Safest and best way to treat ich?

[rdefino]

I have to treat a 210gal tank loaded with fish. It's not sa reef tank, just fish only. I'm looking at doing hyposalinity. Is this the best and safest way. Some say to use copper, some say hyposalinity.

What are the pro's and cons of each?

Thanks

 

[Steven Pro]

Do you have live sand or live rock in the display? If so, either treatment would be problematic as both would kill a whole host of invertebrates in the display with the resulting death and decay possibly producing lethal amounts of ammonia.

 

[tpaft]

I went to my local fish store, FAOIS, and they gave me flake food that contained antibiotics that I have been feeding them. He said to feed them once a day with this food and only this food, not to give them anything extraneous. My powder brown is the only one affected in my reef tank with 15 fish. This Thursday will be 30 straight days of feeding them this food, and the powder brown has cleared up nicely. Good luck.

 

[Texastravis]

tpaft, sry but that method is worthless. Take that food back to the lfs and tell him he is dumb. What that food might do is boost the immune system of the fish a bit but other than that its worthless. Fish need vitamins and healthy food while they are sick. Not simple flake food. Regardless if the powder brown looks better, the ick is still in the tank and its probably just going through one of its cycles and will return soon and will seek revenge. I dont blame you for trying this as treating that lg of a tank with that many fish isnt fun. QT everything and hopefully you wont encounter this problem ever again

Rdefino. Depending on how many fish you got it may be easier to move all the fish to a smaller hospital tank. The reason being is because it would take a large amt of copper for a 200 gallon or a lg amount of salt to do hypo on that lg of a DT. Copper in my opinion should never be used in a DT. Wants its in the system (rock, pours, sand) its very hard to get out. Hypo would be best for the display. Take out rock and replace with other types of hiding places such as PVC. Start your hypo treatment. When your in Hypo your sand bed willl die off. With this in mind you will probably have some nitrate/ammonia spike so be read to do water changes about every other day to keep the water at optimum water conditions. Slowly bring fish back up to regular salt lvls after about 6 weeks of hypo. Immediately get live rock back into the tank to help with filtration and keep up with water changes while sand becomes established again with bacteria. In all honesty you will probably go through about 3 buckets of salt.

Have fun and sry for your luck

 

[rkelman]

"Take that food back to the lfs and tell him he is dumb."

Lol QT and copper are sure fire. I recently tried hypo and it didn't work in 4 weeks.. I'll stick with copper.

 

[Texastravis]

rkelman: make sure when in hypo you us a refractometer so the salt lvl is perfecto. Start the 4-6 week timer wants the salt reaches there and it will eventually die yes.

I do agree though, copper is more "sure fire" and takes less time but I do not recommend using it on a display tank.

 

[rkelman]

I did use a refactometer and kept it low for 4 weeks. Maybe I should have gone 6. It was my first time trying hypo. I think I'll stick to copper. I've used it many times and it works great. Definitely not in a DT though.

 

[limitdown]

Many strains of ich are resistant to hyposalinity.

 

[Texastravis]

"Many strains of ick are resistant to hyposalinity"

I would love to see some articles backing this statement. Unless by "strains of ick" you are referring to velvet or flukes or other types of bacterial infections. But even copper doesnt treat those. You would need prazipro

 

[limitdown]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13273707#post13273707 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Texastravis
"Many strains of ick are resistant to hyposalinity"

I would love to see some articles backing this statement. Unless by "strains of ick" you are referring to velvet or flukes or other types of bacterial infections. But even copper doesnt treat those. You would need prazipro

Yes, praziquantel is good for flukes, but it can't kill velvet.

No article, but hypo-resistant strains of ich have been discussed here before.

IME, I've had mixed results with hypo treatment. And this is with keeping salinity at 1.009 for 4-6wks (daily checking with refractometer and PinPoint's electronic salinity monitor, calibrated from 2 different batches of PinPoint 53m calibration fluid).

 

[shelburn61]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13273075#post13273075 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by limitdown
Many strains of ich are resistant to hyposalinity.

This is true. Typical treatment recommendation is to reduce SG to (1.009 - 1.010) but I've seen Ich survive at this level and below. I now take SG down as low as 1.006 as necessary.

 

[e55MD]

Has anyone ever tried using Quinine Sulphate (available from National Fish Pharmacy)? It is a real treatment (like copper) not some useless "snake oil" like Kick Ick, Stop Parasite etc. You also need to treat with it in a QT due to its invertebrate toxicity.

 

[limitdown]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13277366#post13277366 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by e55MD
Has anyone ever tried using Quinine Sulphate (available from National Fish Pharmacy)? It is a real treatment (like copper) not some useless "snake oil" like Kick Ick, Stop Parasite etc. You also need to treat with it in a QT due to its invertebrate toxicity.

Copper and hyposalinity have been proven effective against ich. Personally, I have had mixed results with hyposalinity, perhaps because I was dealing with hypo-resistant strains of ich. I have had really good success with Seachem's Cupramine copper treatment. It's the safest copper treatment on the market.

Steven Pro has written about the use of Chloroquine Diphosphate (ie Chloroquine), which was commonly used in humans to prevent/treat Malaria parasites (plasmodium), but its effectiveness has diminished (especially against plasmodium falciparum).

I have yet to see anybody on this forum with actual experience using drug on ich. Since you're an anesthesiologist maybe you can get some from a pharmacist buddy and let us know if it works. If you do use it, be careful to not breathe it in by accident because as you know chloroquine can cause unpleasant side effects. I've love to see if the newer malaria drugs such as Malarone (Atovaquone/Proguanil), are effective against ich. Just a thought.

 

[shelburn61]

e55MD,

Sounds like we read the same article. Sounds promising. Otherwise, Cuprimine seems to be the best product.

 

[e55MD]

I am going to be using Cupramine. I have 3 bottles and the Seachem Copper test ready to go. I am just worried about what effect the Cupramine will have on my Golden Puffer.