24 hrs Ich?

[Krypt]

I'm sorry Innovator, but I have to disagree with your assessment of hyposalinity. It is guaranteed to kill ich as long as the proper procedure is followed and the 4-6 week time line is adhered to. Hypo attacks the crypt when in the theront phase, this disrupts the life cycle and after the allotted time kills all the ich. The problem is when people don't follow the correct time line and stop the treatment too soon. The 4-6 week period begins after the last cyst falls off the fish.

As for Uronema, hypo is actually used as a treatment for it, not an accelerator.

Cryptocaryon and Hyposalinity - Blog - ATJ's Marine Aquarium Site
Uronema marinum

 

[Innovator]

Ich strains are becoming more "determined" and surviving hyposaline conditions, as seen by the myriad of postings of ich remaining after 4-6wks of hypo at 10ppt. The newer "rule" is now 8 weeks, but when will that become 12 wks and so on and so forth? Not only does hypo have limited effect on euryhaline parasites, but no affect on amlyoodinium, which would require a "standard" salinity and copper for treatment. Here's an older article on Hypo (scroll to bottom for list of cons): hypoOSTtherapyart.htm

As for Uronema, the primary treatment is a freshwater bath (limited to exposure time and species) and Formalin (more prevalent; See Noga), of which I don't believe your link even mentions Formalin. Copper would need to be dosed at a high standard to be effective and not tolerable in hyposaline conditions. On top of having exp. with Uronema in hypo at 1.009, Hemdal also warns against Hypo in relation to Uronema exposure; Personally I lay trust in Hemdal.

 

[Krypt]

Your article was a good read and there are legitamate cons to the treatment as there is to any other method. There was a little bit of contradiction between one of the pro's and con's, but I don't want to further derail this thread into a copper vs. hypo discussion. I imagine we could both come up with quite a few studies to back up our points (ahh the magic of the internet lol), so for now let's just agree to disagree. If anything, our discussion has shown the OP that there are definitely multiple ways of doing things.

 

[Wael El-Dasher]

I'm glad you got the ammonia under control and the fish are ok, great stuff. As for your ph being high, what is the actual reading? You just did a massive pwc so the ph should be very close to what is normal for your salt mix. Adding KH buffer can actually increase your ph so I would stop adding it.

Thanks. The ph was around 9.0, I checked it again later and it dropped to 8.3 on it's own. I believe the reading is off when testing new mix immediately after mixing. Two days later I checked the ammonia levels again and it was 0.6! So I did another big water change, added the cupramine and brought it up close to 0.5mg/l.

This time around though I used water from my main tank and put that in the QT. Since 10-15% water change of my main tank equates to about 70-80% of my QT, it worked out great. I do weekly changes with my main tank.

However now, the ammonia levels are an issue it seems that's gonna continue until treatment is finished. It seems that everyday I'll have to perform 50% water change to the QT since the copper is not allowing the filter media to grow any bacteria. I hardly feed the fish and they seem more stressed with this new environment. It's been about 1 week.

If you have patience to read up to now, I'd like you to continue a bit further with this story as I fill in some history.

Initially there were 4 fish in the main tank (125 gallons+ 12 gallon sump), a powder blue tang, 2 clowns, 1 sailfin blenny. The tang got the ich. I pulled out the fish except the blenny who's impossible to catch. I added a UV to the main tank for the blenny who seems totally unaffected thus far. The other fish went into the QT and cupramine treatment started, first bringing the level to 0.1mg, then couple of days later up to 0.3, and couple of days later 0.5mg.

The treatment had a quick effect as within 2 days (at 0.3mg/l) the ich disappeared from the tang. The clowns were fine. A day or so later the tang died. She had a small scab on her side from rubbing up against the LR in the main tank and I guess it got infected. I checked the water parameters and all was well. My ph was normal, ammonia was at 0.1 because I had done a WC the previous evening, nitrates were around 10, so I took her out of the QT. The clowns were kept in the QT.

Is it worth keeping them in there while the main tank has been running with UV for over a week now? I feel they're much more stressed in there and I am unable to control the ammonia levels in the QT. It seems that since I pulled out the tang early enough, there is a good chance that the parasite in the main tank didn't get a chance to fall off to the substrate to reproduce, and if some did, there is a better chance that the UV took care of it by now because my blenny is acting just normal, he's eating normal, behaving as usual and everything seems hunky dory.

What do you guys think?

cheers

Wael

 

[Krypt]

Don't use water from your DT for water changes in your QT. All your doing there is reintroducing more ich from your DT. Think of the DT as a contaminated area, nothing from that tank should go into the "clean" area of the QT. Only use new SW for your pwc.

Since you left the Blenny in the tank, there is a chance that the ich is still there. Even though he is not infected that you can see, that may be because he is not stressed. When fish get stressed they lose some of their slime coat and their immune system goes down, thats when the ich takes hold.

Putting the fish back in the DT is a gamble at best. Even though you've been running a UV, there still might be ich in the tank and if you introduced already stressed fish into the tank, they will be reinfected quickly.

IMO, try to catch the blenny again, get him in the QT and stick to doing the daily water changes to manage the ammonia for the duration of 4-6 weeks. I know it's tough and expensive, but if you don't do the full process, the ich will survive in the DT. The only time you should break the procedure is if you think your fish are so stressed that they may die.