Ich and my Copperband Butterfly

[Wael El-Dasher]

Did you use baking soda to control the ph?

[PrettyFishies]

So, my CBB has taken a turn for the worse. Two days ago he stopped eating and after testing, I realized the Nitrite spiked to 4 or 5 ppm! I immediately started doing water changes to knock it down but up to today, it rose back up to 2ppm or so.

Since yesterday he spent almost all his time in the PVC and sways horizontal to vertical like he's disoriented.

Today I took drastic measures and did 3 water changes and got the nitrites to zero.

Sg 1.009
Temp 78
Ph 8.1/8.2

He's still swimming disoriented. One good thing was that I put him in an isolation container and was able to scrape the last Ich off his fin really quickly. Now he's Ich free at least.

Any ideas in what I can do? I dont want to give up.

[Tlc]

He might have been poisoned from the nitrite spike so try as hard as you can to
Keep it at 0. Is he still eating?

[PrettyFishies]

He gave up the night before last. I couldn't reverse things.

What I've learned is that while hypo is a safer treatment due to no meds, it's by no means easy. The lack of efficient bio filtration and the effect on PH makes this a slippery slope.

In the future I will be treating with Cupramine when necessary and keeping a damsel in the tank to keep the bio filter going.

[Fishguy2727]

Garlic has been shown to kill parasites in scientific studies, and I have talked to a few people who have used it to kill parasites in a reef setup. But the off the shelf garlic supplements are not effective. Freshly crushed garlic has the highest potential, and I know of a couple people who have used New Life Spectrum Thera+A to treat white spot in saltwater. It is obviously not 100% but it is safe, and with effectively no other options (besides hyposalinity, which obviously isn't 100% safe or effective) it is a good option to consider. This is a new fish to you, but feeding NLS all the time can actually help prevent issues like this from popping up in your display.

Sorry for your loss, CBB are a tough one. We carried many at the shop I was running but after so many people having problems we stopped carrying and recommending them as much, it is more on a special order basis now.

[PrettyFishies]

Are you suggesting garlic in the food or added to the water?

[Fishguy2727]

The food is the most effective way. I have never heard of anyone having success just adding it to the water.

[Cjm]

I have used polyp labs medic for several ich out breaks in my reef with excellent results each time, and the only negative impact was to sponges. The did survive, but lost considerable mass. I won't hesitate to use it again!

[PrettyFishies]

I had a piece of LR in the tank when the fish was there. I took it out and it's been dry for a couple of weeks.

Is there ANY possibility of ICh on the rock?

I want to cure it in a bin with some other rock i'm curing now.

[melosu58]

Just to let you know just because you dont see any parasites now does not mean they are not there. They fall off the fish to the bottom and over two hundred tomites (little ones ) come from each one. It will come back with a vengence. The best thing you can do is to have pristine water conditions so the fish can fight the parasite with a good and healthy immune system. And even though I dont agree with the parasite killing properties mentioned about garlic IMO I do personally think that there is some viability to garlic maybe helping out the immune system. JMO

[Fishguy2727]

Garlic doesn't boost the immune system, at least I have never seen any scientific info supporting that. However, scientists have done experiments demonstrating that garlic can kill parasites.

I would love to read something explaining how garlic boosts the immune system.

It is definitely true though that pathogens are present. Your fish will get sick if stressed. Give them high quality food and water and you will prevent almost all the problems you may encounter.

[melosu58]

To the OP, read these to understand the parasite

An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure: A Quarantine Tank for Everything by Steven Pro - Reefkeeping.com


Marine Ich/Cryptocaryon irritans - A Discussion of this Parasite and the Treatment Options Available, Part I by Steven Pro - Reefkeeping.com

Marine Ich/Cryptocaryon irritans - A Discussion of this Parasite and the Treatment Options Available, Part II by Steven Pro - Reefkeeping.com
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[Wael El-Dasher]

I'm going thru the same issues in my QT where I'm treating all my fish for Ich with hypo. It's been one week and so far I lost:
1. Flame Angelfish
2. Six line Wrasse
3. Two Chromis

I have 9 Chromis, Algae Blenny, Dr. Fish wrasse, yellow tang, Pacific Blue tang, 2 baby clowns, 1 adult clown, long nose hawkfish, zebra goby. They seem to be OK for now, but I'm not so sure I can keep them in hypo for long. In one week I lost 4 fish. I'm also not sure the hypo is a good treatment for angelfish and wrasse. It seems to affect them the most.