AAH! The ICH is back!

[jap1]

Well, I thought my clowns were ich free. I've been feeding them religiously with medicated and non-medicated food using garlic, focus, and metronidazole. Over the course of the week they were looking better and better. Almost perfect infact. Well, I wake up this morning and now the ich is back. They look worse than ever before. The ich is all over them and they look really uncomfortable. They are twitching and not even paying attention to each other any more. I'm really worried because I don't have a quarantine tank set up at all. I don't have any of the equipment either except for an empty 10 gallon tank and a cpr bakpak/protein skimmer. If they don't get better in the next few days, would anyone possibly be willing to quarantine them for me for a few weeks? I'd hate to lose these guys. What would you all recommend.

[GaryP]

Have you checked the temp of your tank? High temps, especially when the humidity is high like it was this weekend can cause fish to break out in Ich. It stresses the fish causing their immune systems to be weaker, plus it speeds up the Ich life cycle.

[jap1]

Temp has been 78 at night to 80 by day. Also, does the lighting make a difference? Maybe I should leave my canopy open to drop the temps a little lower and also create better gas exchange. Would that help?

[GaryP]

OK, scratch that idea. Just keep doing what you are doing. Maybe its just a temporary relapse. Ich can be cyclic. You might have just caught another cycle.

[flutterby_404]

Is the second cycle usually worse? The female especially looks so miserable! I'm getting really scared.
(PS I'm Jap1's wife)

[GaryP]

Welcome flutterby.

It depends on how weak they are. Just have faith and keep doing what you are doing. You have already seen some success. A cleaner shrimp might be helpful to clean up the left overs.

[flutterby_404]

They won't let the cleaner clean them! We had a birthday party Sat. night, do you think the noise & all the people staring at them might have stressed them out?

[GaryP]

You got me there. When was the last time you did a water change? Were there a lot of people smoking in the house during the party?

[flutterby_404]

There was no smoking in the house. We did a water change Friday night, about 2 gallons & then Sunday about 1.5 gallons (we're in a 12 gallon AquaPod). There were a bunch of people smoking right outside the front door which is only about 10 feet away from the tank.

[GaryP]

OK, scratch off another theory. It really sounds like you are doing everything you can right now. Just keep it up.

[flutterby_404]

Thanks, I feel a little better now. I just hate seeing them suffer, I can't imagine that it's comfortable for them.

[Richard]

Yikes! That doesn't sound good. If it is a more virulent strain then it does come back with a vengeance sometimes less virulent strains will just fade away. Now you have to make a decision. Keep doing what your doing and keep your fingers crossed or move to qt and use hyposalinity or copper.

If it were me I would move them and treat. If you leave them be and keep doing wht your doing then sometimes they will resist and get thru it and sometimes not.

[jap1]

I just don't have anything set up to move them into right at this moment. I have an empty 10 gallon tank and a cpr bakpak/protein skimmer, what more do I need & do you think I can get it going fast enough?

[villjr]

I agree with richard. it would be easier to treat them in another tank.

You said you have a 10 gal. Set it up. You can use a powerhead or airstone to circulate water.

[villjr]

Or the protein skimmer just to keep the water moving.

[Richard]

You would want a heater and you could use some biological media in the bakpak. Then just add some TLC which would instantly cycle the tank so you wouldn't get ammonia/nitrite spike. You could leave it bare bottom and just add some plastic plants or pvc parts to provide some cover/shelter for the clowns so they'll feel comfortable. I have some little free sample bottles of tlc that will start up to a 20 gallon.

I would set it up with an sg of 1.010 and let it get up to temp and then acclimate them for an hour or so before putting them in.

Then you would have to keep in mind that there are known strains of cryptocaryon that will not respond to hyposalinity treatment. So if they don't improve dramatically and quickly in hypo then you have to move to medications. Copper is my drug of choice.

[Richard]

Oh, one important point on hyposalinity. Since you use less than half as much salt mix as you normally would, that means your alkalinity is VERY low which leads to low ph which leads to problems. So you need to add some carbonates to get the alk up to a reasonable level.

[flutterby_404]

Okay, so the bakpak is okay, I just want to make sure I get this right.

How many watts for the heater? I'm guessing a 50 watt?

Biological media? Live rock rubble? We have these ceramic rings & bio balls that came w/ Aquapod that we haven't opened?

Carbonates? Like the bagged carbon? We have some of that also that came w/ the Pod.

TLC, you gave us a little bottle of something the day we went in & bought the garlic, but I'll have to dig it out, I don't remember the name...

Should we continue medicating them? We're almost out of that too, so I'll have to run out to your store today.

[GaryP]

By carbonates Richard means buffer. Its a mixture of sodium bicarbonate and sodium carbonate.

[flutterby_404]

Ahhh, okay.

We have a bottle of Kent Marine Pro Buffer dKH. It say that it increases Alkalinity & maintains pH at 8.3 w/ Coraline Accelerator.

They're not really eating much this morning...

[GaryP]

Try feeding them small amounts several times a day.

[flutterby_404]

Do you think that Kent Marine stuff I mentioned is good enough? Yeah, we're going to keep up w/ the feeding a little bit every 2 hours.

[GaryP]

Yea, that is fine.

[flutterby_404]

Good, funds are a little limited at the moment, so we're trying to squeeze by w/ as much of what we already have!

PS Thank you for all the great advise! I know I'm probably getting annoying w/ the questions, but I just want to make sure we get this all right. Plus this is our first tank & we're still pretty new to all of this!

[flutterby_404]

Another question, about how much salt to water should we mix to get such a low salinity? I know you had said about half of what we normally do, but an actual measurement would really help me out!

[flutterby_404]

One more question, should we do a fresh water dip before putting them into the hyposalinity QT? We're setting up the QT as we speak & want to get them in there ASAP!

[GaryP]

What salinity do you normally run your tank at?

I run mine at about 1.025. So, if I was to run it at 1.010 I would use 40% as much salt as I would normally use.

I did a little math and I came up with using 3.8 lb. of salt in 10 gal. to get a salinity of 1.010. Make that up, then double check it with a hydrometer. Add more fresh water to reduce it, more salt to raise the specific gravity. You may have to remove some of the salt water to add more fresh water.

[Richard]

Just use the ceramic rings in the bakpak for biological media.

What gary said on the carbonates...super dkh is fine.

Try to come out or have someone stop by for the tlc. You really need to add it and it's a free sample. If I'm not here then just tell whoever is to give you a free sample of saltwater tlc...tell em Richard said ;)

I usually do 1.010 on sg and it works well. You can actually go down to 1.008 but I wouldn't do that because of the inaccuracy of most hydrometers and even refractometers. Below that is below the internal osmotic pressure of the fish which would kill them. So 1.010 gives you some margin of error but it still low enough to be effective.

[jap1]

Thank you so much for all the info, we still have most of the bottle of the TLC you gave us last time, we'll start w/ that. We have the tank set up w/ some PVC & a couple of little plastic plants. We have the heater in there & are trying to get the temp up right now. We've already dosed the dKH buffer & our pH looks good. We've got the ceramic rings in the back & the TLC is in also.

[Richard]

OK, I forgot I gave you some already. Keep the bubbles low on the skimmer for a day so you don't skim out the tlc bacteria before they attach to a surface.

[jap1]

we also have a bag of carbon, do you think we should put that in the bak pak also?

[Richard]

I guess it wouldn't hurt but I don't think you need to. Also, you don't want to stick too much stuff in the bakpak because if it impedes the flow through the skimmer too much the bakpak will overflow and you have a big mess. One of the "glitches" of the bakpak's.

[GaryP]

Richard,

Doesn't carbon remove copper?

[Richard]

Doesn't carbon remove copper?


Yes, you can't use carbon with any medications. Hopefully the hypo does the trick and he won't need to treat them.

[jap1]

Okay then, no carbon for now. I'm hoping the hypo works also.

[GaryP]

Just remember that if you do use copper in the tank, you can't use it for anything besides a quarantine tank. The silicon will absorb it and it will leach back out for a long time. That's no big deal really. A new 10 gal. is only $10. Just make sure to provide lots of oxygen. That will help a lot, especially if their gills are infected. It is kind of a pain though, because it causes salt creap.

You might want to keep it set up as a quarantine tank. A lot of people put a black molly in it to keep the biologicals going when you don't have a fish being treated or quarantined. Just acclimate the molly slowly. They are sold as a fresh water fish but can tolerate brackish water well.

[jap1]

Well, everything seems good to go. Here goes nothing! I'm putting these poor guys in the QT. Wish me luck.