Ick Shield Powder and Hyposalinity

[Arringar]

I recently bought several new Angels. I've had them quarantined for a few weeks and several days ago I noticed the Multibar Angel looked stressed. The next day he had a serious case of ich. I immediately added Ick Shield to the system and have been lowering the salinity down to hypo levels. Today I have finally reached 1.010 and tomorrow I will drop it to 1.009.

I have continued to dose the CP and I have yet to see any negative effects. I haven't found any warnings on the product or online about treating with hypo and CP. Has anyone tried this before, and if so have you any warnings about this method?

The fish continue to eat well and look normal. The tomonts have fallen off and I don't see any new ones. Given the treatment I honestly don't expect to.

Would love to hear thoughts on this from anyone who is willing to share an opinion.

 

[SecretiveFish]

IME, Ick Shield Powder alone is really hard on fish. After ~1 week of treatment, my fish were hiding and not really eating. 21 days couldn't come soon enough at which point we got it out of the system as fast as possible.

My hamlet then developed fin rot and nothing I did helped. Next my white cheek tang stopped eating a few weeks after that (main system was under 12 week quarantine so all the fish had to stay in the quarantine tank). He is back in the main system and looking thin with no food enticing him to eat. I don't expect him to make it, unfortunately, even though he is occasionally picking at rocks. My flame hawk also perished in the middle there.

With all that, I am hesitant to treat with Ick Shield powder in the future on any but the toughest fish (the clownfish, marine betta, and tomini tang all seem just fine). I did not have this many losses when I have treated with Cupramine.

I am glad you seem to have tough fish, but I would not ever do hypo and Ick shield after seeing how hard Ick Shield alone is on the fish. I hope it all works out for you!

 

[Arringar]

Everything was fine until this morning. I am starting to see signs of stress, but I am also battling the pH drop and it is swinging up and down too much. I am setting up a drip line with sodium carbonate this evening so that issue should be gone.

If I continue to see stress after that I am going to add some carbon to remove the CP and not add it back during water changes anymore. Thanks for the input.

 

[Arringar]

For the record and so no one else makes this mistake. Don't treat with NLS Ick Shield powder with Hyposalinity. Two systems side by side with identical water parameters, one with NLS powder, one without. Every fish in the NLS treated system died 8-9 days into treatment. Fish in the other system are doing exceptionally well. If it were just one or two fish I could dismiss it, but it was 6, most of them of the same genus.

Testing was done daily and at every point these two systems were in perfect lock-step.

The stress of NLS and hypo is too much. Hypo treatment seems just as effective as a sole treatment method for ich.

 

[rssjsb]

I think hypo is potentially more stressful on fish than CP. I don't know what inert ingredients are in the NLS product, but CP alone is far less toxic than copper or other alternatives.

 

[thax]

harlequin tusk ich

harlequin tusk ich

would this work on a harlequin tusk? or is cu better?

 

[Arringar]

Personally I think hypo is sufficient if done correctly and for an adequate period of time. Regarding crypto that is. Other diseases don't respond to hypo and CP becomes necessary. What are you treating this tusky for? Ich? If so I suggest hypo or Tank transfer method.

 

[ThRoewer]

Against a clearly identified Cryptocaryon infection I would use hypo if I had to treat too many fish at once. TTM would be the treatment of choice for a single or a small group of infected fish

As a preventive measure for a manageable amount of fish TTM (against ich) and CP (against velvet, uronema and possibly brook) might be the better solution. If you are really worried about brook (new clownfish) I would also do formalin dips during the transfers from one tank to the next.

 

[thax]

Personally I think hypo is sufficient if done correctly and for an adequate period of time. Regarding crypto that is. Other diseases don't respond to hypo and CP becomes necessary. What are you treating this tusky for? Ich? If so I suggest hypo or Tank transfer method.

ich is on the back burner right now he has developed a very nasty fin rot on one of its pelvic fins and in 1 day it went form a tiny bit to just a bone left with a tiny bit of skin left on it that was all red and puffy.

so i stated furan 2 yesterday and today his pectoral fins have a tiny bit of decay on the tips and i saw some red on his body above the fin so that's never good. and he hasn't been swimming much so that's even worse and breathing faster then he used to but he did come out of his pipe cave to eat...a lot so that's good at least

should i add something other then furan 2? that's all the lfs had so if i need something else i need to order tomorrow and over night it

 

[johnsonlwu]

Wonder what happened to Maracyn 2? That used to work well for me dealing with post ich body rots.

 

[Arringar]

I think maracyn was banned some years ago. I used to use it for freshwater fish.

 

[kenith]

ich is on the back burner right now he has developed a very nasty fin rot on one of its pelvic fins and in 1 day it went form a tiny bit to just a bone left with a tiny bit of skin left on it that was all red and puffy.

so i stated furan 2 yesterday and today his pectoral fins have a tiny bit of decay on the tips and i saw some red on his body above the fin so that's never good. and he hasn't been swimming much so that's even worse and breathing faster then he used to but he did come out of his pipe cave to eat...a lot so that's good at least

should i add something other then furan 2? that's all the lfs had so if i need something else i need to order tomorrow and over night it

Try erythromycin. It's a different antibiotic than furan2 and can be used conjunctively. I've had very good results while dealing with fin rot

 

[Dustin Thompson]

I had a whole tank of fish that I treated with ick shield and hypo without a single loss. They all went into the same hospital setup. One spot fox face, a clown, two clown gobies, starry blenny, red scooter blenny all made it through. They didn't eat well initially, especially the scooter, but they all came out great. I ended up dropping the salinity about a week in, taking it down to around 1.009. I brought the salinity up slowly after the 25 days I treated with the ick shield. It took me about 12 days to get back up to 1.025.

 

[snorvich]

Against a clearly identified Cryptocaryon infection I would use hypo if I had to treat too many fish at once. TTM would be the treatment of choice for a single or a small group of infected fish

As a preventive measure for a manageable amount of fish TTM (against ich) and CP (against velvet, uronema and possibly brook) might be the better solution. If you are really worried about brook (new clownfish) I would also do formalin dips during the transfers from one tank to the next.

I agree.