Quote:
Originally Posted by leebca  Kirby,
I understand and more than appreciate your frustration. You are absolutely convinced you have performed the treatment process correctly, yet the fishes are not cured. I can assure you that one of my listed most frequent things that are omitted or that goes wrong will apply here.
1. No. It MUST be 4 weeks past the actual observed disappearance of any visual Marine Ich (MI) Trophont. I have known some treatments to require three months. What needs to be understood by hobbyists is how the parasite, Cryptocaryon irritans succumbs to this treatment. Dr. Burgess put it best – the parasite is stressed into submission and then death. It is stressed to death. How long does it take to kill a marine life form through stress? It is never a clear cut time frame. That is, there is no ‘for sure’ answer. In the case of captive marine fishes, it is a combination of different factors, some of which are water conditions, fish health, and the health of the parasite.
2. Good. Calibrated and used properly it is the correct tool. What is it’s reading on dble distilled water, after the salinity calibration?
3. Unfortunately we only know most about how hyposalinity affects MI. MI is just one of the many protozoans that attack fish and have similar visuals. Remember, the human eye only sees a glimpse of the whole process – only the Trophont stage is visual of MI, which has characteristics of other pathogens. Fortunately those other pathogens are less common. The list is too long for me to be able to exhaust it here. The only way to be sure is to see it under a microscope and then to cultivate it. Even under a microscope, seeing is not proper identification.
4. Putting hands into an aquarium is wrong. This is a good chance for a problem to you and/or the fish. There are human diseases that transfer to fish and fish diseases that transfer to humans. Not a good technique. This is also a great opportunity for the transfer of diseases to your QT. I’d say so far in this list, this is your greatest risk and exposure to having infected water getting to the QT. You can’t see them all, but tiny droplets fall everywhere on your arms, face, clothing, etc. It would take a doctor’s scrub up to convince me this was not a potential source of cross-contamination. I would stop getting wet and if you must put your hands into the water, use long (arm length) disposable gloves.
5. Treatment is best performed in a small tank, one fish at a time. Some I control use several small tanks. The volume of the water has importance in helping the hobbyists see any remaining parasites in their Trophont stage. That is, with less volume, the greater the likelihood that, if the parasite is present, it will let itself be known through a visual Trophont. With multiple fish in a larger aquarium you should still be okay. But it will be challenging to: closely inspect each fish, each day for the final visual confirmation that there are absolutely no visual Trophonts; and continually thoroughly inspect each fish, each day to verify the ‘disappearance date’ was/is accurate. Challenging, but not impossible.
6. Sounds good. Not sure what you mean by “buffered.” What were you adding to do this?
7. Twice a day is the minimum, thrice a day preferred, 4-6 times per day is optimum. The food you listed looks excellent to me. Only not frequent enough. This should not be a factor for your situation.
I think your perspective on your marine fish is getting you towards being an aquarist rather than a hobbyist. Very admirable. I think of my fish not as a commodity, but as a family member, too.
I would proceed as you are thinking. Slowly raise the salinity back to normal and perform the Cupramine treatment. This time, no hand dipping!!! Hold the copper steady and use a copper test kit that will show you 0.3 to 0.4 ppm copper. Follow the recommendations on the medicine and raise the copper concentration over 48 hours. Start the 2-week time AFTER the copper is in the proper concentration range.
The copper treatment is known to kill off many of the other ciliated protozoans that simulate a visual stage like the MI Trophont.
Good luck!
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Let me start out by saying thank you for all your help, I really appreciate it. It's very had to ask a lot of people about ich because they all believe that it's always in their tank and that it can't ever be overcome, or that it will just magically go away, so on and so forth, I refuse to believe this.
1 Makes good sense, I know that it disrupts their reproductive cycle and kills them through osmotic shock.
2 It reads 0, I know it shouldn't but I have heard a lot of people that have this same occurance, I think Woodstock did as well if I remember correctly. I know it should be below the line in theory because most refractometers are not calibrated to sea water and rather to table salt.
3 Good info, don't think I will be taking any scrapings though.
4 I know and I will not anymore, I will go by a ranch supply store and get some shoulder length gloves. Sometimes I guess I just forget how infective everything in the water can be.
6 I mean "buffered" as that every time I added top off water to the tank I added some PH buffer to the top off water so that it would keep the PH up in the tank.
7 Tried to limit food intake somewhat because as we know tangs poop A LOT and I know that in the hypo they don't need as much food as normal because their bodies aren't working as hard to eliminate all the extra salt.
I plan on using the Seachem test kit, will this suffice? So I want to keep the copper level at .3 - .4 throughout the treatment? I thought that it was supposed to be around .5 but not to exceed .6?
One more question, I will have to do 2 water changes a week on the QT (tangs poop too much) should I just add the amount of Cupramine needed to the change water, then test the change water, and then add it to the tank?
Thank you again for your help
Kirby