Ich Wars II

[reiple]

Go with you horge. starving tank now (no fish that is).

[dark horge]

Well yes, but...

Any fish you then might put in afterwards would have to have been be subjected (in a separate tank) to quarantine, with preliminary FW dip, hypo and copper preferably, for nearly as long.

Otherwise, they'd be suspect carriers of the parasite back into the 'clean' display.

[TerryB10]

I don't think that a freshwater dip is necessary and I no longer recommend using copper for anything. Hyposalinity therapy alone will clear a fish of most external parasites. There are a couple of exceptions, most notably Amyloodinium and Uronema. Amyloodinium is better treated with Chloroquine phosphate and Uronema cannot be treated with copper or hyposalinity.
I see no point in leaving the display fishless for 3 months to rid it of ich. 30 days is usually long enough. If the tank is infested with Amyloodinium then it would be wise to wait at least 2 months.
Terry B

[Spanky]

Don't mean to derail you guys, just some thoughts.

Hypo and copper and open wounds.
Any attached parasite can come in on anything, rocks, corals, inverts, etc.
Copper and biological filters.
Actually training someone to identify the difference between ick, velvet, brooke, uronema, etc.
Some of these parasites can be ingested, some imbedded.

Anywho, garlic is very effective for eliminating some internal parasites, flukes, worms, etc. Seems to definitely build up overall health and the fish like it too.

Jerel

[reiple]

horge:whats a good quarantine tank setup? I am using a small 20 gallons with a sponge (that right?). I keep cleaning the sponge daily in salt water to remove detritus.

Severely affected (a domino damsel) fishes I do dip in fw for 3 minutes. I doubt this specimen will survive though.

I've been using hypo (TerryB10's suggested approach) first. If I could I would avoid copper treatment. So far ich spots were reduced in two fishes.

If none survive then the starve tank approach continues. Also after treatment (should none of the six fish survive) should I disinfect the quarantine? throw the sponge media?

BTW thanks for all info people....

[dark horge]

Originally posted by TerryB10
I don't think that a freshwater dip is necessary and I no longer recommend using copper for anything. Hyposalinity therapy alone will clear a fish of most external parasites.

If you no longer recommend something, then don't
Kidding aside, some people like to play safe.
Copper's apparent immunosuppressant effect is something to consider, though.

Originally posted by TerryB10
There are a couple of exceptions, most notably Amyloodinium and Uronema. Amyloodinium is better treated with Chloroquine phosphate and Uronema cannot be treated with copper or hyposalinity.

Trotting out other diseases sounds nice, but
I think there's already plenty of meat to butcher here,
before we fetch other carcasses to carve.

Originally posted by TerryB10

I see no point in leaving the display fishless for 3 months to rid it of ich. 30 days is usually long enough. If the tank is infested with Amyloodinium then it would be wise to wait at least 2 months.
Terry B

Hold it right there. You imply I was advocating a 3-month wait as a way to "rid" a tank of ich. There is quite a difference between treatment/quarantine and generalized tank assessment.

Re-read my post and the one just before it.

The subtopic I responded to was whether "ich" was effectively and generally always in a reef tank, in light of constant importation of suspect material (Doug's post). Given human error in recalling imports to an apparently-'clean' tank, an owner's claim of 90 prior days without new fish or suspect material is my benchmark for assessing a tank clean.

Clear enough?




horge

[dark horge]

Originally posted by reiple
horge:whats a good quarantine tank setup? I am using a small 20 gallons with a sponge (that right?). I keep cleaning the sponge daily in salt water to remove detritus.

Size and number of tanks would depend on the fish being treated.
Dunno what you've got, so...
I like to gently rinse any treatment/quarantine tank spongefilter media in saltwater. The rinsewater is then discarded. Anything more severe might excessively impact the nitrifying bacteria living there.

Severely affected (a domino damsel) fishes I do dip in fw for 3 minutes. I doubt this specimen will survive though. I've been using hypo (TerryB10's suggested approach) first. If I could I would avoid copper treatment. So far ich spots were reduced in two fishes.

The dip helps the fish shed visible 'cysts' so they can be discarded with finality along with the dipwater; as well as pops any parasites that are not protected by surrounding fish mucus or tissue.

If "hypo" hasn't yielded the perfect cure it's held to provide, then you're either not doing it right, or perhaps the parasite is so severely burrowed into the host's tissue and mucus that it is protected from osmotic shock. This is the other reason I was interested in garlic: if it repels the parasite and makes them come out in the open, then they are made more susceptible to osmotic-shock ("hypo").

So long as pH and temp match the fish's prior environment, there should be no problem regarding fish comfort/survival. If you mean you doubt it will survive the parasitic infestation, then that still doesn't change how you go about things, no?

If none survive then the starve tank approach continues. Also after treatment (should none of the six fish survive) should I disinfect the quarantine? throw the sponge media?

Yes, 'starve' the tank (or rather the parasites therein). My personal comfort level begins at 42 days fishless; 72 for paranoid days. A lot of others report satisfaction with just 14.

Simply rinsing out the treatment/quarantine tank/sponge in freshwater, air-drying for a week ought to be plenty insurance. Then you can set it up again, clean, in advance prep for any new fish you plan to buy.

[reiple]

The six (actually only 5 now. domino died) were damsels (in distress! hehehehe....sorry can't help it) and a small gaimard's coris. The coris has no visible ich. The damsels are a (dead) domino, a blue striped-black velvet (also called javanese princess i think), two princess damsels, a black and a white striped damsel.

Damsels and coris are swimming fine and seem ok now in the QT. Thanks again!

[TerryB10]

72 days is the longest recorded period of time that it can take for a tomont (unattached reproductive stage of ich) to excyst (hatch). However, the viablilty of the free-swimming stage is highly questionable at that point. When a tomont takes more that two weeks to hatch the free-swimming stage of the parasite rapidly begins to lose the ablilty to find and attach to a host. The longer is takes past two weeks the more the viablilty of parasite declines. For all practical purposes, 30 days is a safe waiting period but there is nothing wrong with giving it six weeks. The life cycle of the parasite is much less than 30 days but you need to account for cysts that do not exit the fish on a timely basis.
Terry B