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Treating Ich v. QT tank options (1 Viewer)

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I would suggest two things. First, I know you want him to eat, but feed sparingly. Everything that goes in must come out. Feed him just enough to keep him alive. I usually just feed about 4-5 mysis shrimp daily, depending on the size of the shrimp.

Get one of those air driven sponge filters. You can seed the tank with some bacteria and then dose a little vodka to feed the bacteria, maybe 2cc vodka/day if its a 10g tank. That should help with the nitrification process.
 
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I would suggest two things. First, I know you want him to eat, but feed sparingly. Everything that goes in must come out. Feed him just enough to keep him alive. I usually just feed about 4-5 mysis shrimp daily, depending on the size of the shrimp.

Get one of those air driven sponge filters. You can seed the tank with some bacteria and then dose a little vodka to feed the bacteria, maybe 2cc vodka/day if its a 10g tank. That should help with the nitrification process.

I agree I have been over-feeding, but I do suck out any thing not eaten that's big enough for me to see. I'll reduce the feeding down to about 4-5 / day.

Yeah I think my main issue is the sponge I put in wasn't bacteria ridden from the DT so it's doing a minor "cycle" which is adding to it. Will look into the vodka!
 
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So he's been doing pretty good the past few days, he's eating a lot (mostly brine shrimp, but occasionally mysis if he'll eat them). I am still doing a lot of large water changes to keep the ammonia down... but I think it's getting better.

This morning I noticed he has these little spots all over him. Any thoughts what it could be? I am still keeping CP at about a .50mg level. I did three full tank dosages of kanaplex (directions only say to do three). The brineshrimp / mysis shrimp are soaked in Metroplex. I have not done furan-2. I also have Prazi but I haven't dosed with that as I read only the powdered form works and I have the liquid.

I also feel he looks like he's having a hard time swimming. Like he is "heavy" and near the bottom most of the time. IMG_20190124_080121.jpg
 
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Came home from work today and it was basically gone. I did a 5g water change this morning and I think that's the issue. I think the ammonia / nitrites are getting too high. I thought maybe it's my new water I'm adding so I checked that and it was 0ppm.

So tonight I did another large water change and will do another tomorrow morning to try and get this ammonia out. I think the real issue is the sponge I put into the tank wasn't "old" enough. It was only about a week old in the DT (and what I read is it needs to be about a month or more old). I'm thinking about throwing some LR from the DT into the QT. I know it's sacrificial but it's something that should have that bacteria to consume that ammonia / nitrite.
 
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After 10 days of therapeutic CP, transfer him to a sterile non-medicated tank for observation. During this period feed Metroplex soaked food to clear any internal issues and you can run liquid Praziquantel as well. Won’t hurt anything. This will give him the best chance of survival and you should have a very healthy fish entering your display after this observation period.
Still has the "sores" on the side of his body. So I am doing another acriflavine bath right now and I am going to move him to the second tank and planning on doing non cp at this point.

Since he's been in the CP for 12 days at this point all the velvet should be in the tomont stage or dead. So shifting him to a new tank shouldn't need the CP (right?)

I'll run prazipro in the tank now. I think I'll run the antibacterial trifecta at it again. Based on the medical compatibility guide they are safe together.
 
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After 10 days of CP, just transfer him to a sterile tank. Velvet and ICH are gone. Have no idea what the white spots are and I’m not exactly sure why you’re having a big issue with Ammonia. Get a good test kit and make sure you’re feeding light and don’t feed flake or pellets. Feed mysis or LRS fish frenzy. Suck out any left over food. Just run one Antibiotic like Kanaplex and watch the wounds. You don’t want to hit him with the trifecta as he’s not that severe. He my be breaking out in spots due to a high dosage of CP. terminate that treatment, start the Kanaplex, and you can run Prazipro with it. Then do your 90 min Acriflavine baths if the wounds are open sores.

Best of luck man. You’ve had a rough go with him. Gezzz.
 
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Yeah I've honestly had such a rough go with him I'm like he has to make it at this point! So much invested! When I bought him, I bought two cleaner shrimp, and one died quickly the other one is barely surviving but I doubt it'll make it. It has some "Black Spot Disease " on it and from a few articles I read online it's some disease and most of them won't make it... although he's been hanging on for a while and he just needs a molt then he'll probably be fine. Glad that went into my "fishless" QT. Doing the whole QT has really saved my butt, I am so glad I have started it when I did.

As far as the tang, he still has the spot but I did exactly that. I transferred him to a sterile tank after 90 acriflavine bath. I am running Kanaplex & Prazipro in it right now. I've been basically feeding him very small amounts, watch him eat it. Once he doesn't eat any I'm waiting about 15 minutes and then sucking it out. I feed 2x a day. Because he is in a new tank though there is nothing that has "cycled" in this tank so I'm going to have to continue to do water changes as it's going to cycle with him in it. I've been doing 5g water changes every day for the past two weeks so I am kinda used to it.
 
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"sores" are still there, he's been in the "new" QT tank for about 48 hours, no difference on the spots on him. He's still eating and acting normal. Today is the second dose of Kanaplex. Ammonia is creeping back up. I'm feeding him one mysis shrimp (grabbing it with tweezers) at a time and watching him eat it. Really not sure where this ammonia is coming from unless it's just the tank cycling portion (which is very possible). I have read that PraziPro is only active in the water for about 24 hours so I don't need to re-dose that with the water changes.

I'm honestly getting really sick of these water changes :mad:

Also I am pretty sure my test kit is accurate, because I've tested it with clean water and it's clearly 0ppm. The seachem ammonia badge is slightly colored indicating there is ammonia. The only thing I could think of is when I dose prime it still reports ammonia whether the prime has "attached" to it or not.
 
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Yeah I've honestly had such a rough go with him I'm like he has to make it at this point! So much invested! When I bought him, I bought two cleaner shrimp, and one died quickly the other one is barely surviving but I doubt it'll make it. It has some "Black Spot Disease " on it and from a few articles I read online it's some disease and most of them won't make it... although he's been hanging on for a while and he just needs a molt then he'll probably be fine. Glad that went into my "fishless" QT. Doing the whole QT has really saved my butt, I am so glad I have started it when I did.

As far as the tang, he still has the spot but I did exactly that. I transferred him to a sterile tank after 90 acriflavine bath. I am running Kanaplex & Prazipro in it right now. I've been basically feeding him very small amounts, watch him eat it. Once he doesn't eat any I'm waiting about 15 minutes and then sucking it out. I feed 2x a day. Because he is in a new tank though there is nothing that has "cycled" in this tank so I'm going to have to continue to do water changes as it's going to cycle with him in it. I've been doing 5g water changes every day for the past two weeks so I am kinda used to it.

Definitely sounds like you're on the right track! Keep at it man!:clap3:
 
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"sores" are still there, he's been in the "new" QT tank for about 48 hours, no difference on the spots on him. He's still eating and acting normal. Today is the second dose of Kanaplex. Ammonia is creeping back up. I'm feeding him one mysis shrimp (grabbing it with tweezers) at a time and watching him eat it. Really not sure where this ammonia is coming from unless it's just the tank cycling portion (which is very possible). I have read that PraziPro is only active in the water for about 24 hours so I don't need to re-dose that with the water changes.

I'm honestly getting really sick of these water changes :mad:

Also I am pretty sure my test kit is accurate, because I've tested it with clean water and it's clearly 0ppm. The seachem ammonia badge is slightly colored indicating there is ammonia. The only thing I could think of is when I dose prime it still reports ammonia whether the prime has "attached" to it or not.

Sounds like you're doing everything right. Maybe something is going on with that prime. I never use prime so I couldn't tell you. Just switch to a larger tank and that will likely solve most of your problems.
 
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Well he's still alive and doing well. The spots are slowly going away. The ammonia is still present but much lower but I am still doing large water changes. This time I take out the filter and clean it every day with hot water and put in a new filter floss. Not having to add CP or anything else really makes it easier.

So here's my question...

Everyone said run CP for 30 days. Why not just run it for 10 days (like suggested here) and then start treating with PraziPro and that would put them done with all medication sooner and quicker into the observation period?

The CP kills them "instantly" in their theront stage (free swimming trying to find a host).
Those that are already on the fish will drop off in 3-9 days (ich) / 3-7 days (velvet) of feeding will drop off.

So after 10 days any that were on the fish have already dropped off. Any that dropped off quickly after you got the fish and hatched would have died immediately when they entered the free-swimming stage. The only concern is if somehow the tomont stage was somewhere on the fish but I never read about that happening.

So it seems to me it'd always be better to do the 10 or so days of CP, then swap to a whole new system and then begin treating with Prazipro.

Is my logic flawed there? It reduces the time by 20 days... which can be a lot when you are doing 5g water changes daily.
 

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My biggest concern would be cross contamination. Transferring the fish to another tank could run the risk of something slipping through. I understand that the swimmers are "instantly" killed and therefore shouldn't be an issue. But what if one of them was slow to die. Or like you mentioned, one encrusts and stays on the fish. Or stays on the fish longer than anticipated. Who knows. I guess if you transferred him after 10 days, then kept him in the same tank for observation for longer, giving any that made it a chance to multiply and become visible on the fish, that might work.
 
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Well he's still alive and doing well. The spots are slowly going away. The ammonia is still present but much lower but I am still doing large water changes. This time I take out the filter and clean it every day with hot water and put in a new filter floss. Not having to add CP or anything else really makes it easier.

So here's my question...

Everyone said run CP for 30 days. Why not just run it for 10 days (like suggested here) and then start treating with PraziPro and that would put them done with all medication sooner and quicker into the observation period?

The CP kills them "instantly" in their theront stage (free swimming trying to find a host).
Those that are already on the fish will drop off in 3-9 days (ich) / 3-7 days (velvet) of feeding will drop off.

So after 10 days any that were on the fish have already dropped off. Any that dropped off quickly after you got the fish and hatched would have died immediately when they entered the free-swimming stage. The only concern is if somehow the tomont stage was somewhere on the fish but I never read about that happening.

So it seems to me it'd always be better to do the 10 or so days of CP, then swap to a whole new system and then begin treating with Prazipro.

Is my logic flawed there? It reduces the time by 20 days... which can be a lot when you are doing 5g water changes daily.


Me and HF argued that for years. We finally got it moved to 10 days if there's a transfer involved. He likes a lot of wiggle room and I like logic and living on the wild side. Besides, I've scoped several fish and confirmed my theory. You can probably do a search here and find me talking about it.

I do about 10 days with both ICH and Velvet now. Uronema- I'm still testing with Metro and using double scoops in the water column and food.

Brooklynella is a pain in the rear too. IMO, it requires several transfers to completely eliminate it, but I haven't had to deal with it in a while. I'd like to try other medications from what I've used in the past.
 
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My biggest concern would be cross contamination. Transferring the fish to another tank could run the risk of something slipping through. I understand that the swimmers are "instantly" killed and therefore shouldn't be an issue. But what if one of them was slow to die. Or like you mentioned, one encrusts and stays on the fish. Or stays on the fish longer than anticipated. Who knows. I guess if you transferred him after 10 days, then kept him in the same tank for observation for longer, giving any that made it a chance to multiply and become visible on the fish, that might work.

Cross contamination is a huge issue IMO. Most people don't take it serious enough and it's probably the reason why a lot of QT's and Fallow Periods fail.

When they encyst, it's never on the fish. It's after they drop off. Typically on something hard, but I have had it come in on macro algae (Cheato), Snails, and I know it can come in on Coral frags or plugs. Snails and frag plugs are quite common. Cheato is not very common, but can happen.

There's no studies out that show ICH staying on a fish longer than about 7 days. Especially in temps that are mid to high 70's. Of course anything can happen.

There's fixing to be another treatment protocol drop soon. An article is actually being written about it now. I'll post up when it is finished.
 
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Here’s an actual conversation we had about it a while back.




According to both life cycles of ICH and Velvet...

With ICH...the Trophont feeds on the fish for about 3 - 7 days...

With Velvet...the Trophont feeds on the fish for about 12hrs - 4 days....

Either way....it really doesn't matter as long as you transfer and run either COPPER or CP. Technically after "ONLY 3 transfers" the fish should be free of parasites. The max time for both parasites to actually be present on the fish is 7 days. After that period of time, and running the drugs mentioned above (WHICH PREVENTS MORE PARASITES FROM LANDING ON THE FISH), Your fish should not become reinfected unless you are doing something wrong or your medication isn't at a THERAPEUTIC LEVEL. The parasites are crippled by the medication and unable to seek out a fish host.

I have already made up my mind to only do 3 transfers for both ICH and Velvet.

```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
So knowing the above information, HF said.... "Lets do one transfer at day 10."

Personally, I think we should stick to the 7 day rule and do the transfer at day 8. Then go immediately into a 4 week observation period with a completely sterile non-medicated tank since both parasites can mask symptoms after being treated with meds. The max "mask time" is 4 weeks for ICH and about 3 weeks for Velvet. So 38 days....only 1 transfer and you're done assuming nothing pops up during that time frame.


HF:
“Ich trophonts remain on a fish for 3-7 days. 3 days is the minimum, 7 days maximum. For velvet it’s 12hrs - 4 days. The 15 days is regarding velvet dinospores, the free swimming stage which seeks out fish to infect.
72 hour transfers eliminate Ich and Ich only. For velvet, you’d need to do 36 hour transfers and that’s still only theoretical at this point.”

“If treating with CP or copper (at full therapeutic), you should be able to transfer after 10-14 days. Extra days give you more wiggle room just in case.
I do 10 days. That gives me 3 extra days leeway just in case I were to encounter an undocumented strain of Ich that remained on the fish a little longer than 7 days.”

“CP @ 40mg/gal works every time for eliminating uronema. Provided the fish isn’t already badly infected.”

“7 days is just cutting it too close IMO. Especially since most people use copper, and aren’t sure when/if their copper is at or above therapeutic. Even the Hanna checker isn’t 100% accurate/reliable. You gotta understand most people aren’t interested in experimenting. They just want to know how to have disease-free fish.”

———————————————————-
 
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Awesome, glad to see we are on the same page on this generally and my thinking wasn't just flawed! Assuming i did the transfer right, which I am very confident I did right as the new tank was bleached prior to him going into it. He even went into a bath so even the water that was on him when he went into the bath was reduced significantly before going into the new tank.

Now the various antibiotics/prazipro won't mask ich/velvet so if I did something wrong with CP I would see specs on him within a couple weeks or so right? I know a healthy fish can "hide" ich too, but with the ammonia level I'm at I'm sure he's stressed (sigh).
 
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