Ich (Cryptocaryon Irritans) Treatment

[ReefSilly]

I'm thinking way to much moving and added stress on the fish.

[ChuckG]

At this point the fish would be in QT already. No chasing around to catch. With water parameters identical then it's a simple swoop and into the new tank. Over in a matter of seconds. How stressful can that be?

[volitan]

My reef is almost 5 years old and I never had an ick outbreak until recently. In the past I never used a QT tank and got lucky all those years. Now I'll always employ the one month quarantine period for new fish. The culprit for my recent outbreak was the new addition of a powder brown tang. It pretty much spread it to the entire tank. Catching all of the fish went somewhat smoothly, but the last fish, a small bicolor psuedochromis, forced me to break down most of my LR. Then after moving them into the hospital tank I ended up losing that psuedo as well as a coral beauty that was the age of the tank. The powder brown tang died before getting around to moving the others.

So, now I've got a large yellow tang and two percula clowns left in the HT. The perculas are also tank veterans and a good size too. I started the hypo process more than a month ago along with copper dosing (I know I should have done just the hypo first, but the case was so severe I was afraid I'd lose them all). They turned around, started eating and looking healthy and looked as though they might be ready to go back into the display.

However, one clown started not eating. After a couple days its breathing became labored (it's not ammonia and I have plenty of aeration). I started a 5 day antibiotic regiment thinking it was an internal infection since no external parasitic signs were visible. When that failed to help I noticed the other clown flashing. This told me the ick wasn't gone yet. After testing for copper and finding zero levels, I decided to redose copper. So, unfortunately I'm looking at another two to three weeks or so of this scenario again.

The only culprit I can think of is the vacuum. After reading through most of this thread I never saw anything about sterilizing vacuums, algae clips, nets, etc. I remember from the freshwater days you should always soak your nets if they're exposed to ick. Since I never used one of those nets I can only blame it on the vacuum or algae clip. All along I kept thinking I should wash them in the dishwasher or something, but was afraid the soap/phosphates couldn't be good. And I thought that if the water dried on the vacuum then the parasite can't live in such a state. Apparently I was wrong.

Do you guys have any advice on how to sterilize those "accessories" or if it's really necessary for SW? I really don't want to buy a new vacuum every time I do a water change. It's frustrating considering I even went to great lengths of cutting up large pads of filter floss for something to clean the algae off the glass and discarding after every use.

Also, since the display tank has been without fish for at least a month, how long am I looking at for this second QT cycle for the fish? Another full month?

[ricosuave]

I would think that a fresh water bath would destroy th eparasites. Something about osmotic pressure...I cant quite remember.

[DaveK]

Originally Posted by volitan

...

So, now I've got a large yellow tang and two percula clowns left in the HT. ...

However, one clown started not eating. ... After testing for copper and finding zero levels, I decided to redose copper. So, unfortunately I'm looking at another two to three weeks or so of this scenario again.
...
Do you guys have any advice on how to sterilize those "accessories" or if it's really necessary for SW? ...

Also, since the display tank has been without fish for at least a month, how long am I looking at for this second QT cycle for the fish? Another full month?

When you use copper, you should test the water at least once a day, every 12 hours is even better. If the copper level is low, it must be brought back up. Do the math and add just enough copper to get back to the effective treatment level. You'll find that copper can precipitate out rather quickly, especially when you first begin treatment.

A FW dip will usually kill any parasites on equipment. If it's something that you really need to kill everything, you can use a bleach solution, but then you must soak it for several days in FW, until you can no longer smell the bleach.

Yes, once the QT has been a problem, you usually need to start counting again from 0.

[volitan]

Thanks guys!