marine ich

[mhills16]

well i am unhappy to report that rubys doesnt seem to work, it says it kills the free swimming ich but what about the ich on the fish..... i cannot set up a quarantine tank because me being in the military and having to leave all the time it is just too much for my wife to take care of while i am gone. My sailfin has a little and my longnose butterfly has alot of it. i am not worried aboit the tang, he is large and strong but the butterflies are so fragile. SOMEONE here please give me some advice aside from a quarantine tank. there has to be something out there that will not kill the inverts but is effective. i can remove my corals for treatment but not my inverts. please someone here has got to hvae some info.............. mike

 

[mhills16]

please help me here............ the only thing i can think of is putting them in a 5 gallon bucket for 24-48 hours with filtration for copper treatment, will that do the trick? will the copper kill the ich on the fish in 24-48 hours? i just cannot stress the fact that i cannot have a quarantine tank, i leave in a month or two for 12 months and do not want my wife to have to deal with it... it is just too much..

 

[mhills16]

i bought a uv sterilizer, but what about the ich on my fish.............i reallly would love to get some opinions here before the mod takes it off..

 

[taz13777]

the ich on the fish will fall off and then the uv can kill it......the uv sterilizer should help

 

[mhills16]

there is just so much on the butterfly but he is eating like a champ, so, it will just fall off? thats what i thought amd good to know, i bet the ruby's did kill the free swimming ones, so, i just wait for it to fall off of the fish... with the uv it should be soon, i got a really nice one, well, to me atleast, it is a jbj one , 7 watt that you just submerse in the water and turn on, it has a power head built in and is set to be exactly the right flow, tooo easy!! lol, and i need easy!

 

[limitdown]

There is no way you can kill ich in just 24-48 hours. And there is no way to kill ich that is on your fish (unless you decide to directly chop/kill your fish). When it's in that stage, it's buried underneath the fish's skin and is protected. You can only kill them when they've fallen off of your fish. Even if all of the spots have fallen off of your fish, it DOES NOT mean that he's in the clear.

UV can kill some of the bacteria, but not all of them.

If you use copper, do NOT use a UV sterilizer, it will make the copper 10x more lethal.


Best course of action:

If you have a reef:
Move all of your fish from your display into a quarantine tank with a few pieces of live rock. Start hyposalinity or copper treatment. I usually treat with copper for 4 entire weeks and then wait another 4wks to make sure that ich does recur before putting them back into the display.

If you don't have too many corals, then you can move the corals to a smaller tank and then do hyposalinity in the display.

If you have a FOWLR:
Do hyposalinity directly in the display.

Here's a link to a great article on treatment.
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php

 

[mhills16]

ok, well, i will approach the hypo salinity, should i just take 5 gallons out a day and replace it with 5 freshwater gallons, that should slowly lower it!

 

[mhills16]

also, from everything I have researched when fighting ich with copper, you should not use live rock or anything porous because it absorbs the copper and reduces its effectiveness. they recommend PVC pieces!

 

[limitdown]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13126245#post13126245 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mhills16
also, from everything I have researched when fighting ich with copper, you should not use live rock or anything porous because it absorbs the copper and reduces its effectiveness. they recommend PVC pieces!

2 approaches.

Copper
You will need some type of biofiltration to control ammonia in QT. Do you have live bioballs/ceramic rings in your sump that you can move to your QT? If not, then you'll need to sacrifice a few pieces of live rock that you cannot put back into your display. Yes, the LR will absorb some copper, so you will need to test copper concentration on a daily basis. I highly recommend Seachem's Cupramine and Seachem's Copper test kit. Make sure you follow the directions on the Cupramine bottle and keep concentration at 0.5mg/ml. If it's too low it's not effective and if it's too high your fish will die. Do not add cupramine too quickly (I learned the hard way). And do not use dechlorinators or anti-ammonia agents like Amquel or AmGuard (again, I learned the hard way).

Hyposalinity
If you do this in a QT: You don't necessarily need to use LR. I've used Amquel/AmGuard to control ammonia while doing Hypo in a QT. Drop salinity down to 1.009 over a 2-3 day period. When you're done w/ Hypo, raise salinity back up to 1.026 over a 7-day period. Fish can tolerate drops in salinity much better than they can hikes in salinity.

If you do this in your display: Move most of your live rock into a separate bin. Hypo will kill a lot of the nitrifying bacteria and other beneficial critters in your LR, but not all

 

[taz13777]

why cant you use amquel with copper?

 

[limitdown]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13128483#post13128483 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by taz13777
why cant you use amquel with copper?

It will make the copper a lot more toxic.
Chk this link. A reply from a Seachem representative to the question regarding Amquel & Cupramine.
http://www.reefcentral.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1373316&perpage=25&pagenumber=1

"You can not add AmQuel to a tank with Cupramine it will release toxic copper. I apologize for any confusion. The email came across as a person dosed Amquel and then wanted to dose Cupramine. If that would have been the case you would have to wait. But if Cupramine is already in the water Amquel can not be added directly to the tank for ammonia control. If ammonia is an issue adding bacteria or changing the water will help alleviate ammonia toxicity.
Again apologize for any confusion in the email. You can always email us back to clear up any issues."

 

[taz13777]

what about with copper safe? I used both and my tang and other fish were fine for 5 weeks. coppersafe with amquel.......thanks

 

[e55MD]

limitdown,

I am about to set up a hospital tank. I plan on using bioballs in a sump. First, I will putthe bioballs in the sump of my DT to get colonized by bacteria. How many days do they require in there before being moved to the HT?

Thanks

 

[mhills16]

i just dont think i can break down and start another tank, hospital, i really dont want to have to leave it for my wife and i am leaving soon... i really HATE marine ich lol with a passion, freshwater it is so much easier to kill it! never had it so hard before.. i will tackle this one way or another! i just feel so bad for my butterfly covered in it but he eats great, and my tang has a little. i can't wait for it to fall off!

 

[limitdown]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13129261#post13129261 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by e55MD
limitdown,

I am about to set up a hospital tank. I plan on using bioballs in a sump. First, I will putthe bioballs in the sump of my DT to get colonized by bacteria. How many days do they require in there before being moved to the HT?

Thanks

I think it will take at least 2-3 weeks. You can help it along by using Seachem's Stability, which contains some good bacteria to help it along. Additional colonization will continue while the bioballs in your QT.

In the past, I've used LR in QT's for biofiltration, but I found it difficult to control copper concentration since it kept being absorbed into the LR.

Bioballs & ceramic rings are really cheap, so you can consider putting a bunch of small sacks in your sump for future use. That way, you won't have to worry about them not being properly colonized.

I recommend dumping "used" sacks of bioballs.

 

[mhills16]

i lowered my salinity to .022, so, slowly lowering it, i think ill keep it at 1.021 at the lowest!