Ich and fish stocking

[fiji4118]

Hey all!

Looking for some helpful input. Been fighting crypto (ich) in my FOWLR tank for a while. Recently I treated it with an extend dosing ( 6 days on, 4 days off then 20 days on) with Chloroquine Phosphate. Looked like it was gone so I ordered some new fish. They have not gone in yet and I see signs that it appears to be back. I have had this tank fallow previously so not sure that I am ever going to get it out. So I have started treatment again. The issue that I have is that I have a brand new arothoron puffer and paddle fin wrasse showing up tomorrow. Coming from divers den so I was not going to QT them since they already do so. Never had an issue with one of their fish but now I am obviously hesitant to stick them in. My QT is a 29G which is a bit small for an 8" fish. Thoughts? Grab a bigger QT for them to sit in for 2 weeks?

Thanks,

Adam

 

[freedominco]

I would get all the fish out treat them with hypo and get a bigger qt for the new fish, let the tank remain fishless for 8+ weeks and be rid of the ich for good.

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[Dbarnes]

Have u ever used "ich attack" i have seen great results with it.... i would QT the new fish though so they dont get it as they will be very susceptible due to shipping. The ich attack product will not injure coral or in your case live rock. Other wise pull out and QT for 6-8 weeks. Orrrr nuke the tank with copper but need lots off water change to keep up with die off....

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[freedominco]

you cant nuke the tank with copper with the live rock in there. copper treatment is done in a tank that will never be used as a reef again unless proper cleaning is done to try to clear out the copper. If you add copper to a fowlr or a reef you will truly be nuking your tank

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[Dbarnes]

you cant nuke the tank with copper with the live rock in there. copper treatment is done in a tank that will never be used as a reef again unless proper cleaning is done to try to clear out the copper. If you add copper to a fowlr or a reef you will truly be nuking your tank

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That's why i said "nuke".... yes its permanent

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[Haulin Oates]

Have u ever used "ich attack" i have seen great results with it.... i would QT the new fish though so they dont get it as they will be very susceptible due to shipping. The ich attack product will not injure coral or in your case live rock. Other wise pull out and QT for 6-8 weeks. Orrrr nuke the tank with copper but need lots off water change to keep up with die off....

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I too have used Kordons Ich Attack with great success! Both times it cured Ich and I didn't loose a single coral. Note that I didn't have much in SPS at the time, but I did have a chalice, several LPS, zoas, softies, and montis.

 

[daverf]

Hey Adam, curious what you ended up doing and how the plan is going. I've had a bad Ich run as well. I did nuke my 200G FOWLR display tank, ran copper for about 8 weeks total at a pretty high level (.5ppm+), no skimmer or carbon. I also dropped salinity to about 1.014, temp up to 80. And started/stopped full Crypto Pro treatments (quinine) a few times. Talk about water hell for the poor wrasse. He held on. Cycled through die-off, killed a handful of peppermint shrimp, the whole 9 yards. So basically one step beyond fallow (although I had a bluehead wrasse in there).

Anyway, I just started to pull the copper (cuprisorb, skimmer), and as a stress test pushed the salinity up to 1.020 with a single water change. White spots on the wrasse. Insane!!!

He's shaken most of them off but I can't believe this cryptonite Ich I have.

Also, don't want to hijack the thread on my issue, but if anyone has a suggestion for me on what to do next, let me know (I may order the Ich attack).

 

[freedominco]

Hey Adam, curious what you ended up doing and how the plan is going. I've had a bad Ich run as well. I did nuke my 200G FOWLR display tank, ran copper for about 8 weeks total at a pretty high level (.5ppm+), no skimmer or carbon. I also dropped salinity to about 1.014, temp up to 80. And started/stopped full Crypto Pro treatments (quinine) a few times. Talk about water hell for the poor wrasse. He held on. Cycled through die-off, killed a handful of peppermint shrimp, the whole 9 yards. So basically one step beyond fallow (although I had a bluehead wrasse in there).

Anyway, I just started to pull the copper (cuprisorb, skimmer), and as a stress test pushed the salinity up to 1.020 with a single water change. White spots on the wrasse. Insane!!!

He's shaken most of them off but I can't believe this cryptonite Ich I have.

Also, don't want to hijack the thread on my issue, but if anyone has a suggestion for me on what to do next, let me know (I may order the Ich attack).

you never got the salinity low enough, I battled ich about 2 years ago, still have the fish I treated and still no ich. I used hypo on my fish removed all the fish from the tank and let it remain fishless untill the fish were out of hypo, I never would do hypo without a auto top off and refractometer.

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[daverf]

Thanks, appreciate that, and I had seen you suggest that as the way to go to a few people with ich issues. I guess I figured that nuking the tank was more extreme than full hypo and fallow. I wonder if I run 2 month fallow at this point, then do 30 day hypo and 30 day non-hypo in QT...

It's just crazy how you see people out there that medicate or run hypo while doing fallow for a long time, only to get the fish back into a tank and see white spots right away...I guess that's my fear...but what have I got to lose...maybe will give this path a shot.

 

[freedominco]

Thanks, appreciate that, and I had seen you suggest that as the way to go to a few people with ich issues. I guess I figured that nuking the tank was more extreme than full hypo and fallow. I wonder if I run 2 month fallow at this point, then do 30 day hypo and 30 day non-hypo in QT...

It's just crazy how you see people out there that medicate or run hypo while doing fallow for a long time, only to get the fish back into a tank and see white spots right away...I guess that's my fear...but what have I got to lose...maybe will give this path a shot.

I think the problem is people are not running hypo correctly, it is very important that the salinity stays exact and the only way to do that is to use a ato. is the wrasse the only fish in the tank at this point ?

after my hypo was complete I keep my fish in the qt for a couple of weeks and inspected them constantly looking for spots.

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[Cake_Boss]

I was reading up on ich, the internet said that there are 10,000 different ailments that look like ich. They may or may not bee treated by hypo.

 

[daverf]

freedom - yes, the wrasse is the only one. i didn't shoot for the full hypo for my display tank as i didn't want to kill the live rock, also figuring that the tank biological filter had already been hit hard enough by the copper...can't believe that after running copper at 2x the kill zone for about 6 weeks, the ich held on. anyway, maybe i need to go for the full QT hypo, if i can catch him, thanks for the advice.

jaime - wow! so if I don't have ich, there's only 9,999 other possibilities. good to know i've narrowed this down a bit! lol

Maybe it isn't Ich that i've been dealing with... But I'm pretty sure its an external parasite. It has looked like white spot, amyloodinium velvet at times, and parasite symptoms (breathing, scratching, slime coat production and color changes). Seems to move too slow to be velvet... who knows. maybe it's super ich (like super strep). From what I read, copper or hypo should kill any external parasites, so i'm surprised that whatever is in my tank held on for the copper ride (although i didn't do full hypo).

i wonder if I should just try to add another fish on my stock list that is more prone to ich (and not so hard to catch). this might help me observe whether the ich population is likely to cause another infestation. Diver's Den has a fish I want...as does Neptune's (who runs 2 week copper QT before any fish is sold)...so maybe I should buy/dip/put in display and observe? any thoughts, anyone?

or i'm almost tempted to throw a wimpy fish in there that is prone to parasites...tang or something else...see if the disease runs its course and claims another victim...so i can find a place around town to do a scrape and ID the disease.

 

[fiji4118]

I never went with hypo. I actually did some reading and felt that it really doesn't do anything. The tank is fallow now and will be until December. All the fish are in 2 QT tanks. One for the fish that never made it into the system and the other for the fish that had ich. They are being treated with CP and ampicillin.

 

[freedominco]

I never went with hypo. I actually did some reading and felt that it really doesn't do anything. The tank is fallow now and will be until December. All the fish are in 2 QT tanks. One for the fish that never made it into the system and the other for the fish that had ich. They are being treated with CP and ampicillin.

well to each his own, I did hypo once and it worked like a charm.

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[daverf]

Just curious, why would you do ampicillin for Ich?

 

[fiji4118]

Not for ich. Just dosing in case. The fish that brought in the ich was suppose to be QT'd. I figured I would just double up and make sure it didn't have anything while I had it in quarantine.

 

[ShelbyJK500]

Sucks to hear about your battles Dave. I don't think I would be able to stomach an outbreak in my FOWLR. That would probably push me out of the hobby, at least the larger side. Glad you're sticking with it though! I can't believe anything would survive the copper. However, and I'm just thinking out loud and no expert...but if you have a good amount of liverock and sand...depending on the type of copper you used, it could have been "soaked" up by the porous substrate and rock in the tank. I'm falling asleep and can't remember the term, but there is a non-binding type of copper that is more "free floating" in the water column that does not absorb like other copper into substrate. I've tried both in QT with fish inflicted with ich, and found that Cupramine was the only one that worked for me.

Also, just a side note, you probably won't be able to keep many inverts if any in the tank again if the rock/sand was in while copper was dosed. The substrate will continue to leach copper after it's removed...just a heads up if you add inverts unsuccessfully in the future!

I've gotten fish that were supposedly QT'd prior to my purchase that had ich or worse right after I got them. FWIW, I'm a total believer in QT'ing everything now, I've even gotten as bad as QT'ing inverts as I've seen aiptasia growing on shells of hermits/snails in LFS's many times. I might not be as concerned if I was just starting with my first couple of fish, but I couldn't imagine having my tank stocked, like it is right now, and then adding something without full QT on my part and then WHAM...everything I worked hard to achieve is affected. I would lose it. Anyhow, keep us/me posted! Hope things turn the corner.

 

[daverf]

Adam, makes sense...

Evan, thanks brother... Incredible how you rush one little step on one little fish...or throw caution to the wind on one little tank setup step...you pay a major price!

I was using Cupramine throughout the main tank treatment. I think I'll skip the fallow attempt, as you see plenty of stories about running a tank fallow for even 3 months and Ich returning. If getting down to copper and one fish didn't kill the Ich, I'm not really guessing that I'll get rid of it from my system with any other measure. I'm going to instead follow strict QT for the fish but mix in 1-2 cups of display tank water here and there, per what WWM suggested that I try, to hopefully inoculate new guys. Then I can treat them in QT if there are any problems. I've got enough juice in me to try round 2, but if the display tank causes another mass die off I'll wait until spring (when I can open the windows) and run FW/bleach for a good week before starting over!! No doubt that would be the real nuke deal.

Surviving the copper doesn't make sense, the problem you mentioned on rock/sand must have caused the water to register higher on my Seachem testing than the system's lethal capacity to kill Ich. I was measuring .6ppm of copper (theoretically should have killed the wrasse). I guess that points back to why QT must be done and display tank treatment never works! I'm OK with not using inverts, although I plan to run cuprisorb in the tank for at least the next year to keep pulling the copper out.