First fish added to DT after QT now have ich. :(

[serion]

I've been working on getting my tank up and running for a few months. My wife and I picked up a pair of clowns they spent 4 weeks in QT (yes now know we should have kept them in longer). They were treated with a round of Prazipro and then a 14 days of cupramine. They looked great and healthy with no signs of anything wrong. We were anxious to get our first fish in our tank. They've been in our DT for almost a week and one of them is starting to get white spots. UGH!

So back to QT they're going for a full 8 weeks.

[ajcanale]

Clownfish generally have pretty good resistance to ich. They must have experienced pretty high levels of stress to be vulnerable to the protozoan. I'm sure many will disagree, but QT might not be the best option here.
I would instead focus on providing the best and most stable water parameters possible (usually not seen in QT) and provide a garlic and HUFA enriched diet.

[serion]

Did all my tests this evening:

Salinity: 1.024 tested with refractometer
Ammonia/Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5.0
Calcium: 380 mg/L
Alkalinity: 9 KH
PH: 8.0
Phosphates: 0

I don't have a mag test yet.

So far its only on one of the clowns and its only a few white spots. They're both acting normal. They're swimming around and eating fine.

I use Omega One marine flakes.

[Reefmedic79]

How sure are you that it is ich? Copper is all you need to treat them with, what was the concentration of copper you were treating at?

[ajcanale]

Temperature is very important. make sure there are not any major swings occurring throughout the day.
I battled ich for my first 6 months in the hobby. After trying many things and losing many fish, I discovered that there was a 5+ degree temp swing between day and night. I fixed it with the addition of a temp controller (via Apex Controller) and haven't had a problem since, including two tank upgrades. Just my experience.

[ajcanale]

Double post

[bnumair]

i would go 3 weeks in cupramine and make sure ur copper strength remains constant at 0.5mq/l at all times. then 1 week of water changes to bring them back out of copper levels and stable the water parameters close to main. after total of 4 weeks they should be ready BUT now that ur main has ich u need to hold them in QT after 3 weeks of treatment another 6 weeks for ur main to get ready.
main needs to be fish less for 9 weeks.

[serion]

Originally Posted by Reefmedic79

How sure are you that it is ich? Copper is all you need to treat them with, what was the concentration of copper you were treating at?

I treated them at 0.5 mg/L cupramine for 14 days per the instructions on the bottle. Tested with Seachem test kit.

How sure am I that its ich? Not completely sure at all since these are my first marine fish. The one fish has a few tiny little white spots. They're so small my wife could barely see them. She thought I was crazy until I had her watch them for about 10 minutes.

Originally Posted by ajcanale

Temperature is very important. make sure there are not any major swings occurring throughout the day.
I battled ich for my first 6 months in the hobby. After trying many things and losing many fish, I discovered that there was a 5+ degree temp swing between day and night. I fixed it with the addition of a temp controller (via Apex Controller) and haven't had a problem since, including two tank upgrades. Just my experience.

My temps are ranging 79 at night to 81 during the day.

[serion]

Originally Posted by bnumair

i would go 3 weeks in cupramine and make sure ur copper strength remains constant at 0.5mq/l at all times. then 1 week of water changes to brink them back out of copper levels and stabe the water closest to main. after total of 4 weeks they should be ready BUT now that ur main has ich u need to hold them in QT after 3 weeks of treatment another 6 weeks for ur main to get ready.
main needs to be fish less for 9 weeks.

This is likely what I'm going to do.

[Palting]

I am wondering if this shouldn't be labelled as copper treatment failure. What i mean is, copper didn't work, so maybe try something else? I have to confess, I am a hyposalinity believer in tratment for Ich, that's why I bring it up.

[BfishLpond78]

See that's a bummer...sorry to hear

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk 2

[sleepydoc]

my sympathies. I've been dealing with ich myself the past week. From the reading I've done, velvet can look like ich at times. Also, I've read some reports of certain strains of ich being resistant to hypo salinity, but not copper. If you had a slow growing strain is it possible that 2 weeks just wasn't quite long enough?

[spollock818]

At this point, in my opinion, moving the fish again will only hinder his chance of survival. Stress is the killer in ich. If you can catch him when he is sleeping, then you should try and get him out, but if its a chase around the tank for three hours, then the stress will only hurt him. I dont treat for ich. I pump lots of food and fresh garlic, and I have not lost a fish from ich since I started this.

[Chris27]

Blasphemy, stress won't kill a clownfish, no matter how long you chase it around the tank.

There are a few things that could have gone wrong....

1. You may have added rock, coral or invert with a shell to the tank that came from an infected tank.

2. You didn't copper the fish properly, either by misreading the test, not using it long enough, or letting the concentration drop out of the therapeutic range for a short time.

3. It's not really Cryptocaryon Irritans, and rather something else on the fish like sand or perhaps Velvet...

[jimmy_beaner]

Tank Transfer Method has been touted for ich. It's decently quick and not so stressful on the fish if you can handle swapping tanks every 3 days for awhile. There are some awesome threads on this forum about it.

[MrTuskfish]

Originally Posted by Chris27

Blasphemy, stress won't kill a clownfish, no matter how long you chase it around the tank.

There are a few things that could have gone wrong....

1. You may have added rock, coral or invert with a shell to the tank that came from an infected tank.

2. You didn't copper the fish properly, either by misreading the test, not using it long enough, or letting the concentration drop out of the therapeutic range for a short time.

3. It's not really Cryptocaryon Irritans, and rather something else on the fish like sand or perhaps Velvet...

AMEN! "Stress" is the most abused word in the hobby.

To the OP: I'd move this post to the disease section, you're getting a lot of mis-information, IMO.

[serion]

Today after work the one that had the spots has none. Maybe I'm crazy, but there were white spots on it yesterday. Today he looks fine.

[MrTuskfish]

Originally Posted by serion

Today after work the one that had the spots has none. Maybe I'm crazy, but there were white spots on it yesterday. Today he looks fine.

This can be good or bad. Many things are often pass as ich. But ich also commonly disappears, then comes back X100. Based on everything you said, my gut feeling is that you're in the clear. I'd watch very closely (duh!) for a while; but have a HT/QT ready.

[serion]

Originally Posted by MrTuskfish

This can be good or bad. Many things are often pass as ich. But ich also commonly disappears, then comes back X100. Based on everything you said, my gut feeling is that you're in the clear. I'd watch very closely (duh!) for a while; but have a HT/QT ready.

Thanks! That's my plan.

[Mavrk]

Could it have been sand on the fish?

[serion]

Originally Posted by Mavrk

Could it have been sand on the fish?

Don't think so... I noticed it when I got home from work yesterday.n it was still there when I checked them before bed.