Ich (Cryptocaryon Irritans) Treatment

[ChuckG]

Yes the fish that remained in the Display apparently can (and probably do) host some parasites.

This may actually be another reason to simply put him back. BUT - since he is already out and in QT and it is going to hit 1.010 salinity within the next few hours, I think I'll go ahead and leave him there for awhile.

The guy that made the food told me not to feed this stuff in QT because it will spoil fast. If I don't overfeed and keep an eye out for ammonia - what's the big deal?

I'm actually going to do a water change today and it isn't showing any ammonia yet. Why wait for that as well. Be proactive - Not reactive.

[DaveK]

Originally Posted by ChuckG

Here's one I just grabbed on a quick search:
...
That was from: Aquarium Ich: Ichthyophthirius multifilis and Cryptocaryon irritans treatment, identification, and life cycle.

I realize that you just picked up a more or less random link. However if should be pointed out that the information contained in it is "extremely questionable" for both FW and SW.

With the exception of copper sulfate in SW, I would not recommend using any of the treatments specified in that article.

[ChuckG]

I should have left him alone to fend for himself. My achilles went on to a better place today.

Yesterday (late in the day) I saw some new spots on the achilles in QT and I assumed at first that it was just the next wave of ichosites (is that a word?) hatching. But these spots were much smaller. I did think of velvet and was going to pick up some copper today but when I came home it was already too late. From swimming fine and eating like a pig yesterday to gone today. Whatever it was - works fast.

I now have to wonder if it wouldn't have been better to have just left him alone in the display tank. The added stress of catching him and moving him to a new location and me always messing with the tank water etc. certainly added a lot more stress to the fish than if I had just left him alone to fight things off.

Two more fish do have ich. My scopas tang and my bi-colored blenny. They will remain in the display tank and I will continue to feed good and hope that they build up an immunity to the parasite.

I do realize that with each new wave of parasites that there will be more and more of them in the tank and I'm taking the chance that even fish that seem to be healthy now could end up succombing to the parasites.

Worse case scenerio and my whole tank gets wiped out. Then I leave it fallow for awhile and QT each and every fish prior to going back in it.

Yes - I had a QT prior to purchasing any fish.
No - I didn't QT any of them.

You can start the flogging now.

[Thomas]

Chuck,
I'm very sorry to here about your Achilles. I was rooting for him. You'll got no flogging from me. I lost my 3 Hippos last year to ich. I also lost a couple of other fish at the same time. I to this day am only buying fish that are resistant to the disease. I would love to get another Hippo but I think this would be a bad decision. I could bring the disease into an otherwise healthy system.

[ChuckG]

From what I've been reading it is a fallacy that ALL tanks have the parasite. It is argued that if your tank can go a year without any outbreaks that your tank is more than likely free of the parasite. If you have this situation then you could by a hippo and QT him long enough to insure that he is not infected prior to putting him in the tank.

Once I'm over this I will definately QT all fish for 4-6 weeks before they go in.

As much as I like all my fish I hope to heck that my mystery wrasse stays healthy. That was one expensive fish.

[olsaltybastard]

The fact that all your fish have ich is flogging enough. Hopefully some new reefers reading this will have learned from you and set up a QT tank the first time around.

[ChuckG]

Yea - DITTO on that one.

[ChuckG]

Originally Posted by ChuckG

I'm not sure if anyone has thought of this one yet (simply because I've never read it) but it seems to me that if you have a fish in QT for ich and it gets to the point of looking good that it simply means the parasites have left the fish. That means they are on the bottom of the tank going into their own next phase. Wouldn't this be a good time to remove the fish and thoroughly clean the QT and then replace the fish in QT? I would think that you would get rid of hundreds if not thousands of the parasites before they reemerge (sp) into the water column looking for another host.

OR - this might also be a good time to simply remove the fish and put him back into the display and overfeed to build up their immune system.

OK - call me crazy (It won't be the first time).

That was about a week ago when I said that. On another forum discussing ich another person has similar ideas (and took it into much more detail).

Below is a copy of the post:

OK, this whole discussion got me thinking in a different direction for a method of treating Ich that I haven't seen discussed before.

First a basic recap of the parasite's lifecycle starting with the trophont stage of Ich when feeding on the host fish.
Stage #1 - trophont
The trophot feeds for somewhere between 3 and 7 days on the fish and creates the cyst around itself (or whitespot) that we see.
When it's done feeding the cyst bursts and the trophot is free and leaves the fish.
Stage #2 - protomont
At this stage it's known as a protomont and it crawls around the substrate for a few hours looking for a suitable place to encyst and multiply.
Once it finds and attaches itself to a surface it is known as a tomont.
Stage #3 - tomont/tomites
The tomont then starts to divide into thousands of baby parasites known as tomites.
This takes anywhere from 3 to 30 days on average before the cyst hatches.
Stage #4 - theront
Once the cyst hatches it releases the tomites which then become free-swimming theronts that look for a host fish to begin the cycle anew.

Ok, all other methods of treatment are based around breaking the lifecycle at the free-swimming theront stage when the parasite is most susceptible to medications or hypo.
So follow along and let's say you setup 2 hospital tanks.

The infected fish go into tank #1 for 2-3 days. Long enough for any mature trophots to fall off the fish, but not long enough for them to fully complete the next 2 stages of encysting, dividing and hatching.

The fish are then moved to tank #2 for 2-3 days. Again, long enough for mature trophots to fall off, but not long enough for the hatching of theronts.
During this time you would empty and sterilize tank #1 to be used for the next move.

The fish are then moved back to the cleaned and sterilized tank #1 for the next 2-3 days during which time tank #2 is emptied and sterilized.

By the time you are finished moving the fish for the fourth time they should be completely free from any trophonts since they have not stayed in one tank long enough to get reinfected and the trophonts are only known to stay on the fish for 3-7 days at the most.

The upside of this is that it avoids using any dangerous medications that need constant monitoring like copper, it avoids the need to keep the fish in monitored hyposalinity at exactly 1.009sg (which some experts still question the effectiveness of,...just go ask Bob Fenner.), and it completely rids the fish (in theory) of Ich in less than two weeks.

The downside of this method would be the additional stress of the multiple moves between tanks.
Of course if you stop to consider where your fish came from originally, this really isn't any more stress than they went thru to get to your tank in the first place.
Think about it.
#1 The fish was collected from the ocean.
#2 The fish was placed in a holding tank.
#3 The fish was bagged up and transported halfway around the world.
#4 The fish was placed in a tank at the wholesaler.
#5 The fish was bagged and moved to a LFS.
#6 The fish was placed in a tank at the LFS.
#7 The fish was bagged and brought home.
#8 The fish was placed in your QT tank after being subjected to whatever dips or treatments each of you does.
#9 The fish is moved to your display tank.

That's a heck of a lot of moving stress that our livestock survived long before ending up in our final display tanks, and I would dare to say it's a lot more stress than the simple moves between hospital tanks that I'm proposing.

Alright, now that you've heard me out, go ahead and chime in.
This is just off the top of my head and I'm certainly no expert or have any formal education on fish biology, diseases or treatments.
So please feel free to blast all the holes that you can in this idea, or to point out any obvious fallacies and pittraps that I have overlooked.

Right now this is just an offbeat idea that came out of the blue, but I'm severely tempted to setup 4 small hospital tanks in the future and give this a try with some damselfish or maybe even a couple of small tangs just to test it out and see what results.

I'm just wondering what anyone else thinks about this. To me - it almost seems like common sense and certainly should have been something that someone has already tried and tested before now.

[DaveK]

Moving a fish from QT tank to QT tank is a method of dealing with the disease. However, it's a lot of work to set up, and the fish will get a lot of moves, simply because all the parasites don't mature at the same time. The movement would need to be timed exactly right.

In most cases, I think it's far better to use hyposalinity for a few weeks if necessary.

[ChuckG]

I think this is why he says 4 moves. If they all matured at the same time you could just QT them till you see no spots and then move right back to the display tank.