Ick treatment question

[ian27]

hi this is my first post although i have been using your excellent site for a while,i have a fowlr tank which has fallen fowl of the dreaded ick thanks to a purchase of a less than healthy foxface,after reading through all treatment methods and deciding not to treat with some off the shelf snake oil i have removed all my rock to another tank (with a few turbo snails and hermit crabs) and am treating via hyposalinity,my question is after the 6 week period when i return the rock and inverts is there any chance i could return ick to the main tank via the inverts,hope this is'nt too dumb a question thanks ian

 

[arizona tech]

no, in the tank you have the rock, snails in do not add any thing to it let the ick die off in there,plus inverts canot host ick

 

[Psionicdragon]

you may take longer than 6 weeks to cure the ick from your tank. The 6 week countdown begins after you see the last spot of ick disappear from the fish.

 

[ian27]

six weeks and counting

six weeks and counting

hi thanks for the info the ick as i mentioned was bought in by a foxface it was there and gone so quickly i thought it may have been an air bubble,that was until my puffer really got a case he is the only inhabitant to have presented and now only has a few visible spots ,i suppose my main concerns are that the fish may be harmed by the hypo and that the ick will re-occur ,so thanks for the warning about when to start the countdown,salinity is now down to 1.014 and i am taking down slowly to 1.009 over the next few days, again thanks for the advice

 

[ian27]

aaaarrrrgh

aaaarrrrgh

i have now been at 1.009 for about 2 full days my poor stars and stripes puffer is absolutley covered still chipper but has loads of spots and majestic angel is struggling i think if i were to do anything different i would have scrubbed all glass surfaces after removing lr as the ick population seems to have exploded hopeful for the puffer hes big and healthy so was the angel but he seems more affected in a shorter time ,i have never had ick in three years of marine fishkeeping so from now on i will never ever place a fish straight into the display tank if this warns anybody else its served its purpose.

 

[arizona tech]

keep everybody strong with good diet and good water quality, i like you have found out the hard way that a qt tank is a must, good luck

 

[ian27]

thanks,i did a freshwater dip on the two worst affected fish (puffer and angel) the angel handled it worse than the puffer and seemed verty unhappy afterwards although now seems to be a bit more comfortable ,the puffer although absolutley covered looks to have less spots now but seems less happy ,ie sitting in a corner clamped he is still eating though so still hopeful,
water params are all good even nitrate is less than 10,i am seriously overfiltering and using u.v. skimmer etc just waiting now which obviously is the worst part.

 

[EXOTICS OWNER]

dont forget if you dip your fish to insure equa temperature, if this is ignored, the temp. shock is far greater then the specific gravity g/l

 

[ian27]

mainly due to this site i did equalise temp and buffered the water as well ,thanks for the tip though i never realised how horrible ick was ,its all a learning curve, though one i do not want to experience again.

 

[ian27]

hi ive been stable at 1.009 for about 8 days yesterday ick came back on my puffer big time can any one tell me when i should expect the ick population to start decreasing ,thanks

 

[steve-s]

The trophonts can take anywhere from a few days to a week or so to become visible and fall away to the reproductive stage. It really depends on how deep in the epithelium they go to how quickly they become visible to the naked eye.

What you are most likely seeing is the last batch maturing that had not yet been affected by the lowered salinity. Hypo does not work immediately/quickly and can take a few rounds of the parasites life cycle before it's affected enough to eliminate it completely. You should however see a reduction as each day passes. Hypo will not affect the trophonts in the least so they will be visible until they are ready to move on and encyst.

Cheers
Steve