Mandarin and Hyposalinity treatment?

[PodGirl]

Due to a tang getting ich (big surprise!) I have decided to try the hyposalinity treatment so that hopefully I can be rid of it once and for all. I've have to decided to treat of my fish with a hyposalinity treatment and leave my display empty for 8 weeks so the ich can do its little cycle and then go away! I understand the hyposalinity thing perfectly fine and that I'll have to leave my display tank fishless. However, I have a Spotted Mandarin and am concerned that he will not make it through the hypersaline treatment because there won't be anything for him to eat. It makes me wish I had trained him to eat frozen food. Has anyone had experience with hypersaline on a Mandarin? As far as I can think there is really no way for him to eat.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Europhyllia]

From what I understand Mandarins rarely get the same type of parasites other fish get because of the nature of their slime coat/scales.
I bet it wouldn't take long though to train it onto frozen. Their favorites are bloodworms and prawn eggs.

[PodGirl]

I understand that they rarely ever have problems with ich but from what I've read I think they can still be a carrier (in the gills). The myths and facts article about ich suggest taking any fish (including mandarins) and putting them in QT. I'd rather be safe than sorry and have to start the process over because I didn't QT the Mandarin. I thought about using this time to try and train the Mandarin as well. However I didn't think it would be a good idea to go forth with the hyposaline treatment at the same time as I was trying to train him. Training him might be my best option though.

[ErikH]

I lost my mandy when I went through my last battle :(

Good luck, ich is a terrible thing!

[PodGirl]

I'm sorry to hear that. :(

The ich isn't that bad none of my fish are showing signs except my new tang. Since it obviously in my system I just decided to go ahead and try to rid my entire system of it this time. However, the refractometer (that I literally just purchased yesterday) is now broken. Grrrrrr. I dropped it and when I picked it up the line was crooked so I went to try to twist alittle to see if that would help and the refractometer just snapped in half. I guess this means I have time to train my Mandarin. :)

At this rate I'm about to plop my fish back in my display. I knew the hyposaline would be work and therefore stressful but these added problems are double discouraging.

[Europhyllia]

I don't keep tangs and am not familiar with ich treatments but I just looked at Fenner's book and he mentioned Quinines as a good treatment for ich that is safe even on copper sensitive fish, etc.
Would quinines be a good alternative to the hyposalinity treatment?

[PodGirl]

I've decided to hold off on the hyposaline until I can get another refractometer. I just rather do something that doesn't involve some chemical treatment. Plus I've decide I think it will help to give the fish a few days to get use to the QT tank. No sense adding stress on top of stress.

The good news is I feel like my Mandarin training might go well. After reading up on the idea some I went and cut the top of a small 16 oz bottle and placed in a low flow area. I then started squirting frozen brine shrimp in as well as artemia. My idea was to get him use to the bottle by using the artemia as bait. I saw him in the bottle a few times last night and he pecked around alot but never took the frozen food. Today I restocked the bottle with the same two items. I learned last night to also release artemia into the water column as my royal gramma also loves them and I don't want him to catch on to the bottle. Anyway I'm not sure if it was an accident or he took it on purpose but I saw my Mandarin peck at the frozen brine shrimp today! It could have just been in the line of aim for his live food but I still feel this is a promising sign. Maybe I'll have him trained sooner than I thought!

[Europhyllia]

fantastic! if you do decide to go with brine just remember to enrich it as by itself brine doesn't really have much to offer nutrition wise. I think I saw some Selcon at Reefs2U.
Mine liked the hatchable decapsulated eggs from BSD and the newly hatched naupli but never cared for the adult frozen brine even enriched. I've transitioned around 6 different spotted mandarins to frozen and the blood worms were always among the most popular foods and first to be accepted.

[PodGirl]

Last night I literally went out and bought the blood worms per your advice (plus brine shrimp). I went with the brine first since the resemble what he's going after now. I plan on working my way up to something with better nutrition but it seemed like an easy way to get him to start. I read a thread by someone who had some rolly polly Mandarins that used a similar method. As for now the artemia have selcon in them as we use them at work to feed to our baby clowns. We make a new batch every day but why let the leftovers go to waste. I think I'll try brine in the morning and blood worms at night. Once I figure out his prefrence then I'll stick to one. Thanks for the food idea's. I was alittle baffled as to what to try and get him to eat as there are so many different opinions.

[Europhyllia]

sounds like she'll be eating frozen in no time.
here's an old write up I did for the newsletter:
8678

You should start a thread about your baby clowns. I'd love to hear more about them :)

[PodGirl]

Good read!

Its answered some of the questions I was going to ask. I tried brine shrimp again and then blood worms just this evening. He's now picked at them a few times but hasn't went all out on anything. I was going to ask if this was normally how they go about eating frozen food, but after reading your article I'd say he's definately not eating vigorously. He'll get there though.

Oh and the baby clowns aren't mine. We have a couple sets of brookstock where I work. Onyx clowns, TP clowns, Picasso, Orchid dottybacks, Seahorses, and Bangaii Cardinals. I do have a pair of naked clowns (seperate tank so no ich thank goodness) that I actually plan on trying to get to breed. If so hopefully naked clowns will be added to the above list.

[Europhyllia]

Oh very cool. Do you work for GC Reef? I may have met you when I picked up one of my female mandarins there! :) We made a special trip to Corpus to get her.
If I remember right for me it took anywhere from 3 days to 10 for them to 'really' go after it depending on individual.

[PodGirl]

Wow awesome guess. Yes I do. But I just started a few weeks ago and we haven't had any Mandarins for awhile so I doubt that was me you met. Well we have a very fat rolly polly spotted in our display but I don't count him as he isn't for sale. I'm really excited for the ORA Mandarins and I actually think we might hold off ordering any until those are available.

[PodGirl]

I have currently given up on the idea of curing my tank of ick. Earlier this evening my royal gramma wasn't looking so hot. The nitrite in my QT took a spike. So I have since relocated them back to the main tank.

I read that if no new strain of ich is introduced into a tank for 11 months the current strain will wear itself out. Therefore my new plan of action (so I can stop stressing my fish and myself the heck out) is to just let if run and if it starts showing signs I think I'll just use one of the reef safe treatments to "dull" it so to speak. I realize those medicines aren't really good long term but I'm not a fan of copper and I'm over the hyposaline thing. I plan to upgrade to larger tank in about a year so I'll just go super anti-ich with the new tank when I have it.

[SAY]

if you are planning to take all of your fish out of the display tank, is it necessary to change the salinity? it is my understanding that if ich doesn't have a host for 8 months, that is enough to kill it.

[PodGirl]

Oh no I'm not changing the salinity in my display. I was going to let that run for 8 weeks without fish so that the ich with die without having a host. However, the fish are still carriers therefore they would need to be treated (either hyposaline or copper) to cure them of ich otherwise once I put them back in the display they would just bring it back in.

[SAY]

aahh sorry. i didn't read your original post correctly.