Fish have ich

lyscer · Aug 31, 2015

Just wanted to document and provide an update. The fish have been in the cupramine at .5 for 14 days. on day 9 I added prazipro because my clownfish was exhibiting white stringy feces and humblefish helped me identify as most likely being an internal parasite. Unfortunately the clown did not make it. The other fish are looking amazing and are eating aggressively now that they have been through the initial treatments. I just performed a 25% water change on the QT last night (re-added cupramine to the water change at .5) and I added a second treatment of prazipro.

On the plus side, the QT tank finally cycled as Ammonia = 0. Nitrites/Nitrates are really low as well as far as my color chart on the test kit shows.

THE PLAN:
Perform another 25% water change on Saturday and re-add Cupramine at .5. In 13 days consider the fish as "clean" since they will have had 2 prazipro treatments and 2 cupramine treatments all back-to-back. I will then add carbon on 9/13 after the water change to start pulling the copper out of the water. I plan on re-introducing the fish back into the display on Oct 26th. All of the fish were removed from the display on 8/29 and this will give the display tank a fallow period of 75 days. Which should be sufficient enough to kill off any ich/parasites that were left in the tank.

I have been spot feeding my candy pistol shrimp every other day when I feed my reef a very very light feeding. I do think that I may need to back off on the carbon + 24/7 skimming in the DT because my SPS are bleaching and I think it is because of lack of nutrients (food+fish poop).

Thanks for all of the help everyone!

Humblefish · Aug 31, 2015

Good job!

lyscer · Aug 31, 2015

Just realized I had a typo. All of the fish were out of the tank on 8/12.

lyscer · Sep 13, 2015

Just wanted to provide an update that there were a few fish casualties during treatment. I did keep a close eye on all of the water parameters and made sure that none got out of whack. I am down to 2 fish and decided to start with a feh sanitary environment while I sanitize the tank that they were in. Everything in the tank is new so I am expecting a cycle of some sort so I will be monitoring ammonia, nitrates and nitrates carefully. The fish are eating well again in this new environment. I am down to 1.5 months until they can go back in the display.

Humblefish · Sep 14, 2015

Sorry to hear of the losses.

Realistically speaking, it's going to happen. The tough fish tend to be the ones who survive treatment, while the weaker ones succumb to the disease. That's just how nature works... survival of the fittest. Sometimes there are exceptions, however.

But by going fallow you are affording yourself a "clean slate" in the DT. As you add new fish, most should live thru QT but some will die. However, your "core group" of fish in the DT should live for years and years, because they are being protected from a potentially diseased fish.