Safe Duration In Hypo When Treating Ich

[windyridge]

I put my two percula clowns and yellow goby just purchased from LFS in quarantine on 6/24. The next day both clowns had white spots. Dropped salinity to 1.009 and have religiously kept it there ever since. By 6/30 all visible signs of ich gone but the clowns are flashing. By 7/5 one clown is still occasionally flashing and I notice one spot. By 7/11 no spots and no flashing. Today, 10 days later, they are swimming erratically and flashing. I have been doing 25% or more water changes weekly and there have been two 50% water changes since the beginning. Now I have to reset to 4 more weeks at least. How long can these fish realistically be at hyposalinity safely and will I ever stop the cycle? It's almost been a month already. Through all this the little goby has been fine.

 

[namxas]

We've kept fish in hypo for 8 weeks with no issues.

You might want to consider using quinine sulfate or choroquine if you think you have a resistant strain of crypto...there's a lot of that going around these days.

 

[windyridge]

Do they have to be brought up from hypo for that treatment and how effective and how harmful/stressfull is it to the fish? I should probably wait until this cycle of behavior ends before I bring up the salinity if I need to bring it up. The last thing I need is a full blown outbreack of ich again.

Also for duration, in order to give the fish the full 4-6 week treatment I should reset and go another 4-6 weeks from when the symptoms disappear which will put them in hypo for about 12 weeks. Isn't that pushing it a bit?

 

[namxas]

IME with hypo, the cysts actually disappear fairly rapidly, but we typically treat for 8 weeks so the DT can lay fallow.

Yes, raise the salinity slowly when you go back to "normal". Altho many say that most fish can osmoregulate fine, the way I see it is you have a fish that isn't "tip-top" yet, and by going UP in salinity, there's a greater chance for the fish to become dehydrated, which can stress it out and now you're back to square one when it has a relapse.

 

[windyridge]

Sorry to sound dumb but what does IME mean?
I don't want to raise the salinity unless I have to treat with quinone but from what I've read I'd rather not use it. So I guess I will do another 4 weeks and hope that takes care of it. According to the ich hypo thread in this forum the treatment should be 6 weeks after the last sign of symptoms so I should be looking at 12 weeks total. I am trying to ascertain if anyone has successfully treated fish for that long without killing them. Has anyone doen that or is it not recommended? It looks like the encysted ich entered it's free swimming stage today. Hopefully all the encysted ich are no longer cysts and hopefully they explode in short order. I imagine if this cycle keeps repeating itself I am screwed. I just can't do water changes every day and I don't want to not feed stressed fish for 7 days as the directions state. :-((((

 

[lagatbezan]

Have you considered using cupramine? It's easy to use and test for, takes less time and is really effective against killing ich. The problem with doing hypo (IME-in my experience) is that you have to make sure that the salt level doest change and stayes constant which is hard to do without a auto topoff system. You also have to keep an eye on your ph which tends to drop during hypo.
Good luck.

 

[windyridge]

Yes I have and I'd rather not use it. My Q tank is 10g and I have a line marked. I am actually using the salinity scale which is tighter and I am able to keep the salt level very tight. I have been watching the PH which has stayed at 8.0 to 8.2 throughout. But thanks for mentioning it anyway.

 

[lagatbezan]

are you using a refractometer to measure the salt level? also make sure that it is calibirated properly with the required solution. I'm sure that it is, but its always good to double check it

 

[windyridge]

yes to both. Today they are behaving perfectly. Go figure. Maybe the big clown flashed yesterday for fun (jk)