Ich, Ick or whatever you want to call it

[the21kid]

So my dog face puffer has a sprinkle or four and my Koran has 2 sprinkles....I have a couple fish in my small SW tank so I don't necessarily want to stick them in that tank cause they will get ich too...at least I would think that they would.

What suggestions, based on my stock, would be my best bet to rid the ich from the tank.

Cupramine? (I belive half doses instead of full)
Hyposalinity?
Freshwater dip?
Do nothing?
Any others?

Much help appreciated.

None of my other stock are showing any ich. The puffer did have a 2 sprinkles on him a week or 2 ago but they went away within a day. Neither of the 2 infected are rubbing or acting odd in anyway. All are eating like the pigs that they are

 

[quarryshark]

You have a difficult problem mainly because of the shark. For the rest..
I would suggest a hypo treatment in a separate qt tank or I believe these animals (with the exception of the shark) can handle cupramine. If you use cupramine, use a full dose. A half dose will do nothing to kill the parasite.
Now to get the main tank clear of the parasite, a fishless period of 6 weeks in needed. Copper will kill the shark and I have not seen any data on the effects of hypo on sharks. Since they generally are pretty resistant of ich, he would need to go in a separate tank for the duration of the fallow period. I would not leave him in the main, even though sharks are resistant, they can still allow the parasite to survive.
Another possibility... Does you tank contain any LR, inverts (doubt it with this crowd) or corals?
If not I was thinking that maybe you could treat the main with hypo and isolate the shark in another system. Like I said, not sure if the shark can tolerate a hypo treatment on not. If it is a true FO system, this might be your easiest option.
Perhaps steve-s will chime in about the shark situation.

 

[steve-s]

Sharks are not susceptible to C. irritans so it can stay in the main. It does not need to be part of the treatment regime.

Hypo is the best choice in a QT for the rest but Cupramine is safe with the puffer at a total dosage of 0.4 mg/l. Personally I would opt for the hypo though.

Cheers
Steve

 

[the21kid]

Thanks to both of you.

I have no live rock...at least not that I can think of or worry too much about...no inverts either. Shark, from what I can tell cannot tolerate hypo. So this leaves me with the hypo treatment in the QT tank. My question is.......can I cram everyone in a 29gal. Here's what I have in their (including size) and then what I would be adding

Currently....
Royal Gramma 2"
Maroon Clown 2"
Bar Goby 3"

Adding
Dog Face Puffer 6"
Domino Damsel 2"
Foxface Lo 5"
Juv. Koran 3"

What do I do about the lion....cause I know he will eat everything under 5" in such a small tank. I have heard that they can resist ich as well as the shark...but that means that he could prevent the ich from going away like the shark.

Eeekads

 

[quarryshark]

way too many fish for a 29 gallon, you would have bad ammonia problems.
Since its a true FO tank, how about treating the main with hypo and moving the shark to the 29 for the duration.
I would treat the Lion too.

 

[the21kid]

"Burce" is at about 14"......think he is too big at least for the duration of 6 weeks to be in the 29?

I would much rather catch one and move than catch 5.......but I am only looking to cure the problem

 

[quarryshark]

I would much rather catch one and move than catch 5.......but I am only looking to cure the problem

Thats what I was thinking. For your shark you could always use the 29 and increase the water volume with the use of a overflow, garbage can full of SW and a return pump. I had to do this with a large bioload for an ich treament. Below is a pic of my set up.

 

[fishfirst]

shark will be fine with hypo... there are some sharks that can stand complete freshwater... (bullsharks) so I would think he could be fine... they keep a higher salinity in thier body than the water around them so I don't see a problem with it

 

[the21kid]

I can't lie...I have had some low salinity levels that I just finished bring up to normal a couple of weeks before the ich came about. So when i read that they can't tolerate it I always wondered how mine was able to deal with 1.016 and act totally fine. Now I do understand, as most of us should, that every fish (same species or not) deals with things differently. I think I will try hypo with the entire stock at first and go from there. Thanks again for all of the great information and suggestions....any more would be wonderful as well

 

[quarryshark]

Good luck and keep us posted.
For hypo you will need to get it down to 1.009 and leave it that way for at least 4 weeks. If the shark shows any sign of stressing, I would get him to the other tank and slowly start raising the SG. Keep an eye on PH, it will start doing wacky stuff and you will have to buffer as you go along.
Got a refractometer?
A few articles that touch on sharks and hypo you may want to read.
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/hyposalinity.html

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2004/short.htm

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ichartmar.htm

http://www.marineaquariumadvice.com/off_to_a_good_start2.html

 

[the21kid]

Refractometer I do have....however I posted weeks ago about a little help getting used to it and got no respsonse. What pH buffer would you recommend when it starts going wacky?

 

[quarryshark]

Go back to my last post and look at the links I left you about sharks and hypo.

What is your question about the refractometer?
I use Kent buffer, it works good. Just go slow with it, raising PH too fast can hurt the fish.
What I do is buffer the change water.

 

[steve-s]

shark will be fine with hypo... there are some sharks that can stand complete freshwater... (bullsharks) so I would think he could be fine... they keep a higher salinity in thier body than the water around them so I don't see a problem with it

A shark will generally not survive hyposalinity. It can only be safely performed on teleost fish. Anything higher than 16 ppt will not kill the parasite.

PetsForum[/url]]Please note that only the higher bony fishes have lower osmotic concentrations and can be treated this way. Marine invertebrates have the same osmotic concentration as the surrounding water (Schmidt-Nielsen, 1975) and if left in the aquarium during hyposalinity treatment are most likely to die due to osmotic shock. Sharks and rays may not survive hyposalinity due to their unique method of osmoregulation. They have similar concentrations of salts to that of marine teleosts (one quarter to one third that of sea water), however, they also have very high concentrations of organic compounds which gives their internal fluids the same osmotic concentration as sea water. While some can adjust to lower salinities, most will succumb to osmotic shock just like invertebrates.

Cheers
Steve