This is good information. Its a shame because the shop I went to is a very known local shop, I was shocked that I found more on google.
This disease is disgusting, it moves to rapidly and looks painful to the fish. He's shown signs for roughly 3 days now. Yesterday was the first day I saw a sort of white'ish coating now on the body, its very very slight and almost hard to see unless the light hits him. I don't know if its to late, he ate yesterday but with this disease I dont think it matters. He's still swimming and roaming the tank, but jerking around like hes being bitten (only way I can explain it). I will try the f/w dip tonight, I was afraid to do it last night. I am also picking up quick cure or what I believe is a similar formalin fix. Is quickcure a dip? I am kind of scared to keep dipping him from container to container like that. I also dont know if I have enough supplies to keep that many bowls heated and what not. I am afraid to stress him out, but either way if I dont do the multiple dips he'll die anyway.. right.
Luckily there is no other fish in the tank, it was just the two of them. Only two hermit crabs plus the clown are in there. How long should the tank remain empty, I have heard 4 weeks, some say 6 weeks. To be honest, I am so discouraged from this I may just go to freshwater. This was a very painful experience.
Thanks so far for this info!
Welcome to the growing pains of keeping marines.
If you think you have it rough, my first saltwater tank had a slate bottom and a metal frame because all glass aquariums didn't exist back then. I got fish to live about 6 months in that tank but in my last marine tank, I had in it fish that I had had for 3, 7 & 8 years. If I hadn't needed to move, who knows how long those fish would have lived? Fish keeping is a constant learning experience. Don't be discouraged, be enlightened. With the proper care, many marine fish will live very long times.
That all being said, there are a few ways to handle this depending on how much $$ you want to spend. The most expensive, tear down the tank, bleach everything and restart. You can use Live Sand so you have an instantly cycled aquarium. Be mindfull to not overload the tank with fish once reset up and keep a eye on your ammonia level as your bioload builds.
Next way is to leave the tank devoid of fish. It's not the most pleasant or as quick but cheaper than a restart. Timeframes vary depending on who you talk to but this parasite is nasty and the longer the better. I've read some reports of it showing back up after 6 weeks as well as reports of leaving the tank barren for 10-12 weeks. One way that can help cut this time down is to have a UV sterilizer going as well as a protein skimmer with ozonizer. This way, with proper filtration, the parasite's free swimming stage has a better chance of being killed while it searches for a host.
As for multiple dips being stressfull, think of it like an itch on your back. You feel more relief if someone is scratching your back. That's the same as the FW dip. It kills off the parasite so it relieves the itch. Be mindfull of the temps and ph and the fish should be fine. QuickCure can be either a dip or a tank med. Follow the directions on the bottle.
As for your heater, I'd have to say it's too small for the tank. The proper sized heater should have the tank to temp in about 1 hour +/-. You don't want to put the dipped fish into a tank with a lower temp than what it's coming from. You want the new temp the same or higher by a degree or 2.
What really needs to be discussed here is why the fish got sick in the first place. Usually, water conditions not being good bring on diseases. You may need to reexamine your maintanence schedule and filtering setup. They may have been the cause of the water situation which brought on this condition. Just saying...
Lastly, FW fish have their own set of diseases that are just as nasty as marine diseases. The choice to change water types shold not be made because of "ease of treating" diseases. Recently, I lost a whole bank of Bettas I was raising when I got a new fish from a breeder who was going out of business. I used every known med in my arsonal and still could not save my fish. So you see, it happens in FW as well. Bleach was my only solution (no pun intented
)
Hope this helps
