Ich Dilemma

[hqn77]

My apologies first if this is a long rambling post.

Back story.....I have a purple tang, 5.5 - 6 inches. Have had it in the DT for almost a year. Got it last December from a local reefer who had to give him up due to aggression toward other fishes. I was warned, that this fish comes from a tank known to have ich, but the reefer said that he as successfully managed ich in his tank for years without an outbreak. I did my due diligence, set up a quarantine tank and successfully treated the tang for 14 days with Copper Power.

Fast forward to last night around 10pm. While doing general observations of the tank, I saw the purple tang covered in ich (or at least it looked like 100% ich in my experience). It is the Alpha in the tank, so there's no possibility that it's being picked on/stressed out. It eats like a pig and active algae grazer on the rocks. Other than the ich spots, it was swimming and feeding just like any other day. No flashing or hiding in dark spots.

My heart dropped, because I have a strict quarantine routine for new fish and my DT has been disease free from the get go almost two years ago. The purple tang was the very last fish added to the system last December and I have not introduced any livestock/CUC since. This morning, I still observed the ich spots on the fish before the lights came on. I quickly jumped to action, set up a 20 gallon quarantine system and went out to grab a bottle of Copper Power. As the day progressed, the tang is eating and as active as always. No signs it was stressed out. I did observe the spots starting to lessen (too hard to get a clear picture so I gave up). Coincidentally, I've also observed that my blue streak cleaner wrasse has been more actively following the purple tang than normal. Purple tang was happily complied with the cleaner wrasse. It's still going on right now, but it's definitely more interaction between those 2 fishes than normal.

Jump to now (almost 4pm on the West Coast), I can still see about a dozen white (ich) spots on the purple tang. That's the only thing out of the ordinary. It's still eating and actively grazing like nothing is wrong. I have the QT ready to go but am pondering what my options are at the moment?

1. I pull some of the rock work and try to be as gentle as possible in catching the purple tang as to not stress it out. I honestly don't want to put a fish through the stress of quarantining if I absolutely can avoid it.

2. Do nothing and keep observing. It's been less than 24 hours since I first noticed the ich spots. How much time do I have before it drops off the fish and starts multiplying in the sandbed waiting to pounce of the rest of my DT if it hasn't already happened? I love this fish and it would be absolutely devastating if I lose it due to me making a rash decision.

Help? Anyone? #jayhemdal ??? Thank you in advance.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

This sucks to read man. I'm sorry. First step, don't freak out.
If it is ick, And the ick is in the tank, it's in the tank. The fact that they are dropping off during the day should tell you they are likely already in the sandbed.

It's going to be a personal call whether to pull every fish out and run the tank fishless while treating the fish, or swap over to a management strategy.

Do You happen to be running UV?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

My apologies first if this is a long rambling post.

Back story.....I have a purple tang, 5.5 - 6 inches. Have had it in the DT for almost a year. Got it last December from a local reefer who had to give him up due to aggression toward other fishes. I was warned, that this fish comes from a tank known to have ich, but the reefer said that he as successfully managed ich in his tank for years without an outbreak. I did my due diligence, set up a quarantine tank and successfully treated the tang for 14 days with Copper Power.

Fast forward to last night around 10pm. While doing general observations of the tank, I saw the purple tang covered in ich (or at least it looked like 100% ich in my experience). It is the Alpha in the tank, so there's no possibility that it's being picked on/stressed out. It eats like a pig and active algae grazer on the rocks. Other than the ich spots, it was swimming and feeding just like any other day. No flashing or hiding in dark spots.

My heart dropped, because I have a strict quarantine routine for new fish and my DT has been disease free from the get go almost two years ago. The purple tang was the very last fish added to the system last December and I have not introduced any livestock/CUC since. This morning, I still observed the ich spots on the fish before the lights came on. I quickly jumped to action, set up a 20 gallon quarantine system and went out to grab a bottle of Copper Power. As the day progressed, the tang is eating and as active as always. No signs it was stressed out. I did observe the spots starting to lessen (too hard to get a clear picture so I gave up). Coincidentally, I've also observed that my blue streak cleaner wrasse has been more actively following the purple tang than normal. Purple tang was happily complied with the cleaner wrasse. It's still going on right now, but it's definitely more interaction between those 2 fishes than normal.

Jump to now (almost 4pm on the West Coast), I can still see about a dozen white (ich) spots on the purple tang. That's the only thing out of the ordinary. It's still eating and actively grazing like nothing is wrong. I have the QT ready to go but am pondering what my options are at the moment?

1. I pull some of the rock work and try to be as gentle as possible in catching the purple tang as to not stress it out. I honestly don't want to put a fish through the stress of quarantining if I absolutely can avoid it.

2. Do nothing and keep observing. It's been less than 24 hours since I first noticed the ich spots. How much time do I have before it drops off the fish and starts multiplying in the sandbed waiting to pounce of the rest of my DT if it hasn't already happened? I love this fish and it would be absolutely devastating if I lose it due to me making a rash decision.

Help? Anyone? #jayhemdal ??? Thank you in advance.

Wow - given the history, I'm very surprised that ich cropped up, but nothing is really surprising to me anymore when it comes to aquariums/

Let's make the assumption that it is ich. The spots WILL come and go, especially at first, then they will grow in numbers and only then will the fish start to act ill. Since ich is in the tank, all fish have been exposed. Eventually, if the disease really gets cranking, something called propagule pressure comes into play - no matter how healthy a fish is, how strong its disease resistance is, at some point, the number of parasites in the water become the stressor and all fish will get sick. My worry is that if you move the tang out to treat it, the other fish will still be at risk and may need to be moved out.

Some people might want to try to get this case back under management - you can do that with a UV sterilizer, nightly siphoning of the sand to remove infective tomonts, and maybe adding Polyp Lab Medic. Still, the best course of action would be to remove all of the fish, treat with hyposalinity or copper and leave the tank fallow for 76 days.

Jay


Jay

 

[hqn77]

You know, I had never ran a UV on my DT tank (130ish gallons). I just finished placing an Amazon order for the Coralife Turbo Twist 6x, which is rated for 250 gallons. It will arrive tomorrow. Doing research, I am leaning towards ich management, and every reefer I've came across that had success with management of ich has a UV sterilizer.

 

[hqn77]

Wow - given the history, I'm very surprised that ich cropped up, but nothing is really surprising to me anymore when it comes to aquariums/

Let's make the assumption that it is ich. The spots WILL come and go, especially at first, then they will grow in numbers and only then will the fish start to act ill. Since ich is in the tank, all fish have been exposed. Eventually, if the disease really gets cranking, something called propagule pressure comes into play - no matter how healthy a fish is, how strong its disease resistance is, at some point, the number of parasites in the water become the stressor and all fish will get sick. My worry is that if you move the tang out to treat it, the other fish will still be at risk and may need to be moved out.

Some people might want to try to get this case back under management - you can do that with a UV sterilizer, nightly siphoning of the sand to remove infective tomonts, and maybe adding Polyp Lab Medic. Still, the best course of action would be to remove all of the fish, treat with hyposalinity or copper and leave the tank fallow for 76 days.

Jay


Jay

Thanks for such quick call to service #jayhemdal!! Everything you've said was on the back of my mind, I was just not wanting to accept the reality of the situation. ;Dead;Dead At the moment I only have a 20 gallon QT tank, there's no way I can fit a dozen fishes in there, especially a 4 inch yellow tang and same size hippo tang. I'm probably going to pull the purple tang soon, and use the UV when it arrives tomorrow to manage the DT. Maybe take it one fish at a time since the inevitable already happened and I have ich in my DT. At this moment, going fallow and put all fish in QT isn't a realistic option for me with several business trips already on the books. When it rains it pours!

 

[hqn77]

Finally got it into the QT. Good thing is that it started eating in Q% almost immediately. Starting with a 1.5ppm Copper Power dose. Fingers crossed.

 

[Miami Reef]

I have 3 questions:

1. What concentration did you use the copper power for?

2. How did you check the copper power? (Test kits, how frequent did you test levels etc)

3. When you say you did a 14 day treatment, did you remove the copper from the same tank, or did you transfer the fish into a sterile tank? What did you do after the 14 days of copper finished?

PS: the fish looks like it has velvet. Good call for getting it out. Do any other fish show symptoms?

 

[hqn77]

I have 3 questions:

1. What concentration did you use the copper power for?

2. How did you check the copper power? (Test kits, how frequent did you test levels etc)

3. When you say you did a 14 day treatment, did you remove the copper from the same tank, or did you transfer the fish into a sterile tank? What did you do after the 14 days of copper finished?

PS: the fish looks like it has velvet. Good call for getting it out. Do any other fish show symptoms?

I'm not in anyway an expert in quarantining fish, so please do your own research before doing what I did. I have not quarantined a fish in nearly a year so it's a learning process all over again.

To answer your questions, I am starting out with a 1.5ppm concentration of copper power, since this is exactly what I did to the same fish back in December of last year. I will increase the concentration to 2.0 - 2.3 range in 3 days, testing with the Hanna Copper HR checker.

This thread is an excellent guide for using Copper Power.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/chelated-copper-is-chelated-copper.373513/

The 14 day count down starts when I hit 2.0ppm. Since copper stays relatively stable in a saltwater tank, I test and adjust dosage every 3 or 4 days when I do a partial water change while observing the fish closely for any signs of stress/worsening condition.

After 14 days, I transfer to a sterile tank for a week and observe. I do one more transfer into a clean plastic tub for a few hours before reintroduction back into DT. Please chime in if anyone sees something I'm doing wrong.

The pictures does look a lot like velvet, but it's partly my phone's camera's horrible digital zoom. It blurs the image and the shimmer from the Kessil light over the tank doesn't help either. It could very well be velvet, but the spots are clear and defined IRL.

No other fish are currently showing any symptoms . Just fed the tank and everyone is eating like normal. Will continue to monitor and update this thread as I go along.

 

[Miami Reef]

I'm not in anyway an expert in quarantining fish, so please do your own research before doing what I did. I have not quarantined a fish in nearly a year so it's a learning process all over again.

To answer your questions, I am starting out with a 1.5ppm concentration of copper power, since this is exactly what I did to the same fish back in December of last year. I will increase the concentration to 2.0 - 2.3 range in 3 days, testing with the Hanna Copper HR checker.

This thread is an excellent guide for using Copper Power.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/chelated-copper-is-chelated-copper.373513/

The 14 day count down starts when I hit 2.0ppm. Since copper stays relatively stable in a saltwater tank, I test and adjust dosage every 3 or 4 days when I do a partial water change while observing the fish closely for any signs of stress/worsening condition.

After 14 days, I transfer to a sterile tank for a week and observe. I do one more transfer into a clean plastic tub for a few hours before reintroduction back into DT. Please chime in if anyone sees something I'm doing wrong.

The pictures does look a lot like velvet, but it's partly my phone's camera's horrible digital zoom. It blurs the image and the shimmer from the Kessil light over the tank doesn't help either. It could very well be velvet, but the spots are clear and defined IRL.

No other fish are currently showing any symptoms . Just fed the tank and everyone is eating like normal. Will continue to monitor and update this thread as I go along.

Everything looks perfect with your protocol.

One last question: When you do a water change in your copper tank, do you ensure new water is predosed with the copper concentration?

 

[Miami Reef]

Another question: after how long from adding the fish into the display tank did this ich/velvet show?

Nevermind, I see that it’s been in your tank for a year since QT.


Do I think marine velvet came from a failed QT? No. It probably would have shown MUCH sooner.

I think there was something you added that brought ich. Was this purple tang the last fish you ever purchased? If so…

Did you ever purchase a coral, invert, rock, liquid reef product recently? If you have an invert QT protocol, how do you do that?


I know these questions won’t help your situation now, but I think it’s really important to find the cause of how this happened to prevent it from happening in the future.

If you have multiple tanks: try to think very hard about ways you could have cross contaminated. Any tools, pipes, plumbing, hoses, feeders, etc. Anything that wasn’t allowed to dry for 24 hours.

Even aerosol transmission can fail a tank. If you had velvet in a tank less than 10FT away from your main tank, there is a likelihood they transferred like that.


So you never bought any coral, invert, rock, etc in a year?

 

[hqn77]

Another question: after how long from adding the fish into the display tank did this ich/velvet show?

If you go back to my first post, I've had this fish in the DT since December 2020. I got it from a local reefer and quarantined it before adding to the DT. This is why I'm at a lost for words as to how I ended up here, now. The only livestock I added are two Rainbow nems about 5 months ago. That could've been the culprit since I don't quarantine inverts and frags. Doesn't really matter now.

I adjust copper level about an 30 minutes after doing a water change. I do random anomia tests because the QT is not cycled. I just feel it's a good habit to do water changes every 3 to 4 days.

 

[Miami Reef]

If you go back to my first post, I've had this fish in the DT since December 2020. I got it from a local reefer and quarantined it before adding to the DT. This is why I'm at a lost for words as to how I ended up here, now. The only livestock I added are two Rainbow nems about 5 months ago. That could've been the culprit since I don't quarantine inverts and frags. Doesn't really matter now.

I adjust copper level about an 30 minutes after doing a water change. I do random anomia tests because the QT is not cycled. I just feel it's a good habit to do water changes every 3 to 4 days.

I see 2 possible ways you can improve this QT eradication in the future (if that’s your goal)

For the best chances at success, everything must be QT’d. Anemones can hold water from the LFS for up to 16 days.

Another thing: Copper should always remain therapeutic. If it dips below 2.0ppm the 14 day clock should restart.

Seachem ammonia badges work in a QT tank with copper, and properly cycling a QT will prevent any ammonia.

Again, I know the past is the past. I just want to inform you and anyone coming to this thread. I’m not saying I know the cause of this breakout, I’m just trying to inform you of the ways that is possible.

PS. I most certainly don’t think your initial QT failed. I believe something was unintentionally added (maybe the nems? Who knows!)

I’d like to reiterate: I’m not trying to beat a dead horse. I understand how frustrating this can be. I’m only trying to inform. You did very well and I was very pleased to see someone do the research.

 

[hqn77]

I see 2 possible ways you can improve this QT eradication in the future (if that’s your goal)

For the best chances at success, everything must be QT’d. Anemones can hold water from the LFS for up to 16 days.

Another thing: Copper should always remain therapeutic. If it dips below 2.0ppm to clock should restart.

Seachem ammonia badges work in a QT tank. And properly cycling a QT will prevent any ammonia.

Again, I know the past is the past. I just want to inform you and anyone coming to this thread. I’m not saying I know the cause of this breakout, I’m just trying to inform.

You're absolutely right. I know there are holes in my quarantine protocols, especially with not doing the quarantine on the nems. Those came from a local reefer, who I've bought from many times before.

One sure thing, is that this hobby is unforgiving when it comes to certain mistakes. In hindsight I should've quarantined the nems, but that's for future references. I guess when things are good for extended periods of time, I dropped my guards.

 

[Miami Reef]

You're absolutely right. I know there are holes in my quarantine protocols, especially with not doing the quarantine on the nems. Those came from a local reefer, who I've bought from many times before.

One sure thing, is that this hobby is unforgiving when it comes to certain mistakes. In hindsight I should've quarantined the nems, but that's for future references. I guess when things are good for extended periods of time, I dropped my guards.

That’s true. I do have a final question:

Do you plan or ich eradication or ich management? There’s a resource from Humblefish (same author as your link above) that recommends H202 in tank dosing for ich/velvet management.

If I remember correctly, it’s a 6 month dose of h202. If you would like more information you can PM me about this and I will give you the links and resources.

If there’s anything else, or if you need someone to vent to, I’m here! I can’t imagine how frustrating this is!

 

[hqn77]

That’s true. I do have a final question:

Do you plan or ich eradication or ich management? There’s a resource from Humblefish (same author as your link above) that recommends H202 in tank dosing for ich/velvet management.

If I remember correctly, it’s a 6 month dose of h202. If you would like more information you can PM me about this and I will give you the links and resources.

If there’s anything else, or if you need someone to vent to, I’m here! I can’t imagine how frustrating this is!

Thank you so much for the help. I read through your build thread and saw that you've been through this before...no wonder you had so much experience to share!

Right now I don't have the resources to fully quarantine and treat the 12 remaining fishes in my DT. I'm taking it one fish at a time while doing some management protocols. Have a UV sterilizer and Polyp Lab Medic arriving tomorrow. I have never done the peroxide but will definitely read up on it. I have 3 business trips scheduled in the next 6 weeks, with each trip taking 3 to 4 days. I wouldn't feel comfortable being away from a full tank of quarantine fishes for days at a time. Probably going to pick up a 40 breeder and make some extra saltwater in the next few days just in case.

 

[hqn77]

Here we go!

 

[BReefer13]

I've managed ich for over 3 years without UV. I never lost a fish to ice and I truly believe in management. Good luck brother!

 

[ariellemermaid]

Lol, this thread turned into a 60 minutes interview. But, well done. Getting the full story and all the details is super helpful to other reefers.

So disappointing after all the work and time you put in with a good protocol! My philosophy from the start is that if I’m going to go to all the effort to QT fish I can’t accept the risk from corals and inverts so I started a second QT reef tank for that (which is a cool tank in it's own right with some cool crabs). But, no QT can ever be 100% perfect. For instance mine are side by side which is a no no but I had to have floors installed, so what can I do? 76 days is too long not to add new things, and while rinsing finished things should remove free swimmers we’re talking about microscopic parasites here! It takes soap, water, and scrubbing your hands to rid them of disease reliably not just a quick rinse.

So in the end don’t be too disheartened. What we’re all doing is risk reduction also within the confines of how many tanks our significant others will tolerate and the time and money we’re willing to put in. Maybe your protocol is 80% risk reduction and maybe mine is 90%, but there’s just no such thing as 100%. Some people don’t QT and have never seen ich, others do ich management successfully. I hope I never see ich and would be devastated after all the work and time I’ve put in, but I do know it could happen.

 

[BVF]

Isn’t copper treatment for Ich supposed to run 30 days?

 

[ariellemermaid]

Isn’t copper treatment for Ich supposed to run 30 days?

Or 14 days with transfer to another observation tank, typically for another 14 days. He’s doing 7 but to each their own, it’s just observation anyway.

Not as popular obviously because you have to have 2 QT’s instead of 1.