hyposalinty not working for ich???

[kpiotrowski]

I have had a PBT in hypo of 1.008 - 1.009 confirmed by both a manual and digital refractometer for 8 days now and just noticed him covered pretty much with spots. when I first put him in hypo there were only a dozen or so noticable spots. I have used this treatment before and never had the fish breakout like this...the hypo seemed to break the cycle immediatley.

any thoughts. is this par for the course? am I dealing with resitant strain or possibly something that looks exactly like ich?

tia!

 

[leebca]

Assuming you have a properly calibrated refractometer and have had no cross-contamination or continual contamination, the it is probably something that looks like that particular stage of Marine Ich. The hypo treatment is for Marine Ich and doesn't affect most other parasites.

Try a FW dip according to this procedure: http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/f15/freshwater-dip-marine-fishes-27019/ BUT (this is very important) -- After the dip, let the water settle an hour and then check to see what, if anything, has settled to the bottom of the bath. This is what has possibily dropped off the fish. It may be something that can be identified.

If you're sure you have the process under control, might as well as slowly raise back up the hyposalinity -- but don't do this until after two weeks of the fish being at 1.008 sp gr units AND the fish still displaying spots.

Parasites will usually be affected by a Formalin treatment, a FW treatment, a copper treatment, or a combination. However, it is best to know which kind it is in order to choose the right treatment. All this, of course, assumes the white spots are indicative of a parasite infection.

If you can, post photos of what it is you're looking at.

 

[kpiotrowski]

Thanks lee. took many photos but none good enough to show the spots. He is in a 55g so I don't want to chase him around and stress him out even more trying to do a fw dip...I think this is best course anyway, if he was in a 10g I would just scoop him up...but 55g gives him too much running around room. I'm going to go ahead with the theory that these were parasites that have yet to fall off and assume the hypo will break the cycle.

thanks!

 

[kpiotrowski]

Update is no more spots seen since day after this original post. assumming it was tha last breakout of ich that was living off the fish and hoping for the best.

 

[leebca]

Hopefully the diagnosis was correct and you have the correct treatment. Hang in there. Good luck!

 

[kpiotrowski]

I swear to god I am going to give up and buy a bunch of fish and just throw them in my tank.

my tang did aprox 6 weeks of hypo and now 4 weeks later, no ich, but freaking parsites drilled into his side litelry overnight as I inspect him DAILY after work untill I have seen every little mm of his body ( and to think I was 2 weeks away from adding to my dt) I treated with prazipro and parasite fell off the next day. now 3 days later he has white patches on his gill fins and a white dot on side of body about ich size dot (thats ich not inch), and is lethargic, just hanging around bottom of qt hiding behind pvc pipes.

no probs with water chemisty. no nitrates...qt is barebottom 55g with 20g sump

I am currnetly setting up a 20g and gonna copper him and see if he survies it, if he makes till morning.

I'm not sold on a fw dip for an already stress out fish. but is this the time to do one?

tia!

 

[Aquanaut]

Beware the double edge sword of swinging the salinity on the poor fish, when using different treatment options as could very well kill him. Has Maracine II been used with his treatment? Seems infection has complicated things. I'd do back to back treatment while slowly returning sainity levels then use CryptoPro for 2cycles. No suprise that your parasites are protected under the dermal skin layers and can remain latent for upwards of 6-7 weeks from personal experience. Keep the dream alive friend eventually the nightmare ends.

Deborah

 

[kpiotrowski]

thanks deb. am pretty much paralyzed as to what to do. I have copper, melafix, crytopro,prazipro, paragaurd, and straight malachite green. I would just as soon treat him in the 55g qt he is in right now. he has been back up to 1.024 sg for a month now (in treament since 01 march). thats what gets me, I figured 2 more weeks and I finally get to put him in the dt.

 

[leebca]

Parasites like Tangs for the same reason that the Marine Ich parasites like them -- they have a thin mucous coating. Don't worry about a single spot -- may be more like a pimple at this stage. The patches indicate that either a skin bacterial or viral infection is going on. You may want to give the fish a treatment with an antibiotic. Maracyn Two for Saltwater fishes will be fine.

The 'second' parasite at work here may be sensitive to FW. IF any parasites are still visible, I would give a FW dip according to the sticky in this forum except, for a total of 8 minutes only. Inspect the FW bath after the fish is out and you let things settle. See if you can see the parasite or what, if anything, comes off.

 

[kpiotrowski]

thanks lee. I had melafix on hand so I began treatment last night. I guess I need to stock some actual antibiotics too huh. is melafix and good at bactericide?

 

[leebca]

I hope someday Melafix and Pimafix will not be sold to the marine aquarium hobbyist. Use a 'real' antibiotic. More info here on those two: http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/f15/melafix-pimafix-how-they-dont-work-64422/#post664784

 

[TJL]

Hopefully all goes well here for your PBT, I had success with using Melafix (^or not^) as a dip to curb infection from my last Ich outbreak on my Powder Blue, Kole and Blochii Tangs while in copper treatment. The PBT was so bad it looked as though he had been patted dry and dipped in course Sea Salt. I lost the Kole but PB and Blochii recovered quickly while a dozen other fish really never showed much signs of parasites at all including sm Naso and Fisher Angel. Anyhow best of luck with this, were all pullin for ya.

Cheers, Todd

 

[kpiotrowski]

The irony is in a dozen years of freshwater fishkeeping I have had nothing but success. I jump straight to sps reef and am having good luck so far with all corals, but can't keep a fish alive.

also,thanks lee i did read your article. At this point I feel so defeated I am gonna just gonna keep my fingers crossed......please don't shoot me!

 

[kpiotrowski]

ps. part of the reason I am not jumping threw hoops right now about pbt is a picked up about a dozen frags today of some cool stuff ( had the plan yesterday). so I just used the melafix as a coral dip and holy cow did it send all creatures running from their hiding spots. pods, flatworms, stomatella, and even 2 brittle stars...one about 3 inches and I'm still trying to figure out where he was hidding on a no more than a frag plug sized frag.

guess I have at least some use for the melafix at least.

 

[kpiotrowski]

tang dead. was looking better yesterday too. white dots that were on pectorial fins now redish. look like 3mm worm drilled in side of body but couldn't see any movement under magnifying glass. couldn't really see anythigng in gills. he was massivley covered in slime. thats all I know.

I also know he was in hypo for 40 days. 7 days to bring him back up and 5 more weeks for total of 6 weeks in qt and looking perfect untill then. almost threw him in the dt but decided to wait it out for 8 weeks cus I ACTUALLY FOLLOW MOST adivice I get from everyone here.

so my new motto is "growing corals nicely...and killing all fish". doesn't make sence right? ( I have mostly sps)

soooooooo, can anyone shoot my some suggestion of some bullet proof fish so I can get on with my REEF tank!

TIA!

I'm about to put an add up " I want to buy all your fish out of your tank"

and to continue on a rant. how come sooo many people get away with not quarantining??????

 

[user 26995]

well thats a bummer...I was led to believe that the powders were more susceptible to diseases. I dont know if they are just easily stressed or what. There are some other very active and beautiful tangs. give another one a try.

 

[kpiotrowski]

thanks. kinda like the kole tang. figured though that a 55g qt with 20g sump would provide him with some good water quality. was feeding new life spectrum and live aglae. now I am left to sterilize a fairly complicated qt set-up what with a sump and overflow etc...and its wedged into a corner behind another tank so a hassle to tear down. am thinkin on running a bottle of bleach through it for a few days to sterize then rinse the hell out it.

anybody know how much bleach per gallon should suffice?

 

[leebca]

Sorry to hear of the loss. As I suspected, the hypo treatment was useful, but not good enough to kill the parasite you were dealing with. Hypo is a very selective treatment. That is, it only treats a few of the dozens of parasites our fish can get infected with. I thought this was likely the case a couple of weeks ago.

Not using a quarantine process is a little like our hard drives. It's not a matter of will the hard drive fail, but when. Those who don't use a quarantine process are replacing the parade of dying fishes they keep, or are just waiting for something to go wrong. I can assure you that experienced and smart hobbyists use a quarantine system, as do professional aquarists in public and private aquariums. It's just that when a seller gets someone interested in keeping marine fishes, they don't mention that they should buy another cheap QT -- it would cause a loss of sales. In fact, those that don't buy a QT will give the LFS a good source of income selling many fishes over the months-years.