Sick of Ich

[elaw62]

well I played with fire a while back and got burned. Introduced velvet into the tank and lost all fish except for an aiptasia eating file fish which seemed immune to it. I set up a hospital tank and left display fallow for 7 weeks. 2 weeks ago I bought a two-spot tang, coral beauty angel, and a couple of clowns and placed in QT with the filefish. Raised copper level to.5 left fish in treatment for 9 days (I wrongly deducted that the toment phase last 5-7 days then falls off and any new cysts that opened up and released the free swimmers would be killed by the copper.) After 9 days of maintaining copper at .5 (Cupramine with a Salifert test kit) I released the fish from QT back to display. No velvet but Ich has popped up on the tail of the tang and I'm very discouraged. I will hate going fallow again for 6 wks. :mad2:

 

[snorvich]

Fallow period for ich is at least 9 weeks; treatment period for therapeutic dosing of copper is 4 weeks. Fallow period for marine velvet is 6 weeks.

 

[elaw62]

then that would explain it. :sad2:

 

[snorvich]

Probably worth reading the ich link in the master Parasite sticky at the top of this forum. And for even more information, read the advanced ich link. They can be found here.

 

[elaw62]

Fallow period for ich is at least 9 weeks; treatment period for therapeutic dosing of copper is 4 weeks. Fallow period for marine velvet is 6 weeks.

Assuming a one-week standard deviation, leaving a tank fallow for 4 weeks will give you an 84.1% chance that you have eradicated the parasite, leaving a tank fallow for 5 weeks will give you a 97.7% chance of eradication, but if you want a 99.8% chance, you must leave the tank fallow for 6 weeks. That is the reason you see different numbers being used on Reef Central and in the literature.


Am I reading this wrong? I left tank fallow for 7 weeks, or is this outdated and new data suggest 9 weeks? I really need to know because I'll probably set up a 4o gal. trough for a QT and treat all fish for 4 weeks with copper I think I messed up by only treating the two spot tang 9 days in copper. Oh and I just wanted to say thanks for the time you spend answering these questions.

 

[arom]

10 weeks fallow as it has been documented that it may take up to 72 days for an Ich cyst
to hatch.

 

[dinger28]

+1 to what arom said. Hang in there man. I lost 95 percent of my fish to velvet and it was horrible. Then left the tank fallow while quarantining for the whole period. Luckily I have been ich free since August of 2013. QT all fish that go in the DT. I almost quit the hobby, but glad I didn't! It IS rewarding in the end.

 

[pscott99]

It could be stress. Are the fish eating well and behaving normal. You might give it a week if you cannot go back to qt. I am not suggesting not to qt, just saying I have seen what I thought was ich go away quickly in healthy fish. If there are more signs since the op then all bets off.

 

[elaw62]

It could be stress. Are the fish eating well and behaving normal. You might give it a week if you cannot go back to qt. I am not suggesting not to qt, just saying I have seen what I thought was ich go away quickly in healthy fish. If there are more signs since the op then all bets off.

at present fish in the display are eating well and active. Colors have really brightened up after just a few days in display tank.

 

[MrTuskfish]

It could be stress. Are the fish eating well and behaving normal. You might give it a week if you cannot go back to qt. I am not suggesting not to qt, just saying I have seen what I thought was ich go away quickly in healthy fish. If there are more signs since the op then all bets off.

Ich commonly appears then disappears. But, just because it can't be seen doesn't mean its gone. In reality, ich parasites can never be seen, the white spots are just evidence of their presence on the fish---mostly dead tissue caused by the burrowing parasite. If ich infested fish haven't been treated, just relying on "healthy" fish almost always turns out to be a mistake.

 

[snorvich]

It could be stress. Are the fish eating well and behaving normal. You might give it a week if you cannot go back to qt. I am not suggesting not to qt, just saying I have seen what I thought was ich go away quickly in healthy fish. If there are more signs since the op then all bets off.

No. Ich comes and goes, that is the nature of the life cycle. Stress does not cause ich, ich causes ich, and unless you remove it from the tank, it will continue until it eventually overwhelms.

 

[pscott99]

Depressing but true.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2389659

 

[Chargers]

Yeah velvet sucks, I recenty just lost all of my fish but one chromis which isn't looking great. I thought it was itch and did hyposalinity but it didn't work out. I'm going to fallow for 11 to 12 weeks just to be safe

do you guys treat with copper on new fish even though you don't see any signs of itch in the qt?

 

[snorvich]

I always do tank transfer to totally eliminate from the process. Beyond that, all fish are treated with Parazipro and observed for a month beyond the tank transfer period. It seems that the other parasites tend to show up just around the 3 week time period.