Tomini Tang Ich?? Need Help!

[rort]

I am new to this forum but have been active in others.

I have been advised to stay away from medications as much as possible for my Tomini Tang that came down with pretty bad Ich.

Some background:
- Always been in a 10g QT from Day 1, then came down with Ich immediately
- Running small AquaClear filter (without Carbon)
- Only have PCV with a small piece of LR

Treatment:
- For about 2 weeks I lowed the salinity to 1.009 SG (Hyposalinty) to try and fight it that way... NOTHING
- For about 1 1/2 week I have been treating his QT with Kick Ich.

STILL NOTHING!!

The Tang has never shown any real problems of breathing, swimming, or eating! What would you guys recommend me do next?

Any and all comments appreciated!

 

[limitdown]

I've tried all of the "reef safe" medications for ich and have zero success with them.

Hypo has worked for me, but 2 weeks of hypo is usually not long enough. Once I went almost 4 weeks before my fish was clear.

These days I use Cupramine exclusively for ich. It's stable and safe for most fish. Read the directions and keep the concentration at 0.5mg/l. In my experience, 2 weeks is also not long enough. I have had to use it for 4wks on a few occassions.

If you want to switch to Cupramine, you might need to do a 100% water change to get rid of the Kick Ick, and bring salinity back up to 1.026.

Note that Cupramine should not be used in a Hyposaline environment.

 

[rort]

Thanks great to know! Thank you! I should have written that The tang was in Hyposalinty for about 3 weeks and NOTHING happened except he got worse.


I will look into Cupramine and try that soon!

 

[limitdown]

If you're using a refractometer to measure salinity/specific gravity, make sure it's properly calibrated.

 

[rort]

I calibrate it every 3 weeks, I also make sure that the water is at room temp before testing!!

 

[SlowCobra]

I went 4 1/2 weeks once before my Achilles kicked his ich habit. It's the piece of live rock that is causing the issue. Even in hypo. There some hypo resistant strains of ich out there. Get rid of the LR and in a week or 2 it should start to clear up.

I am fairly certain it was the result of live rock as, due to my own negligence, had to put all my fish back into hypo. This time I went without any (dead)LR and in less than 2 weeks everyone was completely clean and have been that way for the last 3 weeks.

 

[rort]

took the LR out! thanks for the advice! I am going to stop the ruby Reef treatment this weekend, empty the QT's water, fill with new water, and treat the Tomini Tang with Cupramine!

Does that sound about right?

 

[SlowCobra]

I try to avoid copper with tangs. While Cupramine is the least toxic of the copper treatments, it still tends to take its toll with tangs. They can be extremely sensitive to the copper and develop internal organ issues.

 

[rort]

Well it can't hurt to try hypo again!! Will let u guys know what is going on!

One thing I am worked about is putting this tang through so many treatments... I don't want to lower the SG again to then put the tang through more stress. I wanna do this the correct way but also in the least amount of time as he has been in there for going on 2 months!

 

[limitdown]

Others have reported copper sensitivity with some tangs, but I've had no problems doing it on various tangs including a sailfin, kole, powder blue and hippo.
Btw, powder blues and hippos are the biggest ich magnets ever. I will never put another one into my display unless he's gone through 4-6weeks of prophylactic cupramine treatment.