The road to not having ich in my tank begins....

[Legonch]

Well, after pulling some newbie dumb moves, and getting ich in my tank, losing 4 fish, etc etc......The process of getting ich out of my tank and off my fish began today.

Getting all my fish out of a tank with rock and coral was less than fun. If anyone is looking for a thrill, try catching some small chromis......wow. Super fast!

Fish are all in a HT now. I treated them with chloroquine phosphate. This stuff is really a pain in the butt to find, but finally after two weeks I have a source that I can get it. Fish will remain in the HT with CP for 30 days, after that a big water change, carbon, etc.

Sad part is my DT has to sit without any fish in it for 75 days. June 25th I get to put them back in there.

Moral of the story....QT everything you put in your display! From now on, not one thing will go in my display without spending time in a QT. All new fish will get one 5-7 day dose of prazi, and 14 days of chloroqine phosphate religiously. It is a terrible bummer to have ich.

I tried medicated food, garlic dosing, etc to get rid of ich, no luck. Finally had enough. Some believe ich is in every tank. I think you can keep it out. Guess time will tell.

 

[szavoda]

You might want to look into the Tank Transfer Method (TTM) for controlling the introduction of Ich. It is a pain in the ass but is the most reliable method with the least amount of stress on the fish IMO.

Prazi and CP can be dosed together. The recommended CP dose I see is 30 days.

 

[TheRealChrisBrown]

Is chloroquine phosphate different that the copper based treatments? I've never heard of it before.

I've never dealt with an outbreak of Ich, can it reside on live rock and corals in your fallow tank? I wonder if you should dip your corals with some regularity to make sure they aren't carrying the ich while your fish are in QT. But then could it be on the LR as well? Dip that too? I'm just kind of wondering out loud....

 

[szavoda]

CP is a whole different animal than copper. While it is not safe for inverts, it is relatively gentle for fish. For the scope of our use, it does not degrade over a short time period and a single dose is fine for 30 days+. Being a prescription medication, it is tough to get a hold of. I found a reliable seller on eBay...

Ich has a very simple lifecycle that includes a stage where the parasite (Trophont) falls of of the fish after 3 -7 days and remains dormant on sand / rocks / etc. Depending on the cycle point, you need to wait 72 days fallow (fishless) max to ensure that new parasites that are born die due to a lack of a host.

I am not aware of any dipping products that you can use that will remove ich. Ich can also attach to snails, inverts or just about anything else. The only safe move is to QT everything that is not a fish for 72 days.

 

[TheRealChrisBrown]

So should he dose the CP and Prazi now? Seems like if you are going through all of this effort you may as well nuke everything at once (except the fish of course!)

 

[szavoda]

No matter what, he has to wait 72 days without any fish in the display tank. If it were me at this stage, I would TTM (tank transfer method) the fish for 12 days. Then 30 days of CP and Prazi together and then another 30 days of non-medicated observation. From experience, the CP can cause a loss of appetite as well...

The big pain with any of this is that the QT tanks are going to try to cycle and keeping ammonia under control might be challenging.

Shawn

 

[Legonch]

You might want to look into the Tank Transfer Method (TTM) for controlling the introduction of Ich. It is a pain in the *** but is the most reliable method with the least amount of stress on the fish IMO.

Prazi and CP can be dosed together. The recommended CP dose I see is 30 days.

I did look into the TTM, however Im not around to change them by the 72 hours sometimes, so I researched and this is the 2nd least stressful for ich treatment, next being cupramine. I like the fact its a one dose and done (add cp to any top off water or water change water) to maintain dosage.

 

[Legonch]

Is chloroquine phosphate different that the copper based treatments? I've never heard of it before.

I've never dealt with an outbreak of Ich, can it reside on live rock and corals in your fallow tank? I wonder if you should dip your corals with some regularity to make sure they aren't carrying the ich while your fish are in QT. But then could it be on the LR as well? Dip that too? I'm just kind of wondering out loud....

Chris, imo, ich came into this tank on snails or a blood shrimp. These were the only three things that I put in my tank without making sure it was quarantined. Of course where I got the fish could have told me a total story, and the first fish I added had ich. I'll never know. Ich does require fish in the tank to keep replicating. 75 days is the longest ich has ever remained active, and that was in a very rare case, but better safe than sorry. Basically you starve the ich out of the dt by not having any hosts for it to attach to, replicate, etc.

As far as chloroquine phosphate, I looked on ebay, and researched it. To many reviews of getting sub par CP. Thats awesome you found a good source Shawn. I found a pharmacy in Denver that you can get medical grade CP with a prescription from a vet. I ordered enough to last 2 years =) I also have a prescription for 500mg tablets, 50 of those. I got these before finding the powder.

The thing I didnt like about TTM was it seemed you could have ich transfer from a number of sources, filters, nets, etc if you didnt get things totally dry when you cleaned the tank out. Plus you can not exceed 72 hours in one tank. One hour over the 72 hour mark, you start all over. Plus you have to make a lot of water, use a lot of salt, etc. In saying that, I think TTM is probably the best method of getting rid of ich. I dont like copper that much after reviewing it. But, its better than rid ich, ichx, etc, those are snake oil. Ive spent hours and hours researching this stuff. Andrew Bram on here has helped alot in educating me about CP. Thanks Andrew!

 

[Legonch]

So should he dose the CP and Prazi now? Seems like if you are going through all of this effort you may as well nuke everything at once (except the fish of course!)

I did a 7 day round of Prazi initially Chris. I wanted to make sure flukes, worms, etc werent an issue. Ive read that you can do prazi and CP at the same time, and Ive read you should only do one at a time. My plan here is 30 days in a tank with CP followed by the remainder of the 75 days in QT looking for any signs of disease.

 

[jda123]

Unless you are going to QT every invert, rock and anything that ever enters your tank, then just get the fish healthy and do the best that you can. The source of the fish is BY FAR the most important thing. I don't know of a single person that has a 3 months reef isolation tank for their corals and inverts, so the ich can come in on a swollen up LPS, nem, snail shell or anything. I seriously doubt that there is a true ich-free tank in Colorado that is not running meds all the time (fish only), even though the reefers might think that they have one.

 

[szavoda]

Ich isn't the worst enemy out there. Once you have every fish wiped out from a case of Velvet in a matter of days you might consider waiting 75 days in a QT tank a small price to pay. Now days, I plan out my clean up crews, frags, etc on a rotating schedule to keep the DT safe.

 

[Legonch]

Nothing is going in my dt without quarantine from now on. Corals, snails, clams, fish, whatever. Any fish get 1 week prazi, two weeks CP, and 1-2 weeks to observe. If ich is on a coral, clam, etc, the life cycle will not continue in a QT after 14 days I believe. I know it can come in on corals, clams, etc, but without a fish host, it wont survive, hence the long QT. The 75 day fallow period in my DT is a different story.

New livestock additions can be added after 30 days. Corals, inverts, etc, after 14 days, both in QT.

Not risking having this problem again.

 

[Legonch]

Well, 24 hours in on the CP dose. Everybody looks okay. Fish are eating okay. One chromis looks off maybe. Ive had him for 4 months, and I dont think the fish has grown at all. Hope he makes it. Other than that, life is good today.

 

[Legonch]

Well, were on day 7 here dosing CP. All the fish are doing fine, eating well, and have no visable signs of ich anymore. Just did a water change and added the CP back into the tank to maintain the dosage. The tank water got a little cloudy for a few days, but I read that is normal.

Overall, so far so good. Only 3 weeks more to go on the CP dose. 68 days more until fish move back into main tank.

Anybody that has ich, so far Id recommend CP

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

Good luck on the treatment. We recently had an outbreak in our DT and had to do the same thing. It is a long wait, but well worth it. Also, CP is not so hard to get a hold of. New Life Spectrum is now selling it under the name IckShield. If you get it make sure to get the Powder. I think a bottle cost us $21, but will treat a lot of fish. It only takes a VERY small amount to do the job and a single dose lasts the whole treatment period.

We turn off all of the lights on the QT tank and keep the room lighting fairly low. Strong lighting breaks down CP and can make it ineffective, so just the ambient light in the room seems to be fine.