HELP! Folks on Reef Central are scaring the crap out of me.

I honestly dont know. I know you are not supposed to do copper & hypo together, but as long as you match salinity when transfering from buckt to bucket, I dont think there would be anything wrong with doing both. Maybe someone can chime in that tried that.

 

I'm not very familiar with the transfer method, but the hypo treatment isn't that difficult (at least after all of the fish have been caught and put in a QT /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/wink.gif ) as long as you are know what you are doing, are patient and pay attention to detail. In my experience, hypo is effective in itself. I would think that combining it with any other treatment would just make more work. On a side note, I think the double threat approach presents an interesting option if you needed to treat ick and something else simultaneiously...treat for the something else and transfer for the ich.

 

As Craig said, the other fish are most likely infected with Ich. It takes awhile for Ich to become "visible". IMO, take out the corals, snails, etc and hypo the tank and all fish. It might be work, more $ involved than you'd like but in the long run, the fish won't be stressed more by moving them and, the tank will be ich free. Then as stated, save for a fully equipped QT/hospital tank. I wouldn't invest in a UV sterilizer as you would need a large one and have to have the flow dialed in to where it does what it purports to do. I have one and it sits in my basement...helps with some things but ich, not so much /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/smile.gif

 

I have a 30 gallon tank sitting in the basement you're welcome to use if you need. I live in Davenport and would be willing to meet you halfway if needed. Let me know.

 

Actually hypo works very well if done correctly. I did it 2 years ago and have not had any recurrence whatsoever. Pretty easy and cheap fix, although time consuming. 1st, remove all fish to a suitable sized hospital tank. You CAN leave coral and inverts in the DT during this process as they cannot carry crypt, as long as you leave the DT fallow long enough to kill the ich. Craig is right, you can lower salinity fairly quickly, I did it in one day with no ill effects(in the hospital tank) Run the DT as normal without the fish. Im gonna get crucified for this, but I only kept the fish in 1.009 for 6 weeks and same time for running dt fallow and all came out OK. Just have to watch raising salinity, fish don't take that well and you have to go slow.

hope this helps.

BTW I took the "wait and see it will go away" approach and lost alot of fish.....

 

Why would you get crucified for this? Sounds logically to me.

 

I just moved my tank so now was a good time to qt everything. I put all my fish in a 30 gallon tank and treated them with copper. Figured they will be in there for 6 weeks and will keep a close eye on them. I have had ich in my tank so now was the best time to do this. My 30 sits on the counter to my kitchen which my wife prob doesnt care for but if I had put it in the basement it wouldnt of got enough attention. How often and much water change do i do?

 

Hope your fish enjoy getting sick all the time.

The confines of an aquarium make ideal conditions for the proliferation of this pest. Within a closed system, the population of Cryptocaryon irritans can increase approximately 10-fold every 6-8 days (Burgess, 1992).

Dr. Harry W. Dickerson made the following statement pertaining to Cryptocaryon irritans in the Summer 1994 issue of Seascope: “Survival of the aquarium population requires the elimination of virtually all parasites, and treatments will not work unless carried through to completion. When treatments are applied with an understanding of the parasite’s life cycle, the chances of success increase significantly.” (Dickerson, 1994)

“The difficulty in eradicating C. Irritans from marine aquaria and mariculture systems arises from the complexity of its life cycle, in particular the prolonged development of some tomonts and the consequently asynchronous excystment of infective theronts.”(Colorni & Burgess, 1997)

Cryptocaryon irritans is an obligate parasite, meaning that it cannot complete its life cycle (at the trophont stage) without a host fish. Taking into account that the normal time frame in which tomonts will hatch ranges from 3 to 28 days, a fallow (without fish) period of 30 days to 6 weeks is recommended to eliminate this parasite from an aquarium.


Species belonging to the angelfish, tang, butterfly, puffer and cowfish families are among those thought to be especially vulnerable to infection. Elasmobranches such as sharks and rayfish are considered to be naturally resistant (Lom, 1984).

Enjoy

 

Removing all potential hosts from a system for this period of time should eradicate the pest from the aquarium. If the fish are removed from the display to another aquarium for treatment and an effective means of therapy (i.e. hyposalinity or copper treatments) is employed, then those fish will be clean of infection.

Either way the parasite is STILL in your system. Your assuming there healthy since there is nothing visible, the point is they still have the parasite. Case closed. Good Animal Husbandry and Patience will keep you in this hobby and save you a lot of heartache done the road.

Sorry, only been doing SW aquariums since 1984.

 

Well Said! We all try to do our best for our little creatures. Some times you have to do whats best for you and what is real to your life. Because of the first stage of the white spot crap you can never completly eradicate them. They can live indefinitely in the host fish even when treated. So that being said when you move them and put them in another tank you could be putting them under more stress then leaving them. It is truly up to the person who is caring for the fish to take what they feel is the correct action that fits there system. When a person asks for help they are mostly trying to form and stratagey so that they may take action on there own.

First Stage

• 1. Tomont Stage
  • Trophonts which have burrowed into the gills & formed cysts, protected by gill mucus.
  • Trophonts can live in the cyst embedded in the gills almost indefinitely.
  • No effective treatment at this stage.

 

Jusy google that stage.. there are many sites that describe this. I googled stages of ich and came across many discribing this stage. real good info i think.