Sick clowns?

... and now I notice that they are darting around quite a bit this evening, which I haven't seen lately. Could this mean that the parasites are dropping off? It seems like that would irritate them as the parasites dig out of their skin.
 
The parasites are still holding on! My heater theory is all I have at this point. Unless there is another disease that looks like ick. I have been unable to find one...
 
Deinonych, I posted a throughout description of my TTM process, as you requested. Do you see any holes? Do you think the heater could be the culprit?
 
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I would say, even if the heater would have a remaining cyst the level of infection should go down.
To me it still looks like ich, even though the nodules seem to be a little small. On the other hand, if it was velvet or brook they should be dead by now. But you never know, maybe TTM will slow velvet enough so that it isn't killing as quick as normal.
As this point, to be on the safe side, I would suggest dosing Ick-Shield Powder.

I would like to hear what Steve thinks about this, as he is the Ich and TTM specialist around here.
 
Deinonych, I posted a throughout description of my TTM process, as you requested. Do you see any holes? Do you think the heater could be the culprit?

Frankly, I'm at a loss. While the heater could possibly be the culprit, it's unlikely. I've treated fish with active crypto infections via TTM, and the spots are always gone by day 7 (i.e. after the second transfer). There may be some latent flashing, but they are typically free of infection by this point.

Part of me wants to state that this might be velvet, as the lesions look smaller than what is typically observed with crypto. But, like ThRoewer stated above, it would (should) have killed them by now. I agree with his suggestion of dosing Ick-Shield powder.
 
Thanks for your feedback, ThRoewer and Deinonych. I hate to treat something when I don't know exactly what it is, but I have to agree with you two on this since TTM doesn't seem to be working, and it still appears to be some sort of external parasite. So here is my new game plan.

I went ahead with the scheduled transfer this morning, and will do one final transfer on Friday (I know I won't get up in time on Saturday to do it at the <72 hour mark). On Friday, I will begin treating with Ick-Shield powder--I just ordered it online, and it should come tomorrow.

Since it's possible that the transfers are keeping whatever they have at a manageable level, I didn't want to stop until I had the medicine in hand. Also, as of this morning, they are in a 5 gallon tank, and I don't want to leave them in there for the treatment. So Friday, I'll put them back in the 10 gallon and begin meds.

Thanks for the advice! I'll let you know how it turns out.
 
I think he has turned PM off. Post in one of the threads about TTM failing and add a link to this thread.
 
All his threads are locked for commenting. Unless I hear otherwise I'm going to stick with this plan. I'm reading up on CP now. Looks like I can safely dose Prime simultaneously to help control ammonia (since I have no more seeded material), and I should probably have an antibiotic on hand in case of secondary infection. At the moment, I'm mainly concerned with accurate dosing a small amount of water. Any suggestions?
 
When you get the CP dose it in a freshly sterilized tank and then transfer the fish into this tank. CP should kill all free (possibly also on-fish stages) and the tank will be free of encysted stages. This way the fish should be clean after 2 weeks and you can transfer them into another clean tank for another 2 weeks of observation.
 
Yes, I've cleaned out my original QT with bleach and it's sitting out to dry now. I plan to fill it up on Friday and put the CP in before transferring the fish. Do you think it would be okay to just do a large water change and add carbon after the treatment rather than moving them again? My other tank (that I bought specifically for TTM) is just a 5.5 gal, and I don't think they are as comfortable in there.
 
I would rather move them again than take the risk. Also that transfer is important to get rid of all the bacteria that may have gotten used to CP - you don't want those around in case you need to treat something else with CP at a later time.
 
Ahhh. Gotcha. I guess I can always just transfer them back to the 10 gal after I clean it if they look too stressed.
 
Here is my plan:

-I'm going to fill my sanitized 10 gallon tank with 8 gallons of water.

-I called a local pharmacy (small town :) ) about measuring out mg of powder, and he offered to measure it out for me on his scale. So I'm going to have him measure out 240 mg to fill the tank initially. And if possible, I'll see if he can measure out three more 30 mg doses so that I'll at least have three one gallon water changes when needed.

-Typically, I change out about a quart a day in my QT just siphoning out waste and leftover food. But because any replacement water has to have Ick-shield in it, and small amounts are hard to measure, I'll just keep track of how much water I use until I reach one gallon. Then I'll mix up a one-gallon batch with the smaller dose the pharmacist measures out for me, and add it back to the tank for a refresher.

-Of course I'll top off with unmedicated RODI as usual. In this case, I'll have to move the tape marker each time I remove water so that I'll know how much to top off for evaporation.

-I'll use Prime as needed if/when ammonia rises.

-I'll do all this for 21 days according to the medication instructions. Then I'll move them to a second sanitized tank for 2 weeks of observation.

-I'll have an antibiotic on hand in case it's needed. (I haven't gotten this far yet, but I'll be headed to my lfs this weekend to get some frozen food on sale.)

So if all goes well, will they be ready for the display after the two weeks of observation???
 
That should work. They should actually be clean of all spots within the first week, the other two are for safety.
 
... And I guess during the two week observation period I can raise the salinity (still at 1.018) with my display water and watch them closely to be 100% sure my display doesn't have anything. I feel pretty sure about it, but this would be the time to confirm!

It is okay to keep them at 1.018 during CP treatment, right?
 
I have everything ready to go, but I was just wondering before going through with the treatment... is it at all possible that this is lympho? That would completely change the plan.

I'm just thinking about when it showed up--a week or so after the small fish got stuck in the intake pipe and right after finishing a second round of some meds for supposed internal parasites (which turned out it probably wasn't).

And I'm thinking about the fact that it looks like the smaller fish has larger spots, especially where he was most injured...

And the fact that TTM didn't work.

Does it look at all like lympho? I've seen to many varying photos.

I'll post a couple photos in a sec.
 
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