Long read ich or not?

[Saaqib_Ansari]

Ok so, I have had some form of white spot condition in my tank for over 2 months. 28/06/2020. I removed all my fish and placed them into a hospital tank where I placed copper treatment for 13 days. I only had a salifert test kit.

13 days into the treatment the blue tang still had these white spots and they even looked worse than before. (The hospital tank and main tank were right next to each other I know not good)

I then decided to do the tank transfer method for 2 weeks 5 changes. On the last day when added back to the hospital tank, all fish were clear of white spots, even signs of HLLE on the blue tang stopped.

3 days later the blue tang has the spots again.

Now I removed the blue tang to its own tank, and tried copper treatment again. This time I bought a hanna checker. Placed copper into both tanks following the instructions (using cupramine btw) salifert showed correct results. Hanna checker HAD to be broken and looks like it’s not working. Fish have been in copper for 2 weeks now. Blue tang is still covered in spots, and some of my other fish still have signs of white spots too.

My question is am I even fighting ich at this point. Someone mentioned brook to me, but my fish have literally been surging with it for 2 months. So I assumed marine velvet and brook are out Of the question, only other option would be flukes? I will do a fresh water dip on my blue tang today who is literally covered in bumps flashing marks and spots.

But any insight on what I should do my display tank has been fallow for 2 months too, and I really just want my fish back in there.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

In one image I saw, the spots on the blue tang looked larger than ich would be, but in the other images, it all looked like ich. One pic of the clownfish shows slightly cloudy skin, but that could be just be a reaction to ich, not brook.

You should do a five minute FW dip on the tang (making sure you don't catch a lot of crud in the net at the same time). Then, after the dip, search the bottom of the dip container for flukes (you may need a magnifying glass for the smaller ones). The tang will likely still have the spots after the dip, but you need to know if it has flukes.

It's pretty common to have two disease issues at one time, so you could be facing a lingering case of ich plus flukes.

What copper product did you use, any other meds?

Jay

 

[Saaqib_Ansari]

In one image I saw, the spots on the blue tang looked larger than ich would be, but in the other images, it all looked like ich. One pic of the clownfish shows slightly cloudy skin, but that could be just be a reaction to ich, not brook.

You should do a five minute FW dip on the tang (making sure you don't catch a lot of crud in the net at the same time). Then, after the dip, search the bottom of the dip container for flukes (you may need a magnifying glass for the smaller ones). The tang will likely still have the spots after the dip, but you need to know if it has flukes.

It's pretty common to have two disease issues at one time, so you could be facing a lingering case of ich plus flukes.

What copper product did you use, any other meds?

Jay

Just cupramine

 

[artieg1]

If the fish are alive, then it is likely ich. If this were velvet, you'd have a much sadder post.

Remember, copper treats the tank, not the fish. The fish benefit from the tank being inhospitable to interim stages in the parasite life cycle, so the fish don't get re-infected. The parasite will not stay on the fish more than 14 days, so if the spots are still there, then something is not correct with the copper level and it is not killing or disabling the parasite before re-infection. If you don't have a copper test you think is trustworthy, then I think your first step is to replace the Hanna checker.

One piece of good news: in my experience, people lose their fish in hospital tanks because of ammonia or oxygen depletion, not from copper. So you are doing something right there. It may be that you need to err on the higher side of the safe copper level.