Opinions Wanted on Ich Plan of Attack

[TitansFan]

Objective: To wage all out war on ich.

Background Info: I belive ich to have been present in the tank. This outbreak was brought on after I found a faulty thermometer and sluggish fish. The tank had been at 68-70 degrees. I have brought it up to 79 degrees. The tank is a 120 gallon FOWLR. Inhabitants are a spiny puffer, foxface, and lawnmower blenny.

Plan of Attack: The wife has gracously donated the use of a back bathroom. I plan on putting in the bathtub a tupperware container. I will pull all the rock and inverts from the tank and place in the container. I have a small skimmer and spare pc light I will run over the rock. Water changes will do the rest of the filtration.

For the display I will place cut up pvc in it for fish homes. I plan to dose the tank with Cupramine (copper). I already have the Cupramine and a copper test. I think it will be more of an aggressive attack and easier to do than hypo. The instructions state to run the copper for 14 days. After the completion I will keep the tank as is for a month. I think this should allow the ich to die off in the rock and cure the fish.

 

[TitansFan]

Questions: Can I remove all the copper after treatment via copper over the month of no live rock or will I have to do a complete water change? Do you guys think this is the best route for me to have a ich free tank? All new additions will go through quarantine.

Thanks for reading all this.

 

[Fishboy42]

You definitely aren't kidding about all-out-war!
My .02 FWIW:

I don't like copper; it can be a very harsh treatment and it is hard to administer and measure. The idea is basically to poison the tank enough to kill the parasites without killing the fish; it also creates biofilter problems (by killing it). Having said that, I have used it and it is effective. I believe that misuse can cause reproductive harm to fish as well, although a dead fish won't breed at all (and I have copper-treated fish that are spawning), so...

Since you have decided to "do it right," I would recommend a hyposalinity treatment for your fish. I have used it on thousands of fish and will continue to do so because it is so safe, easy, effective, cheap, etc, etc.

Once you have all of your inverts/live rock, etc out of the tank, drop the specific gravity to 1.009 g/mL and keep the temp at 80-82F (to speed the cycle of the parasite). I have dumped fish from normal tanks into 1.009 before without acclimation (or problems), but dropping it over a few hours or a day or two might be less stressful on the fish. Keep the SG low for 4-6 weeks and feed the fish normally. If you have problems with water quality, it doesn't take as much salt to do large water changes Be watchful not to go too low; 1.007 is isotonic for many marine fish, so they will have to change their osmoregulation (could cause kidney problems), and Cryptocaryon has been reported to survive at 1.011, so there is a narrow treatment range.

At the end of the treatment, bring it back up slowly (fish easily tolerate a drop in salinity, but need time to adjust to increasing salinity) over the course of a week or 10 days and your fish will be clean!

Sorry for the book. I hope this helps, and good luck with whatever method you chose.

Matt

 

[TitansFan]

Thanks for the thorough reply Matt.

I was worried that the hypo would be harder to monitor than the copper levels. The margin of error as you stated seems to be quite small. I guess my refractometer would defiantly need its calibration checked.

So, the hypo environment would only need to be administered for 10 days? Would keeping the rock out of the tank for 4 weeks cure it of ich? The tank is BB so live sand is not an issue.

Out of curiousity what would happen if I removed inverts and left the rock during hypo?

 

[Fishboy42]

The hypo environment needs to be maintained for 4-6 weeks IMO to be sure that no stages of the parasite are left, but the total treatment period will be longer due to the lowering and raising times on either end. Definitely double-check your refractometer, but other than that, testing every couple of days will be fine to keep it in-check. The "mode of failure" IME is that evaporation causes a rise in SG.

If you left the live rock in the tank, it would probably lose a lot of life. I once did this treatment in a small FOWLER system and kept the rocks (and crabs and snails) in aerated buckets. The rock didn't seem to suffer too much and actually may have benefited from the die-off of algae/dumping of detritus, etc (kind of like "cooking" the rock during your treatment). I haven't had any problems with that system since, and two of the pairs in it have since started spawning. Since crypto is an obligate parasite, anything harmful harbored by the rocks should die by the time your treatment period is up.

 

[Mikeyjer]

When I treated my tank long ago with Copper Safe, I had to remove all my rocks. Afterwards, I just did a water change and run carbon. Copper no longer exists in my tank and it's been quite sometime now and it still doesn't test out. Been keeping inverts and corals just fine. I wouldn't use Copper now though after seeing what it can do to your fish, especially tangs!!! It was a very sad process to watch, even though it was effective, but it can do major harm especially to tangs. I've been using formula 2 with added garlic and it works great for me. I fed it to my sick fish and it help them, I swear, my tang was almost dead before I started the formula 2 treatment. He went from skin and bones with tons of ich to a very fat healthy tang right now. It took me 2 days to notice difference and one month to totally cure him.

 

[crumbletop]

I've used hypo before and it works. I have not used copper so I can't say whether one is better than the other. I can say that one of the things I liked about hypo is what Matt said about keeping the water quality up. If you have a biofilter ready to go (i.e. a sponge, or in my case a biowheel I kept floating around in my sump), then I never had a cycle in my QT. That made it easier on the fish, I think. I second what Matt says about raising the salinity slowly, but dropping it you can go as fast as you like.

One thing to add if you do try it, keep an eye on the pH. In hypo, the buffering capacity isn't all that great, so your pH can drop quickly. I found I had it stabilized after about 3 days in, but for the first 3 days I had to supplement the alk to keep the pH where I wanted it.

I think Angela has done hypo too, so maybe she'll chime in with her experience.

 

[Angela Short]

I have done both and prefere hypo. I found the copper levels almost impossable to keep theraputic for some reasons and if you do not have lots of heat from lights evaporating tons of water your daily top off will keep it at 1.009. And even if you are done in 14 days ( copper route) with the fish part of the treatment, the rock will still have to sit fish free for 4-6 weeks to be sure to erradicate the parasite. So the hypo is a win win. Easier on fishs health also. I remember reading something about puffers and ick. I am thinking they don't do copper well at all if I am not mistaken. I was thinking it was a big no no with them.
FWIW I did cupermine on the last batch of fish with some rock rubble and a few larger peices and they are in my 29 full of zoas with no problems. I ran carbon after putting the rock in all new saltwater for awhile and had a 0 reading and no problems with the corals in the 29. But cuppermine is supose to stay in the water and not be absorbed into the rock as easy.
I would leave only a few peices of rock in the tank for bio purposes. If you leave it all in you could have major die off from worms, pods and all that stuff and have a major ammonia spike not to mention killing off all your natural clean up crew. And I know for sure thease critters will not survive hypo from experience.

Copper is a good choice to do on a new fish for 2 weeks to just be sure he is clean going in a clean tank though. Some don't like to proactivley treat but its almost worth risking the 1 fish to save the head ach of a compleate tank full of sick fish is my opinion. At the very least always QT for 3-4 weeks if you are not going to treat everyone with copper.

Ditto on above advise, Drop to hypo instantly. Keep a eye on PH as you drop it it will fall and it takes a ton of FW to get to 1.009! Raise SG over a few days to a week. 2 points a day is safe to raise or just be lazt like me and top off with high SG water and let evaporation raise it REAL slow :lol: I was To lazy to drain and replace the water to get the SG up!

 

[TitansFan]

Wow much info to read over thanks guys and gal. I have actually had very good luck in the reef tank with Metronidazole. This being FOWLR I was thinking more aggressive action. Daniel sent me a website with some more info on ich. It had 2 very interesting quotes I would like to get feedback on:
1)If one considers the possibility of "resting stages", marine ich can wait out weeks to months before seeking out fish hosts.
2)In actual fact cysts of Cryptocaryon can stay viable for a few to several months, hence ultraviolet sterilization, use of biological cleaners, allowing systems to go fallow... only decreases the number and virulence of these parasites.

This seems to suggest that leaving a tank fallow can help, but will not make the tank (live rock) ever 100% ich free......

 

[crumbletop]

I'm no expert but I wonder what references are used in the article you cite. Maybe there is more recent evidence to support the resting stages lasting several months. Personally, based on what I have read, and questions I've had answered by Steven Pro, along with personal experience, I think that hypo + leaving the display fallow for 6-8 weeks works to completely clear up ich. Here are some of the links I have found useful:

Steven Pro on Marine Ich:
Part I: http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php
Part II: http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-10/sp/feature/index.php

A good article on ich that goes into detail about the life cycle of <em>Cryptocaryon irritans</em> and lists the length of time in each stage found by various researchers:
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/marineich.html

A detailed article about how to do hyposalinity:
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/hyposalinity.html

Oklahoma Aquarium uses hypo on all new teleost:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2004/short.htm

YMMV.

 

[Angela Short]

I would also like to see the links just to see what is said and by who. Not saying more reaserch hasn't proven a different outcome on the life cycle of ick, just curiouse is all I really respect Steven Pro and his advice among many other reaserchers who also feel Ick can only live 4-6 weeks without a host so 6-8 is a good safe period to go. I have spent many hours in the disease forum and reading up on the subject.
I think people feel they are ick free and have outbreaks months later because they really haven't licked it totally. Ick can hide in very low numbers in the gill area totally unsee by the naked eye and turn into a full blown infection with the right circumstances. Either way, Good luck getting rid of the nasty buggers!!

 

[Angela Short]

opps

 

[Fishboy42]

I believe the above words were written by Robert Fenner. There is quite a bit of published literature on these bugs; most report that encysted tomonts exit the reproductive stage after one to four weeks (the other stages are considerably shorter and vulnerable to treatments). Of course it's impossible to prove a negative (that under some circumstance(s) tomonts can't remain encysted longer)...

 

[danieljames]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8858831#post8858831 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TitansFan

This seems to suggest that leaving a tank fallow can help, but will not make the tank (live rock) ever 100% ich free......

I don't think it implied it would ever be parasite free, just that it could perhaps take longer than some suggest. A tank left without host's for the parasite will most definitely become "ich free". I don't believe a freshwater dip is quite as effective as some tout it to be against Cryptocaryon irritans on an infected animal, because the fish secrete a protective mucous coating around the protozoan. I would think it's most definitely better than no treatment.. A freshwater dip is a different thing than prolonged hyposalinity treatment in a quarantine tank though.

This is a decent link with some references included regarding their information.

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/marineich.html