achilles tang ich

[nava405]

i have this achilles tang about 6-7" and it's pretty beat up right now, also showing bad ich, but he looks relaxing in my QT tank right now. Should i wait a bit longer or i can start treating ich?

[Jerry W]

The sooner you begin treatment, the better. Are you planning to use hyposalinity therapy?

[nava405]

no..i have this Ich Attact which it says 100% organic, and my friend used it for his puffer and it worked. so i am thinking to does this in my QT.

[Jerry W]

You may be disappointed with this product. Most of the bottled "cures" don't work with enough consistancy to be called reliable. Two sure ways of treating c. irritans are copper and hyposalinity. Hypo is safer for fish like tangs. Your choice but if the Ich attack doesn't work, consider hyposalinity.

[nava405]

well can you explain what i should do if i want to do the hyposalinity treatment ?

do i just add a lot fresh water in to lower the salinity? and how long i should wait and do a big water change to bring back to the right level? is it the same theory as freshwater dip ?

[Jerry W]

You gradually lower the salinity to 14 ppt over 48 hours, by changing out salt water with fresh RO water. Fish tolrate hyposalinity quite well. It's important to maintain the salinity at the therapeutic level, as allowing it to stray above, will render the treatment ineffective. Once the fish show no visible symptoms, (the spots should all drop off within a week) you leave the fish in hypsaline conditions for three weeks. You can then raise salinity back up to display tank levels over the course of a week. It's important to raise the level slowly as fish do not tolerate rapid increases in salinity. You need a refractometer or lab grade glass hydrometer to accurately measure salinity, and pH needs to be monitored daily as it will drop in lower salinites. It sounds like a lot of work but it's safe and effective.

[AquaReeferMan]

This is all you need to know about Hypo.

This was taken from reefkeeping magazine.

"Low salinity has been demonstrated to be an effective treatment against Cryptocaryon irritans (Noga, 2000). A salt level of 16 ppt or approximately 1.009-1.010 specific gravity at 78-80*F for 14 days was reported to kill the parasite. I have never experienced problems when placing fish into a hyposalinity treatment, but have routinely witnessed fish showing obvious signs of distress when brought back to normal salinity levels too quickly. For that reason, I try to limit the specific gravity increase 0.001-0.002 points per day.

One of the alleged benefits of this treatment is the resulting conservation of energy for the affected fish. Reef fish have to constantly drink saltwater and excrete the salt to maintain the proper osmotic balance. Lowering the salinity of the surrounding environment eases this energy demand on the sick fish, thereby allowing them to expend more energy towards fighting the infection (Kollman, 1998 and Bartelme, 2001). On the contrary, keeping fish in low salinity means that they don't "flush" their kidneys sufficiently. After long-term exposure, this can cause kidney failure and kill the fish (Shimek, pers. comm..)

The drawbacks to this treatment are the same as for many of the treatment options discussed above. Invertebrates and certain fish will not be able to tolerate it, so you should not apply a hyposalinity treatment in a display tank. Sharks and rays are two fish groups that do not tolerate this procedure. I would also not recommend this approach in the presence of live rock or live sand. The hyposalinity treatment will likely kill the worms, crustaceans, mollusks, and other life in and on the substrate, causing a severe drop in overall water quality.

I have another word of caution when using this treatment. I would strongly suggest the use of a refractometer or perhaps a salinity monitor. Swing arm style box hydrometers are notoriously inaccurate. The glass, floating style hydrometers are better, but easily broken. An accurate measure of the salinity could mean the difference between being inside the effective treatment range or being too high and ineffective or too low and jeopardizing your fish.

Even given its few drawbacks, hyposalinity is a great method of curing infected fish of ich in a proper hospital tank. Of the treatment options discussed this far, in my opinion, it is by far the safest. While none of these options is appropriate for use in a display tank, and all have their drawbacks, weighing the pros and cons of each leads me to recommend hyposalinity above the others."

[bartzenegger]

i good uv sterlizer is great if your qt is small enough .
i have a 45 gallon qt with a 36 watt uv .. man knocks everything out quickly . no meds no altering salt levels ... safe!!!!!