Relatively new reefer asking some questions about ich

[LSUJosh]

Long story short, I started a reef tank about 4 months ago, a RSM 130d, and then about two weeks ago I had an ich outbreak. I know, I know, I should have used a QT but I suppose I have learned my lesson. Now I know I have to get all fish out of the system (only one is left) and let the tank sit for two months to let all the parasites die. My question is, do any of the reef safe cures work to help rid my DT of ich? My six line wrasse will be put into a QT and treated and sit in there for 2 months while my DT cycles the ich out but after that do I have to treat all fish in copper for 2 weeks prior to adding them to my tank or do freshwater dips work? I am going to try and keep ich out of the system for good now.
Thanks!

 

[Sk8r]

My recommendation: treat all fish (you don't say what species but one, and I am assuming no mandarins) with hyposalinity: there are no effective reefsafe cures. If there were one, I swear to you, everybody would rather use it. I'm not in favor of copper because it depresses appetite and is a poison. 4 weeks of hypo---marked from the last appearance of a symptom, 4 more weeks of observation, 8 weeks for your tank of inverts-only. The ich on your fish will have died of hypo, and the ich in your tank will have starved. Get to hypo (1.009) slowly over 48 hours, and hold it 4 weeks meticulously, with a marked line on your hospital tank/qt. DO NOT HAVE SAND OR ROCK In the treatment tank! ---bare bottom, no rock. When you put your fish back in, they will have been back to normal salinity for several weeks and healthy.

 

[RBU1]

Dito^

 

[Stuart60611]

For what it is worth, I will take a different viewpoint. I prefer cupramine over hyposalinity for several reasons.

First, hyposalinity is much more dificult to perform correctly because you must maintain your salinity in a very narrow range constantly, or the treatment will not be effective. This treatment requires a precisely calibrated refractometer. Any even slight variations in salinity can make treatment ineffective. Many people fail at hypo because of this. Moreover, hypo often makes it difficult to maintain water quality and particularlly PH which requires frequent water changes and thus a greatly increased liklihood of salinity being incorrect due to human error rendering the treatment ineffective. Conversely, cupramine is easy to apply and has a broad effective range making it very unlikely not to perform the treatment effectively.

Second, hypo takes about twice as long as cupramine. This means your fish will have to stay in a quarantine tank about twice as long which often makes it more stressful on fish since quarantine tanks are often substandard.

Third, although hypo is not a poison, curpamine as a complex copper which is not nearly has as toxic or harsh on fish as other coppers, such as ionic. As such, most fish, even copper sensitive fish, tolerate the treatment without ill effects which in my view makes concerns about the toxcity of the treatment much less of an issue.

Just my $02.

 

[Texastravis]

Let me give you my buck o' five.

-Yes quarantine all fish

-No you cant "rid your tank of ick". Theoretically you can but dont even bother trying. People may claim they have an ickless tank but if you swing their tank's pH durastically or get a 5 degree temp change, every fish will get ich.

-If your fish are eating I suggest dont treat. The best treatment for ich struck fish is good water parameters and lots and lots of food.

-Note that if your fish just randomly got ich without the introduction of a new fish then I highly suggest checking those water parameters.

-I have never lost a fish to ich and I never treat the ich directly when I see it. The fish always gets over the stress of a new arrival or parameter change as long as you keep them fed. I feed my fish approx 5 times a day, NLS pellets.


Some people might not like my post but tough. I am absolutely obsessed with the most ich drawn fish, tangs and I have and had tons of them over the years. I highly recommend NLS for feeding.

 

[duncantse]

When I tried doing a hyposalinity, I moved my clown and damsel into a QT tank but it was very hard to maintain. The good bacteria that I seeded in a DT with a sponge can not adjust to the salinity of 1.009. A lot of those bacteria will die and the cycle starts. You have to do at the very least 2 water changes everyday to control both ammonia and nitrite. The damsel and clown did not make it through the treatment because that morning I did not do a water change and ammonia was at 0.50 and nitrite was at 0.25. Both my fish died.

 

[bigdoug]

Tried both cupramine and hypo, I like the cupramine due to what was stated above. The fish I treated with cupramine are healthy, the ones I treated with hypo are now being treated with cupramine cause I could not keep a handle on the hypo. I also tried no ich by fishvet that is marine safe, it did not seem to harm anything but also did not cure the ich. So I agree take your pick hypo or cupramine.

 

[Sk8r]

Best and easiest way to maintain even hypo is to take a piece of tape and mark the water line on the glass where the salinity is perfect hypo. Just check it often, top off often, and you're good. I do recommend everyone who keeps fish to get a refractometer. They're spendy, but fish are more so over time, and the instrument will last through years. Using that instrument properly calibrated will give you instant, accurate assessment, and that mark on the glass, once established, will be sure you're good. If you want to do a lot of fish-acquiring for a big tank over the years, an inexpensive dual float switch and maxijet pump will keep that salinity bang-on target for as long as you keep the reservoir filled. It's the same rig I use to keep my tank: no fancy controller, just a simple float switch wired to a plugin with a pump.

Water quality does have a great deal to do with your fish health: and having your qt as well as your dt wired with a topoff is one important aspect of keeping that water quality high. I have no way to prove it, but I suspect most complaints of a fish lost in quarantine relates to water quality and the difficulty of maintaining it well: equip yourself for the long haul, and you will find this aspect of the hobby much more push-button and a lot less worry. Evaporation altering salinity and evaporation concentrating a medication are neither one desirable situations: ---and lest you conclude stopping all evaporation could make things safer, evaporation and gas exchange are important to temperature control and water quality, so you can get into trouble not having sufficient evaporation. Best equip the qt to do what it needs to do: hold steady water quality under the difficult circumstance of a smaller volume of water.

 

[Orcrone]

Lots of good info here. There is no right or wrong answer regarding hypo vs. copper. Hypo is easier on the fish but harder on the aquarist. In addition to closely monitoring salinity you must do the same with pH. In hypo conditions it's difficult keeping pH stable and the normal marine buffers don't work well. On the other hand it's relatively easy to keep Cupramine in the proper range to be effective, but copper is a poison to fish.

Don't know if this is frowned upon but on the Reef Sanctuary - Fish treatment forum there are a number of excellent sticky threads on ich, it's treatment (both hypo and copper), setting up a QT, etc. I'd highly recommend you check them out.

Whichever method you choose, best of luck to you.

 

[Stuart60611]

Best and easiest way to maintain even hypo is to take a piece of tape and mark the water line on the glass where the salinity is perfect hypo. Just check it often, top off often, and you're good.

I just want to emphasize that generally this will work, but many (if not most) have difficulty maintaining proper PH during hypo so if you go this route you must check PH regularly. You will not have to worry whatsoever about nitrate, but you must also monitor ammonia very carefully while fish are in the quarantine/hospital tank. If you PH is off or ammonia is even slightly measureable, you must do immediate and appropariate water changes. This is where many have problems in hypo because you must be very careful when doing water changes to maintain hyposalinity levels, or the treatment can fail.

When I tried doing a hyposalinity, I moved my clown and damsel into a QT tank but it was very hard to maintain. The good bacteria that I seeded in a DT with a sponge can not adjust to the salinity of 1.009. A lot of those bacteria will die and the cycle starts. You have to do at the very least 2 water changes everyday to control both ammonia and nitrite.

Neither hypo, nor cupramine destroy the biological filter. At most, these treatments temporarily retard bacteria growth (do not kill bacteria but reduce the pace by which bacteria reproduce for several days). Also, any retardation of bacteria can usually be completely avoided if one doses the quarantine/hospital tank several days before and for several after treatment commences with a quality live bacteria product. When one treats with hypo or cupramine in a hospital/quarantine tank and experiences ammonia problems, more often than not it is a consequence of not having a mature biological filter (mature filter medium, such as a sponge) and not because the treatments kill bacteria. Also, using display tank water to fill the hospital/quarantine tank often greatly improves the maturity of the bacterial colonies in the quarantine/hospital tank and thus greatly reduces potential for ammonia problems.