UGH tell me it’s not ick......

[Mark Derail]

Also see this thread.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/treating-with-cupramine.332808/

My advice - QT in ANYTHING right away. Better off segregating all your fish now, than having die-off, that then triggers other die-offs in a chain-reaction.
One of my clowns that died, didn't seem to have ich, but his buddies (other fish types) did. The smallest clown died 1 day after the QT, the other two pulled through.
Had I not hesitated in the middle of the week, waiting for the weekend, that little buddy might still be alive.

Sonam's last post is good - you'll go through a lot of cupramine with the accelerated WCs. My QT tank is 36x12x18, and I decided to only fill exactly 20gals - roughly halfway.
So less work, less cupramine needed.
Less chances of a jump-out, and easier to calculate the doses in the new SW 5g bucket.
I'm using the Salifert Copper test kit.

Edit #2: I thought a replacement yellow Tang would be ok to put in the QT, as I was ramping up the dose from 0.05 -> 0.1 -> 0.2 (etc) and the Tang didn't live in the 0.05 concentration level.

 

[the_reef_keeper]

I don’t have cupramine at the momement so I’m looking at other methods. The biggest thing I’m worried about is keeping the QT ammonia-free. Does water changes every other day sound good?

Anyone treated with paragard before? Only thing I have at the momement but I’ll order some new meds soon.

Thinking about only putting the clown and wrasse in QT and seeing if the other fish show any signs

 

[Sonam]

A freshwater dip before QT can help.

 

[Mark Derail]

Does water changes every other day sound good?

That's what I do. I change out 5 gal out of 20 gal every second or third day. I also put fine sand on the bottom and an airstone powered tiny filter.
But it takes forever for good bacteria to establish, not taking chances.
But I do want a permanent QT tank - one with copper, and a smaller without.

 

[Fishfinder]

I would move all fish at this point, not just 2. On another note... buy some biospira. Add some the day you add the fish. Then add a little more for the next couple days. This has always helped my ammonia levels from rising.

 

[ReefJake123]

I don't think the clown has ick it looks to me as simple air bubbles but the red social wrasse might have ick

 

[the_reef_keeper]

No spots today, qt tank is set up, just making sure I’m not putting them in there for nothing.

 

[Heliarc19]

No spots today, qt tank is set up, just making sure I’m not putting them in there for nothing.

It’s not for nothing, they may “go away” for a few days,weeks, or even months but when they show again it will usually be worse.

 

[Sonam]

It happened that way for us. Fish looked better for a few days then one by one they died. We kept thinking the others looked ok. But the pace increased and our oldest tang, we had him from the beginning of our adventure with reefing, got sick. It was fast. He hovered in a cave for a day and then bang he was covered with white spots the next day. We moved him to QT we had set up but he died.
After some kind fellows on this forum recommended strongly we move our remaining fish, we noticed two of the four left hovering in a cave and not eating. No spots. We spent a few hours moving them. But it's been 4 days in QT and they are all swimming around normally and eating well.
It's worth the effort. Now our display is fish less. We will leave it that way long enough to ensure parasites are all gone.

Sent from my SM-G955U using REEF2REEF mobile app

 

[TravisParsley]

Many will disagree:

If you have already introduced crypto into a reef tank, and you are not willing to restart or tear down and treat/quarantine: then do what myself and many others do. We live with it.

The 1st time I encountered crypto, I overreacted and worried. I moved my sick fish to a hospital tank and treated. I had half of them die to the stress of moving. I am not willing to tear down a 125 gallon tank full of coral and rock and restart. So I decided to just live with it, and not overreact. My tangs come down with ick maybe 2 or 3 times a year. This usually occurs after a drop in temperature that I was not expecting or a period of stress where immune systems are assumed to be lowered.

I have found that as long as they are fat and fed well (including lots of spirulina), they just get over it. Once the outbreak occurs and the ick babies ( I am not interested in being technical here and naming offspring of protozas) bust out of the fishes skin/scales - the next batch 2 weeks or so that attempt to get back into the fish cant get throught the thick slime layer. I believe the healither the fish - the thicker the slime layer.

I did install a very slow moving high powered UV sterilizer - but this only zaps a percentage of free swimmers. (keeps population down, but not eradicated.)

Its been 3 years since "ick" got into my tank. I have had numerous outbreaks since choosing not to treat - and in the past two years, I havent lost any fish to ick.

 

[Maritimer]

Ich can sometimes be "managed", though there are some fish (looking at you, Acanthurus tangs) that won't do well in an ich management scenario.

Paragard, by Seachem lists itself as a proprietary blend of aldehydes and malachite green. Formalin, also an "aldehyde", IIRC, is useful as a dip against velvet, but not so much for ich.

The things that _actually_work_ against ich are hyposalinity (_sometimes_, and it's not easy to pull off), Tank Transfer Method (not ideal when treating an entire display's worth of fish), copper, either ionic (Cupramine, Cuprion) or chelated (Coppersafe, Copper Power) with appropriate testing to ensure therapeutic values, or Chloroquine Phosphate ("CP", only available by prescription in the U.S.).

The ich parasites drop off your fish as part of their lifecycle - that's when ich appears to "go away", or "get better" all on its own. Do not be fooled, or lulled into a sense of false security! Down in your liverock, your sand, your filter, on nearly any hard surface in your tank, the parasites have encysted, and over the next several days or weeks, each well-fed bug will divide into hundreds of daughter cells, called "theronts". These theronts will burst from their cyst hungry, usually at night, often in a space the fish use for sleeping, and come hunting. This is the time when copper or CP can destroy them - but there has to be copper or CP in the water for that to happen. I don't think that Paraguard will work for you here. It may slow the advance of the disease, but it won't eliminate ich.

Ich will die out in a system with no fish (zero - not a mandarin, not one single goby...) in it, in a maximum of about 72 days. We usually recommend going to 76 days, just to be certain.

It worked for me.

~Bruce

 

[TravisParsley]

I do have to correct myself, I stated:

...Once the outbreak occurs and the ick babies (I am not interested in being technical here and naming offspring of protozas) bust out of the fishes skin/scales - the next batch 2 weeks or so that attempt to get back into the fish .....

I should have stated that the Protoza that bursts from the fish is not the offspring, but the same critter that borrowed in. The babies are the ones that come back in a few weeks.

Anyway.. As stated in the response above, it can be eradicated if treated during the freeswiming stage with the treatments above. I refuse to treat my main display with anything that says "safe for corals." Ive been down that road. The medications that are listed, I would only use on a bare system or hospital tank. Copper is obviously a no go in the main display, but works well.

I have the blessing of lightning fast intelligent tangs that are near impossible to net or be caught with a diy trap, so removing them will certainly require a tear down and great stress.

I have seen that if the system goes without all possible hosts for 7 weeks, they die off completely, but I have also seen information that says Crypto can go into a dormant stage and borrow into the gills for 4-5 months. This would be a protective stage and obviously outside of the 7 week period.

Regardless, it is a long treatment and very stressfull - if to be totally stamped out.