My journey with anti-parasitic foods

[3yellowtangs]

So long story short Ive been battleing a parasite for well over a year. An ick like parasite. It has gone through roughly 20 fish and has caused a complete break down of my system.

System is a 180 gallon originaly housed sps. Big skimmer perfect params... Well over a year ago i starting loosing fish. Ive emptied my tank, qt'd, hypo'd, copper'd, quickcured, left tank fallow for 11 weeks and still have this parasite. Been fighting it for too long..

Eventually lost each and every fish i owned and started from scratch. Tank was fallow for a second time for 10 weeks. New fish were qt'd for 5 of those weeks. 1 powder blue and 3 yellows. All fish were healthy no signs of infection, went through coper and hypo ( at different times ) then were put in the dt and boom... Pbt has parasite

Was getting ready to take all fish out and i read an article about Chloroquine phosphate and it being in a edible caviar. So i tried it. Fish werent dying but parasite was gaining momentum. Pbt woud have 10 - 20 specs a day and smallest yellow had 5ish. I started feeding the caviar per directions and for the first week virtually no noticable different. Infact parasite was gaining in strength. After the second week i noticed that the pbt was not getting worse. Third week i actually noticed a reversal of the parasite. Pbt would have maybe 5 - 10 spots a day. I am currently on the 5th week of treatment and the fish are winning. There are actually days where the pbt has no spots all day. This is also to say there are still days where he has 2-3. I feed medicated food every day at least once and most days twice. I feel it is working. The life cycle of this parasite is at least 11 weeks so i will be feeding for longer than that

I have also moved to the pellet form of the anti ick. Same active ingredient. Both foods do not necesarily have a flavor the fish love. The caviar seemed to be prefered more than the pellet. Takes a few minutes for the pellets to be consumed and fish have to be hungry.

I am not saying i have found a cure as my fish still have something. But i feel i have turned a corner for the better after a year and a half of disaster.

Also this is a soft coral and anemone tank now. 2 children under 2yrs old make sps difficult as time is taken up else where.

 

[Dmorty217]

I have used powder CP and the ich shield food, like you said the fish HAVE to be hungry to eat the stuff and it only kills one of the three stages of ich so it takes much longer to get the same result as the powder. I feel your pain, I took all my fish out of my DT because of one mistake and it ended up being a very costly one for me too. My DT still has ich in it im sure. Good news is when i move over the summer into our new house i will setup my 625g and CP the hell out of the rock, sand and everything else for that matter to kill this stuff off. Nothing worse than watching all of your hard work go down the drain. Back in November I was ready to give up the hobby after 16 yrs...