ICH!! What a day!!

[LenandTracy]

Well, just when you think things are going good!! I came into the house Thursday afternoon after work and noticed my trigger had two white spots on his bottom jaw. Oh great! My first thought was to get a few cleaner shrimp to take care of the fungus, but realized that they would not be effective, but only food for my puffer. At this time only the trigger was showing symptoms. I immediately did a 10 gal (20%) water change.

Knowing that the puffer is probably the most sensitive since it does not have any scales, I decided to put him into my small (2 gal) tank that I bought hoping to use as a qt tank. After about 5 minutes I had the puffer in a glass cup and put him into the qt tank. I had previously filled the qt tank with water from the main tank and put some crushed coral in the bottom. It had an airstone to circulate water, and only lacked a heater. I had put him into the qt tank and he immediately started going crazy!! He was thrashing his head from side to side, running into the sides of the tank and lurching to the top of the tank for what seemed to be a breath. After about two minutes of this, when he showed no signs of stopping, I took him out of the qt tank and put him back into the main tank. He immediately went to the bottom and went into shock. His color left and his breathing was very labored. I turned off the llights and left them all alone. The trigger now only had one white spot on his lower jaw.

Friday morning I got up and the puffer was much better, his color was back and he was eating good and swimming around the tank. I noticed at his evening feeding that he had several white spots in his fins and tail. Upon closer inspection I noticed that all of the fish were bathed in small white spots. I immediately did a 40% water change ( after getting samples for chemistry) and during the water change the pump on my Emperor HOB filter decided to stop pumping water.
#$%#@!!

After about an hour of troubleshooting I found the offending piece of rock, removed it, and got it put back into the tank. While I had the top off I went ahead and washed the heater and filter with warm water to clear out any fungus that may be there. I did see a thin white film on the rubber mounts for the heater. Chemistry was good: Ammonia: 0, Nitrites, not detected, Nitrates 20 (down from 40 the previous day), pH 8.1, and sp gravity 1.022

After this entire fiasco was over it was almost 1 am so I said a prayer for the fishes and went to bed. When I got up this morning I immediately noticed that the heater was broken and the bottom half of the glass tube was on the bottom of my tank. I guess my prayer for the fishes paid off because they were not electrocuted!!! Anyhow, I unplugged the broken heater and got it out of the tank, and fished out the broken glass. I also noticed that all of the fish had worsening symptoms of ICH, and decided that it was time to medicate the tank.

I went to my lfs looking for some "Kick Ich" that was recommended by several threads here in this forum, but they did not have any. Instead they recommended "Quick Cure" by Aquarium Products so I got some. After reading the instructions carefully I removed the carbon from my filter and also removed my live rock from the tank, and dosed the tank.

As I sit here now I have water that is tinted blue, but it seems to be working. The trigger and the two damsels show no sign of ICH, but the Cowfish and the Puffer both are still quite spotted. They all seem to be doing ok. I have noticed that the Puffer and one of the damsels have teamed up together and are hanging out near the top of the tank, butg none of the fish are showing any ill effects from the meds.

Please provide any feed back that you can to help me to deal with the situation, and I am always open to critiques of my actions to learn what I could do better and what I did well. Thanks for the listening ear and I hope to get some feedback.

By the way, I have a FEBO 180 protien skimmer on the way....should be here Monday I hope.

len

[jman785]

One thing you can do is drop your specific gravity...slowly to avoid osmotic shock.

You haven't ever gotten a fish from the LFS that's had a SG of say, 1.018 and you have to spend all day acclimating it? The reason for this is because Ich and other diseases have a hard time thriving in this. You have to decrease your value slowly, if you have shrimp or other inverts, this wouldn't be advised in the main tank, and I'd just go ahead and continue the Ich treatments.

By the way, triggers love crustaceans, as well as puffers...as you already found out hehe.

[LenandTracy]

Thanks Jared,

Do you think that 1.018 is a good value to go for? Some things that I have read say 1.014. I have no experience with this, and am always looking for sound advice.

Thanks.

Len

[MikeS]

if you are going to lower your salinity, do it SLOWLY! Like .001 per day. I still recommend treating sick fish in a QT tank, esp. if you have LR or inverts. 2 gallon is too small...go get a simple 10-20 gal tank...a 30 gal. rubbermaid container will even do the trick.

Mike

[LenandTracy]

Thanks Mike.

Right now my Live Rock is in a 5 gallon bucket covered in Water from the tank. How long will it be ok there without anything else? I don't want to have anything on it start to decompose and start to mess with my chemistry when it is reintroduced into the tank.

Thanks,

Len

[jman785]

Len,

Put a powerhead in the 5 gallon buck with the rock to keep it from going stagnant. Do water changes on the bucket too...

I'd try SLOWLY going down to 1.018...if you notice any good signs, I'd hold up right there....and not adjust anymore unless they don't respond, then I'd try like 1.016...1.014 would be the absolute lowest I'd go personally. This is a very tricky thing to do...it must be done with skill...and you can't be afraid, or you'll mess up. Just like Mike said...drop the water's salinity to .001 or .002 per day, until you have the right values...

[LenandTracy]

Thanks for the info. I have already gotten the salinity down slightly to 1.020. Have determined that 1 1/2 gallons of freshwater added to my 55 gallon tank will lower the specific gravity by .001. Right now only the cowfish and the puffer are still showing signs or the ICH. Guess that is because they don't have scales to help fend it off.

As for the live rock I have a question. I noticed that on the underside of the LR, that was in the substrate, that there is a lot of white growth. Could this be the breeding ground for the ICH? If so, how do I get rid of it without killing the rock?

Thanks.

Len

[jman785]

It could be dead spots in the rock...or just a fungus, or even dead sponge or something of that nature...no need to freak just yet...

You can drop the salinity of the liverock tank too, if you don't hve any corals on the liverock. This will cause a slight die off, but it shouldn't if you do it slow enough.

The die off meaning, slightly raised ammonia levels once you return it to the tank...which shouldn't happen in your case. :D

Report back with the details Len!

- Jared

[LenandTracy]

Thanks Jared. Will definately let you know how things are going. Specific Gravity is 1.019 and all fish seem to be doing fine. Have completed Day 2 of the 5 day max med cycle, and am still seeing no improvement in the puffer or the cowfish. They are both active and eating good with normal colors, but I am concerned because I had to remove the carbon filters from my pump and now all it is doing is recirculating the water with only the biowheel in service. I am measuring chemistry daily, and so far it is still good, but I am concerned.

As for the live rock, I do not have a powerhead, but have put an air stone with a pump in the bottom of the bucket and am also keeping an eye on that chemistry as well. Hopedully you are right and I will not have any major problems when I finally get the tank all together again.

I would really like to go out and get a 10-20 gal qt tank, but the wife has already gone through the roof on how much we have spent in the last month on the fishes. I just keep reminding her that it was her idea in the first place and she gruffs...LOL. I deep checking the for sale section to see if anyone has a small setup they would like to get rid of for a good price. If you know of anyone with something to sell please let me know.

Thanks again.

Len

[jman785]

Len,

Remember with the ich treatment, you are just throwing it away by dropping the salinity...and carbon tends to remove medication, so glad you took that out ;)

[LenandTracy]

jared,

Please explain how I am just throwing away the ich treatment by dropping the salinity. I do not understand. It seems that the combination of the two would be better than one or the other right?

Len

[jman785]

If you are taking water out, and replacing with RO/DI...then you are throwing the treatment out with the water. Then replacing it with 1.5 gallons of RO/DI or Tap Water, whatever you decided.

[MikeS]

He means you are physically removing some of the medication...which messes up the dosage.

Mike

[javadude]

Im new, but figured I would chime in with my limited knowledge.

If you are replacing the 1.5 gallons of fresh, wouldnt you just add the ich treatment back to the 1.5 gallons of water then add it to the tank? MIght be tricky to measure, but would be the way to go right?

I just started a saltwater myself and have a Cowfish. Im doing research so I know what to do when I run into my first problem with Ich.

[LenandTracy]

What I have been doing is to change the water just before medicating the tank for that day. After the water change I add the medication. Anyhow, that is not an issue any longer. I have the specific gravity to 1.018 and all are fine. I actually now have a qt tank and have transferred the cow and puffer to it. It is only 10 gallons and both seem to be adjusting well. Now I am going to start to raise the salinity in the main tank back to normal (1.023 ish) and after a couple of days replace the live rock. I still have the 3 damsels and the trigger in the main tank and they are showing no signs of ich any more. My skimmer also came in today and I am going to get it installed onto the main tank later tonight. Anyhow, hopefully everything will get back to somewhat resembling normal, and I can stop spending every minute of my spare time playing nursemaid. I will keep you posted, and thanks for all of the help.

len

[MikeS]

Im new, but figured I would chime in with my limited knowledge.

If you are replacing the 1.5 gallons of fresh, wouldnt you just add the ich treatment back to the 1.5 gallons of water then add it to the tank? MIght be tricky to measure, but would be the way to go right?

It would be real dificult to get the correct dosage back into the tank, since you really have no way of testing exactly how much medicine was removed each time. IMO dosing the main tank is risky enough as is...throwing in something like trying to adjust the dosage to compensate for water changes could quickly lead to problems...

Mike

[jman785]

Great Len,

Hope everything goes well for you.

[coral_diver]

I did a freshwater dip on my clown fish and the ick is gone. Problem now is the newly added regal/hippo tang is covered. If I can get him out (the little bugger is fast) I am going to dip him too. This causes the Ick to drop off the fish and I feel with the success it had for me as long as they aren't too stressed it dosent come back. This has been the only time I have had to deal with this so far but I think it works just fine. Some however will disagree....Good luck

[LenandTracy]

But jared, my question is this. Is it safe to do the fw dip on the scaleless fish like the puffer and the cowfish. I would hate to drop the puffer into a fw container and have him puff up, and then not be able to get him back into the qt tank. I am still just a little wary of the fw dip for these two.

Len

[jman785]

Len,

I have not had this problem with these two fish. They do have 'brackish' puffers. They don't puff up that big either, only when threatened normally. So you should be in good hands Len...they maybe more vulnerable to osmotic shock though, that's all I'm scared of for you. Because of the lack of scales.

[LenandTracy]

I appreciate the concern. I have the sp gravity down to 1.018 and they are doing fine....no signs of distress. They are clearing up somewhat. The puffer's eyes have cleared up completely (see this thread: http://www.coralforum.com/ftopic1886.html for all of the details) and they seem to be recovering.....slowly. I am on day 4 of medicating, and the guy at the lfs said to go up to 6 days initially, but since I have put them into the qt tank he said another day would not hurt them. I am interested in your opinion on that. May try the fw dip tomorrow if they are still covered. Thanks for the advice.

Len

[jman785]

Len,

If all is well, and they aren't 'lethargic', I taking another 1.5 gallons out, dropping it to 1.017. I'd hold off there though until you see how the ICH is. Hopefully it'll start dropping off.

coral_diver,

When you dipped, how long did you dip for?

[LenandTracy]

My qt tank is showing signs of ich now after a week of treatment and two weeks of sp gravity at 1.017. Ammonia levels are through the roof (1.1 to 1.3) and I am doing 20% water changes daily. I have done a fw dip on the cow and the puffer and they were showing good signs of improvment. I know the ammonia levels has allowed the ich to return, but what else can I do to knock down the ammonia. I have cut back the feeding to half of what it was.

Also, the main tank is showing signs again of ich. The trigger has several small white spots, and one of the three damsels is rubbing the skin off of his belly. I am in the process of lowering the specific gravity to 1.017 to match the qt tank. Then I am not sure if I chould put all of the fish into the qt tank, or put them all into the main tank. The main tank water chemistry is good, and I am thinking that since the main tank has a good biological filter established that it would make more sense to put all of them in the main tank and lower the specific gravity to 1.017 and leave it there for a while to rid the ich and kill the eggs that are left behind. Combined with a series of more fw dips for all of the fish I think I can kick the ich.

Please give me some guidance on what is the best thing to do. I do not want to expose the puffer nad cow to the higher ammonia levels for longer than I have to. Also, can I add ammex to the tank to neutralize the ammonia without hurting the fish?

Thanks for the help.

len

[MikeS]

In the QT tank about the only thing you can do to lower ammonia is water changes, as carbon and skimming will mess up the medication. You can take water from your main tank to do this, since you are trying to lower your salinity anyway....

As stated before, lower the salinity slowly, like .001 per day.....

Mike

[LenandTracy]

Mike, we talked yesterday about using the copper in the qt tank to kill the ich. Is that safe to use on the scaleless fish, like the puffer and the cowfish? I know that I was told before not to use copper, but I am not sure if that was because of the scaleless fish or the live rock. What do you think?

Len

[MikeS]

The copper should not harm them. The only fishes I have heard of that display an adverse reaction to copper are Butterfly's, sharks and rays.

here is an article on hyposalinity.....

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/hyposalinity.html

Mike

[LenandTracy]

Well, I wish I had better results. I had to remove the fish fromt he qt tank and return them to the main tank. The ammonia got out of control and the water started to get cloudy. When ammonia neared 1.5 I started to bring the sp gravitys of the two tanks, the main tank and the qt tank, towards each other (the main tank was at 1.023 and the qt tank was at 1.012) and by the time the two tanks were close enough for me to transfer the fish I did. By this time the ammonia in the qt tank was 1.85!!! Now I have all of the fish in the main tank and am cleaning out the qt tank and may get a different filter for it. As for the fish, they are still covered with the white spots of ich. It has been almost 3 weeks now and they are showing no signs of improvment. I have read a lot about this parasite and cannot believe that my fishes have not begun to show signs of improvment. They were medicated in the qt tank for a week with Quick Cure, that ended up being neither and merely stained the silicone in the tank corners blue, they have been getting 10 minute "baths" as my kids call it in fresh water every other day and I have the salinity at 1.012 in the main tank. The fish are showing no signs of stress due to the low salinity, and are all active and eating well. All of the fish have found something to scratch on or with, but I have noticed that most of the scratching has stopped. Chemistry is good, pH 8.2, Ammonia 1.0, Nitrites 0.0, Nitrates 0.0, so I guess it is now just a waiting game for the life cycle of the ich to be broken. Is it possible that there is something causing the white spots besides ICH?

Thanks for the help.

Len

[upstoday]

Ok my very limited knowledge is pretty severe. But since you asked about other things causing white spots I figure I'll relate this story to you.

The friend that got me interested in starting up a SW tank recently had a problem in his own tank. Saw white spots and assumed it was Ich. He tried doing everything you would do to get rid of it to know avail.

He ended up losing one of his fish, can't remember which. At this point he ended up looking real close at was going on in the tank, and started to watch one of the fish with the white spots. He thought he noticed the spots moving, or atleast having some sort of movement to them that Ich wouldn't usally have.

It ended up being something called Flukes. I have no idea what they are or how they get there. I will see if I can't get him to come here and explain it better. He's not so good at using computers though, and has an extremly slow dial up connection.

I have no idea if it has anything to do with you situation, but it fooled this guy at first. Maybe the others here know more about these flukes.

[LenandTracy]

Thanks for the information, upstoday. I will do some research and see what I can find out. I have not noticed them moving at all, but cannot say that I have been watching that closely. I will let you know what I find out.

Thanks again,

Len

[LenandTracy]

I have gotten some pictures of the Puffer and the Cowfish. Reading the literature available I am not sure if the symptoms are of Flukes or Velvet or Ich. They are covered with small white dots that appear to be sand-like...that fine. They are evenly covering the body and fins, with no heavy buildup around the gills. Both fish seem to be doing good. Eating is great.....always begging for more, and they are very active. Working off the assumption of ICH based on the initial symptoms, I have treated as mentioned earlier in this thread, but nothing is working and I do not want to loose any of my fishes!!!

Take a look at the pictures and let me know what you think.

Thanks.

Len

[upstoday]

What are the treatment for the other two, fluke and velvet? If they are not to harsh might be worth a shot trying them just to see what happens.

[LenandTracy]

Well, I did my research, and it seem that copper is the common treatment for all three, Ich, Velvet, and Flukes. I started the copper treatment on Thursday on the main tank. It made much more sense to do this since all of the fish were itching and there was no way I was going to catch them all and get them into the qt tank. I removed the live rock and put it into the qt tank.....it was easier to catch than the damsels...LOL :lol:

I was wondering, since my biological filtration is now minimized without the live rock if I should leave the skimmer running or turn it off. It has not affected the Copper concentration yet, but I would think that it would. I am planning on doing a 10% water change every day for ammonia, and guess I could raise the copper levels back up if they got lower than desired. I am going to keep it at .3ppm for 10 days per the instructions from the test kit. The cupramine bottle only talked about mg/L copper, and I was able to determine analytically that the .5mg/L the instructions discussed was indeed .3ppm whem measured by my kit. I made sure I knew that tidbit of information before I dosed my tank.

Let me know what you think about leaving the skimmer running or not, and I appreciate all of the help.

Thanks again.

Len

[MikeS]

I'd avoid using the skimmer

Be aware that dosing the main tank will have an impact on your biofilter and any inverts remaining in the tank...watch for a cycle, you should experience one.

When it is time to put the LR back in....make sure the tank is free of copper. Carbon is good for removing copper, but it will only remove the copper that passes through it. Your substrate may absorb some of the copper. Get a test kit....I'd test for copper weekly for at least 6 months after you are done treating the tank.

Mike

[LenandTracy]

Thanks for the advice, Mike. I got a test kit for Cu when I bought the treatment. Didn't want to dose the tank without knowing how much I have put in.
As for the inverts, I don't have any....they would just be food for the puffer and the trigger, and for the substrate, I have crushed coral and marble-rock stuff that the wife liked. I will definately watch for the cycle, and test often.

Len