fish, or anything in their tank, need to be treated. There are lots of things that resemble ich, only you can make the call.

 

[jonathansruelas]

What's tank transfer? And how does that work? I heard that hypo isn't good for clowns.. I am going to look into the quinine sulfate. Where can I find this product?

 

[lecher]

http://www.nationalfishpharm.com/products.html

Its sold here as Crypto Pro.

 

[MrTuskfish]

What's tank transfer? And how does that work? I heard that hypo isn't good for clowns.. I am going to look into the quinine sulfate. Where can I find this product?

Tank transfer: the sticky at the top of the diseases section of this forum.

 

[jonathansruelas]

Ok thanks guys. I think I'm going to use hypo as a last resort, I heard its really difficult to keep your fish alive through it.. Im going to try quinine sulfate,cyrpto pro hopefully that works...

Meanwhile should I keep special gravity lower than normal ? I have at 1.1019 bc I was going to do hypo but I chickened out.

 

[MrTuskfish]

Ok thanks guys. I think I'm going to use hypo as a last resort, I heard its really difficult to keep your fish alive through it.. Im going to try quinine sulfate,cyrpto pro hopefully that works...

Meanwhile should I keep special gravity lower than normal ? I have at 1.1019 bc I was going to do hypo but I chickened out.

I admit that my knowledge of hypo is fairly limited But from all I've read (lots): keeping fish alive during hypo isn't hard, but keeping water (at all times) at exactly the required SG is. Just a day's evaporation can doom your results. But those that have learned how to properly do hypo, do very well with the treatment.
There's no reason to lower SG, it won't do anything to the parasites. 1.019 is a perfectly acceptable SG for fish-only, though. In fact, many FOWLR tanks are kept at about that SG. But if SG is lowered, remember this when returning fish to the DT and don't suddenly dump them into the higher Sg water.

 

[sandwi54]

Like MrTusk mentioned, it's ok to keep the SG at 1.019.

I have never used quinine sulfate myself and can't comment on its effectiveness. however, I do trust Bob Fenner and what he says. He recommends quinine sulfate and there must be some validity to its effectiveness.

I think you can go ahead and try QS, but I want to let you know that hypo is not as hard as it sounds. the hardest parts are making sure the salinity stays at 1.008-1.009 (which can be done with daily top off) and keeping pH from dropping too low (this can be done with some pieces of LR in the QT, and/or dosing sodium bicarbonate to boost the alkalinity).

 

[jonathansruelas]

Ok thanks everyone for helping me out. I am going to get the medicine by mail so I'll keep you guys posted.. Hopefully it works.. If it doesnt I'll go on to plan B hypo.. How long should I wait before the lay parasites of ich show til I put in DT? 4 weeks right??

 

[sandwi54]

for hypo, you wait 4 weeks after the last white spot is gone. then raise the salinity very slowly, no more than 0.002 per day. after that you keep the fish in QT for another four weeks for observation. if there is no reocurrence of white spots, then you're good to put the fish into DT.