Ick Trophonts life cycle???

atlfishes

Member
I have a hippo tang that appears to have ick trophonts that are not dropping off. The fish has stopped eating and I've read the life cycle of trophonts is 5-6 days, but could that be longer if the fish is malnutritioned? I'm in my fourth week of Cupramine and I also have a clown fish that shows no signs.
 
If a fish is not eating, its ammunity will be weak. As a result, you should try to the the fish to eat because malnutrition + ick = death if the fish has not eaten for a long period of time.
 
Well, something is wrong....If this fish has been in copper for 4 weeks, there should be no more ich. After the first cycle the fish may appear 'clean' but the more it reproduces, the more ich in the tank, the more ich on your fish. You may never see it 'spot free'

Are you sure you kept the copper at the proper level? Did you test? If your copper levels were too low, the copper won't work

Are you positive it is ick? Could the Hippo be having a reaction to the medication?

4 weeks is enough, get the copper out..I would start dropping the SG slowly, maybe add an antibiotic such as Furan-2.
If you are sure its ich, I would treat with Hypo, do not use Copper on this Tang anymore
 
Its been a long journey with this tang. Hypo was my first choice of treatment and I was unsuccessful the first attempt for reasons I can only speculate about. The second time the tang just got worse and hypo wasn't getting the job done and that is when I started cupramine. The fish is in a qt tank so dosage is easy and i've been testing with red sea and seachem kits. Cupramine is successful at half the dosage they recommend, according to their reps so I feel that the copper level has been enough. I don't know if its a skin rash? I've never heard of such a thing but I'm running out of ideas. Ick is easy to identify and I can't imagine it being something else. I'm doing a water change tonight so I won't redose the Cupramine and see what happens.
 
If hyposalinity AND a proper copper treatment is unsucessful, I would doubt the problem is Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans).
 
I'll try to get a pick. I've been unsuccessful taking a close up. There could have been user error on my first hypo treatment (time and introduction of live food), but hypo cleared up the problem only to come back once I raised the salinity. On my second attempt after being in hypo for close to two weeks the ick was getting worse so I made the decision to start cupramine after raising the salinity. The only two diseases I'm aware of that get confused are ick and velvet. Its not marine velvet.
 
A picture would help. If the ich spots have remained in the same place for weeks then its not ich .. regardless of treatment. You might google for pictures of fish with lymphocystis .. a viral disease kinda like warts which on occasion can be confused with ich. If lympho then there is no know treatment but the disease may clear up on its own and is not considered fatal unless it impacts the gills.
 
Back
Top