White Spots

[marounchahine]

Hi there. Got a white spots problem on this blue tang I got 3 months ago. my tank is a 55 g FO. wet dry filtration with bioballs, skimmer(hand made although does a good job, i'll be getting an amiracle skimmer next week) no live rock. Got two other fish one coral beauty in the tank since 10 months and 1 butterfly since 8 months all water parameters are good.I also have two cleaner shrimps who spend most of the day cleaning him up. the tang got white spots 4 times now, every time I isolate him in a quarantine for a week or two, and medicate him with copper (odinex) freshwater dips for 1-2 min, garlic oil. I never tried hypo. The other fish are doing well they never had white spots except when I first introduce the blue tang so i removed them to the quarantine and medicated them with odinex and they recovered, however I frequently see 2-3 white spots on the tail of the butterfly which always heal by themselves. I returned the blue tang from quarantine 3 days ago and today i found 4-5 spots on him, i'm lost should I remove him back or should I wait to see if he improoves on his own, should i try hypo, will it work for white spots, is it too stressing??? how low should Iget, how fast should I go and for how long???
One more thing if i have to do freshwater diipps, how many should I do per day and how many minutes each, and should i directly put him back to the salt water or gradually increase the salinity??? This is my favorite fish and it costed me 60 USD i really would hate to loose it. The good thing is that other than the white spots it eats like a devil and seems to be in good shape.Thanks a lot for any suggestion.

[billsreef]

The best way to rid your fish and thier environment (tank) of ick would be to move the shrimp to a small tank and treat the entire tank. For this I would prefer the use of hyposalinity. To do this lower your salinity down to 1.009-1.010 over 2 days by removing some water and replacing it with fresh water. This salinity must be maintained within this narrow range for 4 weeks. Usually it takes about a week for the spots on the fish to drop off and the remainder of the treatment time is to ensure that the parasite cannot reproduce and therefore dies out. After the treatment period you can now bring back the salinty to normal over a couple of days.

After going thru all this and putting your shrimp back it is time to promise yourself to religously quarantine all new additions for 4-6 weeks in order to prevent ever having to go through this all over again with your display tank ;)

[marounchahine]

Thanks for the reply Bill. The bad thing is that I just got back from home to find the tang all covered with white spots, he is doing good and still eating like hell but I wonder if he will last for the two or three days while I go hypo.I really am confused but I think that I should take him to quarantine and treat with copper then go down with salinity in the quarantine tank as well as in the display tank and then when all is done return him back to the display tank. Would fresh water dips help now or will I be adding stress on him.I'm not sure of what to do and I would appreciate any suggestion.
Maroun.

[billsreef]

The ick you observe on a fish is so well imbedded in the slime coat and skin of the fish that no medication or treatment procedure will affect it. All the treatment methods available work on killing or preventing the reproduction of the free form of the parasite and thereby preventing reinfection of the fish. This is actually how the fish are cured. While it generally is not recomended, I have dropped the salinity of quite a number of fish within 24 hours without any problems. Usually if a fish is so close to be overwhelmed that it cannot wait that long it is not eating either, so I think you should be safe with proceeding with hyposalinity.

BTW I personally think FW dips are too stressfull to be good in all but very severe cases.

[marounchahine]

Yes I think your right and taking into consideration that my tang is still eating and swiming normally I think taht hyposalinity is the method of choice although this is the first time I use it. i'll be getting a small tank to remove the shrimps to this afternoon and i'll start dripping in the freshwater. One more thing, will hyposalinity affect my biological filttration?
Thanks for the help

[billsreef]

I haven't observed any negative effects of hypo on the biological filtration. The nitrifying bacteria seem to handle it well.

[marounchahine]

Thanks a lot for the help Bill, I just started adding the freshwater hoping everything will go right.
Maroun.

[Opah]

can you use hyposalinity with a reef tank?

Opah!!!

[billsreef]

Originally posted by Opah
can you use hyposalinity with a reef tank?

Opah!!!

NO

Unfortunately hypo and copper, the only two truly reliable ich cures, are deadly to inverts. Hence the need to use a seperate hospital or quarantine tank for treatment purposes. Even better is to use a quarantine tank for all fish prior to their introduction to your reef tank so that can avoid even having to think about treating fish in a reef.

[Terry B]

Ditto to everything Bill has said in his posts. Listen carefully he each little bit of advice that he gave you.

Hey Bill,
Just FYI, Hyposalinity does not kill the freeswimming stage of Ich. Actually it prevents the Tomont (reproductive stage off of the fish) from hatching or releasing the free-swimming infective stage of the parasite.
Terry B

[maroun.c]

Hi all, That's just an update, it's been around a month my tank is hypo, the 3 fish in there (regal tang, coral beauty and butterfly ) are doing great, in the mean time I got two other fish (a bicolor angel and a maroon clown) both are in my Q tank since 3 weeks and I put them in hypo 1 week after getting them. As to the fish in the display tank, no more white spots (for now at least and hopefully for the futur)Yesterday I started going up with the salinity I'll go up to 1023 within 3-4 days and I hope the fish won't stress at the rate I'm going up with. That was the first time I used hyposalinity and I really found it less stressful on the fish and it seams as efficient as copper treatment with which you can never know the tolerance level of different types of fish for I almost lost my bicolor who went in shock from copper while the maroon clown was really acting normal. However got to wait to the post treatment stage to assess the success on the whole tank, for it really would be a nightmare if I find some white spot after I go up to 1023. The only bad thing that I experienced is that my 2 cleaner shrimps that I removed to a 2 gallons tank seem a bit out of shape, they both lost their "moustaches"(forgot the correct word for that)I believe that they lost them due to fighting each other, I hope they'll grow back.
Anyway thanks for all the replies and the help you gave that really made me feel at ease while putiing the fish thru all I did for I really hate it when fish die due to my mistakes, i'll update you with the results 2-3 weeks later and I hope it'l be goodnews.

[maroun.c]

Finally my tank is backto normal salinity level, I went up within 3 days and everything went really smooth. It's been 2 weeks and no fish showed any sign of white spot, the hippo showed 4-5 white patches on the first day after salinity was at 1023 but they resolved on their own 2 days later and now all my fish seem so healthy.
Thanks for all the help

[billsreef]

I allways like good news :D

Glad to hear your fish are doing well ;)