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[sting310]

Hi, I am going thru an ich battle myself... I have a 70 gallon tank with about 12 pcs of live rock, cleaner shrimp, peppermint shrimp, feather duster, and 4 firefish... well, the firefish developed ich after a week, and have had it for around a week and a half. I have been treating with Chem-marine Stop Parasites, Coral Vital and Garlic. The spots go away for a while only to re appear... the fish are fine, eating active, ect....

doesnt saltwater ich destroy the tank like
freshwater ich? I mean if freshwater ich was left be it would cover the fish and they would be gasping at the top, or lying on the bottom......

this is most confusing... I have two coralife 9w UV units that are rated to support 125 gallons each... I could hook those up, but the chem marine says not to use one when using that product.......

I have purchased a 20 gallon tank for quarantine, but I dont relish chasing 4 very fast firefish around a well decorated tank.......I need advice bad! please help!

Thanks!

[Triterium]

Ive heard that increasing temp and lowering salinity works

[billsreef]

As your discovering, those so called reef safe ich "cures" are also ich safe The ich parasite, Cryptocaryon irritans, is a very well understood and easily treated parasite. There are two reliable, scientifically proven methods that work. Both will require the fish to be treated in a seperate quarantine tank (QT), as neither method is invert safe. The first method is copper, with Sea Chems Cupramine being the best one. Copper levels need to be tested daily and the dosage adjusted as necessary with the treatment running for 4 weeks. The other method, and my personal favorite, is hyposalinity. Hyposalinity is droping the salinity of the QT to between 1.009 and 1.010 for 3 to 4 weeks. The salinity needs to be measured daily using a lab grade hydrometer or a refractometer and the salinity adjusted to maintain that narrow range.

[sting310]

Originally posted by billsreef
As your discovering, those so called reef safe ich "cures" are also ich safe The ich parasite, Cryptocaryon irritans, is a very well understood and easily treated parasite. There are two reliable, scientifically proven methods that work. Both will require the fish to be treated in a seperate quarantine tank (QT), as neither method is invert safe. The first method is copper, with Sea Chems Cupramine being the best one.

my 10 plus years of sw experience was with predators and nothing reef. Since my 20 gal is not cycled I took my live rock and put it in there with my shrimps and feather duster. Even with water from my main tank I was not confident about the ammonia not spiking and killing my four firefish if I would have put the fish in the 20 gallon instead. anyways I will treat now with copper and after the ich is gone(4-6 weeks), filter with carbon, and do a water change before putting back the live rock and inverts....

btw what would happen if live rock was in with copper? I mean I know it would kill some of it, but would it then polute my tank? just curious, because at this point I am fed up with trying to get rid of ich without copper. thats how I got rid of it always before....

thanks..

[oama]

Sting

I would not use any copper soln in a reef tank. Remove the fish and place them in a Q- system w/out substrate and use copper there. If a reef is without host/fish for 3-4 weeks, just about all parasites will die off.

Live rock or calcium/crushed coral subtrate or live rock (or even decorative dead corals) will absorb copper like a sponge. Lowering the effectiveness of the copper and (more importantly) leeching it back into the tank over time, killing off most inverts you place into the system after that!

[sting310]

but what is to prevent the ammonia from spiking and killing the firefish I put in the QT?

[TerryB]

Why use copper when hyposalinity is just as effective if not more so? Hypo has many advantages over the use of copper.
Terry B

[oama]

Originally posted by sting310
but what is to prevent the ammonia from spiking and killing the firefish I put in the QT?

Water changes That is why your Q-tank should be small in volume. If you can transfer over some floss from the old tank, or buy bacteria starter, it will help with the ammonias.

[sting310]

daily water changes may be acceptable for fresh water, but in saltwater its a headache.. I am thinking that the only way to insure a parasite free tank is not to do a reef. too hard to deal with an outbreak when it happens..

[ATJ]

Originally posted by sting310
daily water changes may be acceptable for fresh water, but in saltwater its a headache.. I am thinking that the only way to insure a parasite free tank is not to do a reef. too hard to deal with an outbreak when it happens..

That's where quarantine comes in. If you quarantine all fish for at least 6 weeks BEFORE placing them into the reef tank, you will have a very small probability that parasites can be introduced into the Reef tank.

You could even treat all new fish with hyposalinity and thet would make it impossible for "Ich" and many other parasites to be introduced.

[sting310]

believe me, when this is over I will quanantine all new arrivals!

well a couple days ago I moved the live rock, feather duster and shrimps to a 20 gallon tank. I then started treating the main tank with copper using a fasttest copper kit to monitor it. question: does copper damage your bio filter? reason I ask is I noticed my ammonia spike and nitrites go up a tad. I did a water change today to help with that, but I certainly dont want to have a messed up bio filter now too...

I have never had this many problems in my life. to go from keeping a sw tank for 10 years to this crap is very frustrating...

what would you do next?

[oama]

Sting,
I think you may be working backwards. You should remove all the fish from the tank and leave it Fish Free for 3~4 weeks. The parasite will die off w/out a host. Treat the fish with Cu (or hyopsalinity, or what ever) in a different system/tank that is as bare as can be. If you use Cu on your main tank and have calcium substrate or base rock, you may never be able to keep inverts in it again. As the substrate will absorbd the Cu and slowly release it over time.

[ATJ]

Copper sulphate at 0.3 mg/L (0.3 ppm) can prevent bacteria from
converting ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate. As this is pretty close to teh concentration needed to effectively treat "Ich", there is always a danger of losing biological filtration when treating with copper.

The additional problem with copper, as oama has mentioned a couple of times is that any calcareous material (live rock, coral sand, coral skeletons) in the tank will absorb the copper from the water at a very fast rate. The danger with this is worse that oama describes, however, in that it doesn't just leach slowly back over time. A drop in pH as little as pH0.1 could result in most of the absorbed copper to be dumped back into the water in one go. This would be lethal to everything in the tank, not just invertebrates.

If you have any calcareous material in the tank you'll need to get rid of it all.

You will also need to do pretty regular changes to keep the ammonia concentration down or move the fish to another tank that has a cycled biological filter.

[sting310]

It seems everyone I speak to has a different opinion on this matter. All I know is I kept Lionfish, Groupers and Eels for over 10 years. I treated with copper when they got ich, and never had any crazy stuff happen with leak outs. get rid of all my rocks, gravel, ect that I paid allot of $$$ for? no offense but thats crazy. I can keep the inverts in my 20 gallon, I dont have to have any in the main tank. its a pain anyways because if the fish get sick then your hands are tied basically..

so from what you guys are saying is that copper is evil and if you use it your screw up your tank forever. both my lfs told me to use copper right in the main tank no problem. I talk to people that hit the tank with copper and pull it out and then put their live rock and stuff back in... then some people say use only hypo salinity. some then say fresh water dip and uv, ect... ask 10 people and I get 10 different answers. I am just gonna put carbon in my filters, and let it run its course. eventually the ammonia and nitrites will drop. I know I asked for advice and I appreciate the attention, but I am not going to do water changes every day at the cost of all the salt I will be using, not to mention ph buffer..

the carbon will pull out the copper and then hopefully the tank will cycle back out... oh also the owner of my lfs said that copper doesnt hurt the biological at all. and this is a huge successful store thats been around for years! and her fish room manager says it does hurt the biological.... saltwater is crazy I think. I do enjoy the fish though... I only wish my groupers never got that bad bacterial disease because I wouldnt be going thru this crap right now...

[williams-crist]

Sting,

I agree with your frustration about ich. I've had my problem with it recently and I have gotten a lot of different advice.

Just know that once you copper your main tank you might not be able to go back to having an "invert friendly tank."

If you are okay with that, then by all means copper away.

The problem that I have had with copper in my QT tank is that I can't find a reliable copper test. I bought a seachem one for cuprimine copper. Honestly, I don't see any of the shades of blue that show up on that test. Furthermore, would consider myself gifted in the area of matching colors.

So, if you can't read the level of copper then it's hard to know if you have the right dose. Also, if copper gets to high it will kill your good stuff too....

Anyway, if you find a good copper test, Please let me know!

I myself currently have no fish because everyone I have bought from LFS has had a disease of some sort. First Ick, then clownfish disease. (Granted, I'm also new and have not bought many fish yet).

I've been letting my invert only tank go fish free for now. Planning to QT new fish in a tank with lower salinity when I first get them.
I really hope that improves my luck!

Also, don't be discouraged. I have heard a lot of opinions also and finally have decided that I will take all advice and do research on it before taking it.

Good luck with your fish!

[oama]

The best Cu test kit I would get would be the Hach Hand Held Spec for Copper and use the CuVer2 reagent for saltwater. You need to take a 25ml sample, add the reagent, mix for 2 minutes, then decant 10ml into the test vial. Place the vial into the slot and push a button. Vola! It will give you a digital/numeric readout down to 0.01 ppm.

Now get ready for the stickers shock! It costs around $350. But if you use copper often, it's worth it.

[sting310]

Originally posted by williams-crist
Sting,

I agree with your frustration about ich. I've had my problem with it recently and I have gotten a lot of different advice.

Just know that once you copper your main tank you might not be able to go back to having an "invert friendly tank."


So, if you can't read the level of copper then it's hard to know if you have the right dose. Also, if copper gets to high it will kill your good stuff too....

Anyway, if you find a good copper test, Please let me know!

Also, don't be discouraged. I have heard a lot of opinions also and finally have decided that I will take all advice and do research on it before taking it.

Good luck with your fish!

I have the one by Fastest. It matches ok, but no matter how much I dump in it always reads .10

I did a 20% water change tonight(arghh! 2nd one in 2 days), and
put in plenty of carbon. I realize that this would prevent me from treating ich, but I would rather battle ich then a tank spiking in ammonia and nitrites. As for my inverts, they are happily residing in a 20 gallon high tank with all my live rock.....

My firefish are burrowing in the gravel now for some reason. Way I found out is that I didnt see them swimming like they always did last day or two... well after poking around in there to check for dead ones, they came shooting out of the gravel! I guess they are in the Goby family, but I didnt think they burrowed.. must be a stress thing....

like I said before I had a predator tank for a long time, and it sucks to have to get a tank going again. saltwater is cool, but very unforgiving. keep me updated on your tank...

[oama]

Originally posted by williams-crist


Also, don't be discouraged. I have heard a lot of opinions also and finally have decided that I will take all advice and do research on it before taking it.

[/B]

William,
That is a very sound idea.

[ATJ]

Yes, there are a lot of differing opinions in this hobby. This is because it is... well... a hobby. There are a huge number of myths that people have started years and years ago and they just get repeated over and over again until everyone believes they are true. I guess much like the average person in the early 15th Century thought the world was flat.

It is worth noting that there are a number of areas in the hobby that have been subject to scientific investigation. In some cases the investigations supported the long held beliefs, however, a number have been shown to be completely bogus.

"Ich" is one area where there has been a lot of research and this research has demonstrated that most of the hobbyist beliefs have been incorrect. There is also quite a lot of research into the effects of copper on various organisms, including fish, invertebrates, parasites and bacteria.

Cardeilhac and Whitaker (1988) claim that calcareous sand beds and gravel can reduce the copper concentration by 55% within 2 hours after treatment and the copper concentration can be reduced to as little as 25% of the original concentration in 24 hours after treatment. This absorbed copper can be released back into the water with a drop in pH of as little as pH0.1.

While carbon will remove the copper from the water, it will not help any calcareous material that has absorbed copper from the water.

Cardeilhac and Whitaker (1988) also claim that copper sulphate at 0.3 mg/L inhibits ammonia and nitrite oxidation by bacteria even after total water replacement.

Colorni (1985) demonstrated that freshwater baths are ineffective for the treatment of "Ich". They found that even if infected fish were left in the freshwater bath for as long as 18 hours, the parasites were still attached to the fish (in the same spots) and were unaffected. When those parasites finally left the fish to reproduce, reproduction proceeded as normal.

I am not aware of any studies into the effectiveness of UV sterilisers, but an understanding of the life cycle of "Ich" (which is well documented in the scientific literature) suggests why it cannot be 100% effective. UV sterilisers work by killing living cells that pass through them. This means that only the free living stages of "Ich" can be affected by a UV steriliser. Parasites that are attached to host fish and those that are attached to the substrate from reproduction will be unaffected.

"Ich" parasites remain attached to the host fish for 3 to 13 days (Burgess and Matthews, 1994a; Burgess and Matthews, 1994b; Colorni, 1985; Colorni, 1987, Diggles and Lester, 1996a; Diggles and Lester, 1996b) and the reproductive phase can last 3 to 35 days (Burgess and Matthews, 1994a; Burgess and Matthews, 1994b; Cheung et al, 1979; Colorni, 1985; Colorni, 1987, Diggles and Lester, 1996a; Diggles and Lester, 1996b). However, once the parasites leave the host, they can encyst in as little as 30 minutes (Cheung et al, 1979) and this means they will be free swimming for potentially less time. The chances of them passing through the UV steriliser are not high. Similarly, newly excysted theronts have been shown to be infective for a short period of time (Yoshinaga and Dickerson, 1994) also reducing the chance of them passing through the UV steriliser.

Some parasites will pass through the UV steriliser, but not all. At best, the steriliser will reduce the number of parasites, but it will never kill all of them.

It is really up to you who you believe. You could even choose not to believe anyone, do your own research and decide for yourself. The references below would be a good starting point.

References

Burgess P.J. and Matthews R.A. 1994a. A standardized method for the in vivo maintenance of Cryptocaryon irritans (Ciliophora) using the grey mullet Chelon labrosus as an experimental host. J Parasitol.80:288-292.

Burgess P.J. and Matthews R.A. 1994. Cryptocaryon irritans (Ciliophora): photoperiod and transmission in marine fish. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom.74:535-542.

Cardeilhac P.T. and Whitaker B.R. 1988. Tropical fish medicine. Copper treatments. Uses and precautions. Vet Clin North Am Small Anim Pract.18:435-448.

Cheung P.J., Nigrelli R.F. and Ruggieri G.D. 1979. Studies on cryptocaryoniasis in marine fish: effect of temperature and salinity on reproductive cycle of Cryptocaryon irritans Brown, 1951. J. Fish Dis..2:93-97.

Colorni A. 1985. Aspects of the biology of Cryptocaryon irritans, and hyposalinity as a control measure in cultured gilt-head sea bream Sparus aurata. Dis. Aquat. Org..1:19-22.

Colorni A. 1987. Biology of Cryptocaryon irritans and strategies for its control. Aquaculture.67(1-2):236-237.

Diggles B.K. and Lester R.J. 1996a. Influence of temperature and host species on the development of Cryptocaryon irritans. J Parasitol.82:45-51.

Diggles B.K. and Lester R.J. 1996b. Variation in the development of two isolates of Cryptocaryon irritans. J Parasitol.82:384-388.

Yoshinaga, T. and Dickerson H.W. 1994. Laboratory propagation of Cryptocaryon irritans Brown, 1951 on saltwater-adapted black mollies Poecilia latipinna. J. Aquat. Anim. Health.6:197-201.

[ATJ]

Originally posted by sting310
My firefish are burrowing in the gravel now for some reason.

What sort of "gravel"? If it is calcium carbonate, it will have absorbed much of the copper you have already added to the tank and may explain your difficulty of maintaining the calcium concentration. A sudden drop in pH could release that copper and kill everything in the tank.

[williams-crist]

oama- love the idea of the digital equipment for copper testing! My hubby would die if he knew that I would even consider such a piece of equipment considering the pricetag! If you could only see his face as I explain my elaborate plans to build the most amazing reef tank, as soon as I figure out how to keep my fish alive and disease free! Pretty much, he is just supportive, certain that eventually I will have this fish thing down to a science...

I think as I build up experience I will seriously consider getting this piece of equipment. Honestly, the cu test that I have purchased are a joke. Anyway, I've decided to try my luck with hyposalinity in the QT tank. Do you feel that this will require a longer acclimation of the fish when they are first introduced? I really appreciate you sharing your experience.

Sting- sounds like you've had it with the copper now too. Is this why you added the carbon back in? I've heard good things about polyfilter helping to pull out the copper. If that's what your planning...I'm sure as the copper level goes down then your nitrites and ammonia will go down also.

I had a firefish before and had sand in my tank. The firefish was pretty shy and loved to hide under a rock in the sand. He even made little holes to peek out. I think this is just a normal part of their behavior. If you ever decide to go back to invert friendly, maybe through out your gravel and use sand. Gobies love it and it's pretty entertaining to watch them play..

I do agree with ATJ & Oama about the gravel. Sounds like it is sucking up all the copper. Be careful about picking future fish for this tank. Some fish are copper sensitive, like butterflies. Just a thought...

ATJ- you have done so much research, amazing! Sounds like you use hyposalinity to QT new fish. I would appreciate your advice about how to do this correctly. I'm planning to give this a try when I buy new fish. Please provide details about the acclimation and etc. It seems like they should be acclimated longer due to the low salinity. Would appreciate this information. It just crushes me when I lose a fish it makes me feel sick for days! They are so amazing to me! Anyway, thanks to everyone for sharing experiences!

[oama]

williams-crist
I'm not sure but it sounds like you are planning to dump a new fish directly into hyposalinity? No. You acclimate them to regular tank water temps/salinity in a Q-system, then slowly lower salinity over days. Have a Good Refractometer that give specific gravity as well as salinity. Know how to calibrate it and to use it correctly. Have a good water quality kit also to monitor pH, NH4, NO2, Hardness, etc.
If you do a quick search here on RC under hyposalinity, you should come up with several hits on "How To..."

Like you stated...Do the research.

Good Luck!

[williams-crist]

Thanks for sharing. Yes, I was thinking that I could acclimate into hyposalinty QT tank. I'm glad I asked. I will look into some articles about this!

[ATJ]

I only use hyposalinity for the treatment of "Ich" and not as a prophylactic. Not that I see anything wrong with hyposalinity treatment for all new fish, but just that I have not found in necessary.

I quarantine new fish for at least 6 weeks. In most cases there are in the quarantine tank much longer simply because it is convienient. Six weeks is long enough that if the new fish is carrying trophonts, they will have dropped off, reproduced and reinfected the fish at least once in the period, making the infection obvious. If "Ich" does appear during the quarantine period, it is easy to treat with hyposalinity.

Here is some detail on Hyposalinity. As Oama states, you should add the fish to the tank with normal salinity then lower the salinity over the course of a few days.

[sting310]

Originally posted by ATJ
What sort of "gravel"? If it is calcium carbonate, it will have absorbed much of the copper you have already added to the tank and may explain your difficulty of maintaining the calcium concentration. A sudden drop in pH could release that copper and kill everything in the tank.

while I think that is a bit extreme, I have seen your tanks on your web site, so I respect your opinion. what do you mean by calcium concentration?

the copper has dropped down to almost non detectable... ammonia is .003, and nitrites are now 0.... the fish are active now and eating. I am running carbon and a poly filter. regarding your statement about copper leaking out and killing everything, would running carbon, and changing it regularly prevent that? I have used copper before in my tank with lionfish and groupers... I am almost sure the ph dropped once in a while in that heavy bio loaded tank, and I never saw any ill effects....

Thanks.