My fish have marine ICH! And I need help please?

[RIKYRUDD]

Thanks all I greatly appreciate all your help and advice and feel so encouraged with lots of great and positive words because I've seen that there can be some cruel and rude ppl on here [emoji29] I just started a makeshift QT out of a 20/25 gal rubber maid container and began dosing with my LFS recommended medication copper safe. God willing all goes well and they make it through I'll keep you guys posted on the status! Once again thanks everyone! [emoji108]

 

[Longnose Hawkfish]

Hope everything goes well!

 

[vanz]

Good luck. I didn't have a qt tank. Lost 60% of my fish over the course of 2 weeks. It's been only several days since I haven't seen any signs of ick in the remaining 5 fish that's I have. I tried setting up a qt tank but it's not easy catching the fish out of the display. More stress and probably led to some deaths. Sad that my sargassum trigger, 2 blacker ice clowns, yellow tang, onyx clown, 2 bicolor blennies perished due to my mistake.

 

[RIKYRUDD]

Sorry for your loss vanz!
I'm in a situation myself also now, I'm at work and had to leave the fish but I had them in QT last night and check my ph level and looked fine at around 8.1/8.2ish or so and this morning when I got up I did a quick check and found my ph at below 8! The test came out a brown color! I'm really worried they all might die now. My set up is basically a small little pump in I wanna say a 15/20 gal rubber maid container for now and I have HOB (hang on back) Aquaclear mechanical filter (removed carbon and replaced with 2 sponges) and after doing the ph test (api test kit) it read around 7.6/7.5 (really low) so I added a air pump and air stone under the pump to help circulate more oxygen. I'm worried that the fish might do! How or what can I do to regulate my ph higher

 

[Humblefish]

RIKYRUDD It it not unusual for pH to drop overnight and then rise throughout the day. Minor fluctuations like this do not affect fish. pH is usually only a problem in QT if you are doing hyposalinity.

 

[RIKYRUDD]

So that's a normal drop? I place and air stone in there just invade my HOB filter wasn't enough oxygen distribution

 

[Humblefish]

So that's a normal drop? I place and air stone in there just invade my HOB filter wasn't enough oxygen distribution

My pH sometimes drops to 7.8 at night; 8.1-8.2 during the day. I don't worry about it. My fish/corals (LPS & softies) don't seem to care either. Things typically don't get dicey unless the pH starts dropping down to 7.5. Now if I still had an SPS reef, I'd probably have a fuge running on a reverse light cycle to keep it more stable.

 

[RIKYRUDD]

Well it's my QT and it dropped that low, I'm gonna check it when I get home hopefully nothing died.

 

[Humblefish]

Well it's my QT and it dropped that low, I'm gonna check it when I get home hopefully nothing died.

It dropped down to 7.8? Or 7.5? Are you doing hypo in there?

 

[RIKYRUDD]

It was 7.5 a tan color. But when I got home since I left an air stone it helped raise it. I'm good now, just have to deal with the ammonia which is really high [emoji29] if it's not one thing it's another

 

[RIKYRUDD]

So much going wrong, and stress on the fish! The ph is up but now there's a lot of ammonia [emoji30] I so stressed that the fish will die [emoji22]

 

[miyags]

I'd do a 50% water change to lower ammonia, Your going to go through alot of saltwater. You also need to test for copper. I still like cupramine better than coppersafe. I feel it's less toxic to fish, with proper dose.But it seems most stores don't carrie cupramine.

 

[RIKYRUDD]

Yea I got the test kit and I'm seeing that now, it's gonna be a tough time, and how long do I QT them? 8 weeks?

 

[4FordFamily]

Wait 72 days before putting them back in the display. I would treat with cupramine for 5 weeks, then remove it with cuprasorb, carbon, and water changes and see how they fare.

5 weeks should be more than sufficient at .4 - .5 copper levels

 

[RIKYRUDD]

I've had it at around 1.0- 1.5 with coppersafe even though it says around 2.0

 

[4FordFamily]

Copper safe needs to be 2.0-2.75 if memory serves me correctly. It's a different med than cupramine. Cupramine is effective at .35-.5 depending on application

 

[Humblefish]

The therapeutic range for Coppersafe is 1.5-2.0ppm. Most fish can tolerate slightly >2.0, so 2.0 is what I aim for. I know conventional wisdom says that Cupramine is more effective/less toxic than Coppersafe but I have my doubts. I used Coppersafe for more than 20 years before switching over to Cupramine. I had great success with the former, not so much with the latter. I now keep both in my fish medicine cabinet, but am much more inclined to use Coppersafe when the need arises.

 

[4FordFamily]

The therapeutic range for Coppersafe is 1.5-2.0ppm. Most fish can tolerate slightly >2.0, so 2.0 is what I aim for. I know conventional wisdom says that Cupramine is more effective/less toxic than Coppersafe but I have my doubts. I used Coppersafe for more than 20 years before switching over to Cupramine. I had great success with the former, not so much with the latter. I now keep both in my fish medicine cabinet, but am much more inclined to use Coppersafe when the need arises.

I've had great luck with cupramine but I've always kept it over .5 for 4-5 weeks

 

[RIKYRUDD]

My LFS recommended them both, they said both are proven to work but in there experience in using it that they suggested copper safe since they know that works for sure. I'll keep my dose around 2.0 then and hope all goes well, still a little struggle to keep ammonia down though :/

 

[Humblefish]

My LFS recommended them both, they said both are proven to work but in there experience in using it that they suggested copper safe since they know that works for sure. I'll keep my dose around 2.0 then and hope all goes well, still a little struggle to keep ammonia down though :/

Just FYI; the presence of copper (Cupramine or Coppersafe) renders most ammonia test kits useless. You will get nothing but false positives. You have to use a Seachem ammonia alert badge to get a rough idea of the ammonia level.