ich?

[doryarlin955]

Thanks for clearing that up. I haven't witnessed him feeding yet, what else should I try to entice him to eat? I've tried live brine shrimp, live enriched baby brine shrimp, sweetwater zooplankton, and cyclopeeze. I have some vibragrow but that's it except for frozen baby brine.

 

[doryarlin955]

Pics. He's not doing well, breathing heavily and rapildy and leaning against the glass. I've only lowered the salinity from about 1.025 to about 1.022 so far.

 

[doryarlin955]

 

[tmz]

Are you sure it's ich? If it is the move to hypo may be too slow or copper soon might still help. I would consider a fesh water dip for three to five minutes at this stage or better a 50 minute formalin dip,followed by copper treatment.The freshwater dip will kill any parasites on the fish not those in the fish nor any aeggs on the fish. The formalin dip will kill parasites and eggs but not those inside the fish.
Good Luck

 

[johno4]

I would drop your salinity much faster. I have dropped the salinity to 1.009 over the course of 1 day, no not ideal but it worked and the fish survived. Your drop to 1.022 will do nothing to help your fish, you need it down to 1.009 to start to work.

 

[tmz]

Yes if your going to stick with hypo get it down quickly. However,the dips may give some quick relief. If you choose the formalin dip, it will not only kill parasites on the skin it will also rid the fish of any flukes it may have. I know you are familiar with flukes form freshwater but the frayed fins and appearance of the translucent spots make me wonder.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

that fish appears to be in terrible shape and not eating foods that it should be attacking

 

[doryarlin955]

I lowering the salinity as fast as I can atm. I'm also lowering the temp too, and I'm getting ready to do a freshwater dip, can I add formalin to the dip as well? Or will it not be effective enough in the 6-7 minutes he's in there?

 

[johno4]

Out of curiosity, why are you lowering the temp? Typically you would raise the temp slightly to speed up the life cycle of the parasite.

I have never added formalin so I cant help you there, sorry.

 

[tmz]

I wouldn't add the formalin to fresh water dip. I don't know if the dosage would be different for freshwater vs, saltwater. I don't think it would but i'm not sure. The formalin dip is easy though and might even be less stressful than the fw dip. I use a buckett with a gallon of tank water and place a small power head in it. I dip for 50 minutes. I did this for a Hippo Tang that was about to be euthanized at the lfs. It was covered in parasites(proably flukes). After the dip it was clean, A follow up treatment with prazipro seeems to have it on the road to recovery. This fish looked terrible but it was eating.

 

[tmz]

Correction: The fish looked terrible before the dip but was eating. it looked clean after and was still eating.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

while lowering salinity you should be raising the temperature- not dropping it.

 

[doryarlin955]

I was lowering the temp according to someone else's advice (not here). I understand what you mean, how high should it be? Its at about 77*. Raising it makes much mroe sense. The sg is at 1.019 right now, and I'm dropping it to 1.012 (the lowest reading on my hydrometer). I'm also working on getting ahold of a refractometer, they were $60 at TRS and I couldn't afford it.

 

[josh.vince]

doryarlin - i have a refractometer and work in greece... i could stop by tomorrow if you want to help you out with salinity measurements.

 

[johno4]

Raise the temp to around 82-83 and drop your salinity down to 1.009 asap. If you cant get a refractometer just get a hydormeter that will get lower readings so you can get the salinity where it needs to be.

 

[doryarlin955]

Josh, sorry if it's too late but would I be able to borrow it for a day (you could drop it off and pick it up tomorrow?) I'll pm you.

 

[doryarlin955]

I'm going to give it a formalin bath tonight, it's starting to regain some color but that's about it. I'm going to raise the temp up from where I have it, the fish was having some breathing issues and the person had recommended lowering the temp to increase the amount of oxygen the fish was getting. Now that it's over that I'm going to raise it to help fight the ich.

 

[tmz]

Raisng the temp won't necessarily fight the ich. It will accelerate it's life cycle. That is it will move from the fish to cysts back to the water more quickly. So if your tank is medicated, it will be exposed more quickly.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11546081#post11546081 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by johno4
Raise the temp to around 82-83 and drop your salinity down to 1.009 asap. If you cant get a refractometer just get a hydormeter that will get lower readings so you can get the salinity where it needs to be.

agreed. In addition make sure to keep the water well oxygenated with an airstone or similar.

 

[doryarlin955]

Raisng the temp won't necessarily fight the ich. It will accelerate it's life cycle. That is it will move from the fish to cysts back to the water more quickly. So if your tank is medicated, it will be exposed more quickly.

That's what I meant, sorry I'm a bit frazzled since I'm having problem with almost all my tanks right now, I just did 4 hours of straight fish work. :mixed:

I've got an airline in teh tank too