Why cant I cure ich?!?!?!

M

Monster00101

New member
I have had a reef and a fowler for two years. Had them down for six months after town got evacuated due to fire. Against all odds I have been able to keep sensitive corals fish and inverts but I can't cure ich for the life of me. I have tried copper, fw dips and now hypo and can't seem to kill it. I have incredible attention to detail. Everything thing is calibrated and I don't look over any detail. Latley every fish I bring home seems to get it shortly after. It's getting very frustrating and sad. Any help would b greatly appreciated. If I can get this down then I e pretty much overcome every obstacle in this hobby.
 
The fw dip I think I did too long was the problem. The others have been in qt. The hypo I dropped it to 1.009 over the course of a week. And have had it there for well over two months and my pbt still has a couple spots popping up. Not much but it's there. As for the copperit was a while ago but I got the copper to the right level and the ich got so bad it killed them.
 
First read the stickies. Tanks have ich, fish are merely hosts for part of the life cycle. To cure your tank it must be without fish for nine weeks and the fish must be treated with one of the three proven methods as described in the stickies. The devil is in the details.
 
^^^^^I agree^^^^^
It sounds like ich is alive and well in your DT, even when you can't see it. Until you eliminate it there, by having a fishless tank for 9+ weeks, it will come back. BTW, FW dips don't help ich.
 
Like I said I obsess over the details. My dt has been fish free for close to three months. The fish I have now r in qt at 1.009 sg for the same time and there is still ich. Only on the pbt. I've read the stickys and as far as I can c everything has been spot on for three months. The Puffer in the same qt is perfect but the pbt looks like hell. I know that dosent matter my concern is if I have calibrated my refractometer and have had them at a perfect 1.009 then y is there still ich. Should it not have run it's course by now?
 
Monster00101 said:
Like I said I obsess over the details. My dt has been fish free for close to three months. The fish I have now r in qt at 1.009 sg for the same time and there is still ich. Only on the pbt. I've read the stickys and as far as I can c everything has been spot on for three months. The Puffer in the same qt is perfect but the pbt looks like hell. I know that dosent matter my concern is if I have calibrated my refractometer and have had them at a perfect 1.009 then y is there still ich. Should it not have run it's course by now?
Click to expand...

When using hypo, any chance the SG is rising above 1.009 due to daily evaporation? Just a few minutes is all it takes and the whole ich life cycle starts over. An ATO really helps.

Some folks swear by hypo and it just doesn't seem to work for others. I just don't know why, possibly a strain of ich becoming immune to that target SG?? I'm a long-time of copper and trust it completely, but there are problems with this too. I've become a recent convert to tank transfer and would use it wherever possible. I just on't see way for TT to fail. Unfortunately; "ich" and "100%" just don't fit together very often.
 
The tank is coverd I have a line drawn on the glass where the level is at and it never drops. I do top it up but the line should b where 1.009 is. It may go to 1.010 but that's it. I top I off with jus a splash of fresh water three times a day. I am currently looking into ato. I have checked the sg after I top off and before and it dosent seem to move. When it comes to sw the only problem I can't seem to over come is ich. I havent always used a qt but since I got ich in my dt I have been using it. I really can't c where the problem is in my procedure. Is copper more forgiving then hypo?
 
Monster00101 said:
The tank is coverd I have a line drawn on the glass where the level is at and it never drops. I do top it up but the line should b where 1.009 is. It may go to 1.010 but that's it. I top I off with jus a splash of fresh water three times a day. I am currently looking into ato. I have checked the sg after I top off and before and it dosent seem to move. When it comes to sw the only problem I can't seem to over come is ich. I havent always used a qt but since I got ich in my dt I have been using it. I really can't c where the problem is in my procedure. Is copper more forgiving then hypo?
Click to expand...

If SG exceeds the appropriate threshold (1.008/1.009) the clock restarts.
 
I have personally encountered a strain of ich that I could not kill with hypo. I know how to perform hypo and have done it many times with success, but this one time I could not kill it, and in the end I switched to copper @ 0.5ppm for 4 weeks and that eliminated the ich.

If I were you, I would lower it 1.008 and not 1.009. I have noticed certain strains of ich that have survived in 1.009, so nowadays I always do 1.008. Also, like MrTusk said, if your salinity ever went to 1.010, the clock restarts.

Try 1.008 and see what happens. If it doesn't work, go with cupramine at 0.5ppm for 4 weeks. That should do the trick.
 
1.007 is too low, well technically. I would use an ATO to hold it constant at 1.008, no more, no less. If the spots all go away and dont come back, count six weeks from there before you raise the salinity.
 
Monster, I echo your feelings. I have been running successful sps/coral-covered tanks for years but have always had issues with fish and ich. I never qt'd and that was the clear problem. I recently had another outbreak and pulled all fish to a qt. I am still in the qt process as my DT won’t be fallow for 12 weeks until August 15 (I am doing even longer than recommended because I don’t want to deal with ich EVER again).

That being said, I stared with hypo and experienced the same thing you mentioned above. The first few days the fish looked to be losing the ich but then after two weeks I saw the spots return. I believe (and read the stickies they are very helpful) the error in this method was that there is really such a thin line between 1.008 and 1.009 to make sure you get the parameters right, not to mention if your means of measuring are not 100% precise you could be off there too. Long story short, I could not kill the ich using hypo so moved on to copper.

Using cupramine, I noticed the fish seemed to suffer and I did lose three angels during this first week of copper. I cannot say for sure if it was due to the disease or the copper but I lost them. IT was too stressful for me to make sure I had the exact same amount right on each turn and once a water change came about how to determine if the correct amount was added back in. Not to mention, the color scales to measure the level of copper are very susceptible to interpretations...what shade of blue or brown is it? They all look so similar.

So now I am in the first few days of the tank transfer method. I just did the first transfer and am anticipating the next Monday am. I will be happy to send more progress on this and if it works.

Just wanted to chime in and let you know you are not alone. I am finding this qt experience extremely stressing (to me and the fish).
 
Treatments recommended here for any given outbreak should provide significant mitigation of disease. Copper sulfate pentahydrate appears to be the most effective treatment to date. Chloroquine and salinity, as well as formalin, have also proven to have some effectiveness with certain strains of cryptocaryon irritans but less so than use of copper. If the Cryptocaryon strain affecting your fish is tolerant of low salinity, however, hyposalinity will not be an effective control. Best method (and in my opinion, the easiest) for eradication is tank transfer (described in its own sticky). In all cases, however, a display tank must remain fallow for at least 9 weeks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

C
Can’t keep overflow box balanced
Replies
2
Views
152
Cruzersmith
C
wvned
Not sure what to do
Replies
8
Views
1K
OrionN
OrionN
BigEZ77
Urgent Help Requested - Wrasses Won't Come Out - CB Blue Tang Arriving Today (NO QT)
Replies
8
Views
813
rrrrob
rrrrob
R
some random questions
Replies
1
Views
229
SantaMonica
S
Niven
I'm back....and ready to jump back in, feet first in the deep end, speedo, everything!
2
Replies
24
Views
755
griss
griss
Back
Top