No treatments worked, 11m

[JonB123]

Hi, I have two ich infected clownfish in a 10g quarantine. They have been in
the tank for 11 months and still have ich. The treatments I have tried are

- Hyposalinity for 4 months
- Copper for 5 months
- and freshwater dips per water change.
I do a 20% water change each week and 100% once a month.

Any other treatments or methods? Before the clownfish die due to life span.

 

[lagatbezan]

Are you sure it's ich? Can you post a pic. It might be lymphocytes.
Do the spots come and go every few days (4-7 days)?

 

[JonB123]

8 months ago they had white spots, after that they look perfectly fine. I see them darting and scratching themself on the rocks and sandbed so that has me assuming the ich is still there.

 

[JonB123]

So basically for a year they have been constantly scratching and twitching. And I doubt that is their normal behavior since before the year of being infected they never scratched.

 

[lagatbezan]

Have you treated for flukes? Water parameters all in check?
Also have you checked for stray voltage?

 

[JonB123]

Sorry if its too blurry, they did not like the camera

 

[JonB123]

 

[JonB123]

Hmm, cant get pics to show. They look perfectly fine though.
Salinity: 1.023
Temp: 77F
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0.28ppm
Phosphate: 0.16
Ammonia: 0.25

Everytime I make new water for them I take some water from my tank with corals and mix it in.

 

[JonB123]

The only thing suspicious would be a light shade of grey under their fins.

 

[lagatbezan]

No picture showing up.
Ammonia should be zero. Even a small amount could irritate and burn their gills as well as be deadly. Also How long are you mixing your salt water before using it?

 

[JonB123]

I converted the pics into links to attach them, not sure if there is a special way to do so.
For the past two months I have them in a 10g tank with 2 anemone and feather duster. Since I feed the anemone frozen brine shrimp it goes everywhere. I do have hermit crabs and the fish eat it too. Ill try and get the ammonia to 0.
About the voltage leak... I do not use a heater or wavemaker in their tank, maybe the LED bar but it seems fully functional.
I use instant ocean salt in a bucket for 24 hours until the salinity matches.

I have moved them to multiple tanks and they still scratch.

 

[JonB123]

Would an aiptasia anemone have caused damage to them? The tentacles are 3 inch.
I know they have a coating that prevents stings but i've heard aiptasia have strong stings.
I believe it killed my coral beauty, I put him in that tank and he was happy until 2 days later he was dead. He was not sick and did not scratch.

 

[norfolkgarden]

Have you considered a 20 gallon QT?
Once the tank is cycled, ammonia should *never* be an issue unless you had a huge fish die without removal.

FWIW when I see our 1 1/8" hippo tang occasionally scratch (once every other month?) I dump 2 cap full of Herbtana by Microbelift in our 75 gallon tank.
The turbo snails don't like it. The turbo's move around more than normal during daytime when I add it. Otherwise nothing else seems to notice and the hippo stops scratching.

I only do observational QT at the fish store for 20 to 30 minutes.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[lagatbezan]

have you treated for flukes?

 

[JonB123]

Speaking about the 10g where the clownfish are, the reason the ammonia gets higher to 0.25 is because I feed the anemones frozen brine shrimp cubes and it gets everywhere. I recently got hermit crabs to see if it will help.
The only fish that died in that tank is a coral beauty angel, but I removed him around 4 hours later. He was healthy so an anemone sting is all I can think of.

I will try Herbtana, since I have not treated for flukes. I thought it was just ich because they started scratching ever since I seen the white spots.

Ill consider the 20g. I only have two 55g and two 10g.

 

[JonB123]

Wouldn't those treatments burn the snails? Which would explain them moving faster than normal?

 

[lagatbezan]

There should not be any invertebrates like snail, corals, sand or rocks in qt. Bare bottom, with just a small powerhead or filter and a heater.
A 5 min fw dip will confirm if you are dealing with flukes. They will fall off the fish within the 3-4 min into the dip. They will look like clear sesame seeds. If flukes are present two or three rounds of prazipro 5-7 days apart will usually treats it.
30 days in consistent therephutic level of copper should have treated ich. What kind of copper did you use, what level and what test kit did you use to measure its concentration?
Did you use a calibrated refractometer to measure salinity when you did hypo? Need to be consistent 30 days at 1.009. A small increase from that will reset the clock. Also hypo tends to treat for flukes as well if done properly. (There are strains of ich that are hypo resistant).
Hope we can figure out what's going on so we can safely get them into the DT.

 

[JonB123]

I used cupramine copper and seachem multitest. I did have them in a bare bottom empty tank for 9 months doing treatments. It is the past two months I gave up and put them in a 10g rather then just put them into the DT. They are happy, look healthy and eat well in their 10g, but I do wish to give them the space in my DT.
I believe the hyposalinity failed because of salinity changes when doing a water change.
The copper said to put drops in every two days which I did, and measured.

So I will put them in a 10g with bare bottom, I have no heaters, I use outside temp with all my windows open because I live in Hawaii. Then try to treat for flukes like you said.
Thank you for mentioning that, I would have never guessed.

They came out of a 55g with a yellow tang and blue damsel. Few polyps and a toadstool.

 

[JonB123]

I have had the tanks for around 3 years with the corals and fish.
All that is plugged in is an LED bar, penguin HOB filter and an airpump on a timer.
I have the corals closer to the filter so they get water flow. But I will get wavemakers soon.

Water perms in the DT are always stable, have had no coral deaths. Only fish I have had die is a sixline wrasse because of ich, and a coral beauty 2 days after getting him which I believe got killed by a sting.

Poor clownfish I hate when fish are hurting. I almost let them free in the ocean but I couldn't stand not knowing if they are safe or not.
I must order the meds for flukes and hope that works. Luckily I just had new salt come in, so I can set up the empty 10g qt.

 

[JonB123]

Ok so I just did two 5 minute fw dips in different colored containers and there is nothing that has fallen off. And looking very closely at their skin there is nothing. I looked up images of flukes which like you said are clear circles.
Another note is they are only scratching their heads, assuming the parasite is in their gills.
I will treat for flukes anyways. So next month I will find out if it is flukes.
Thank you! I will update after treatment for flukes.