Peng

BioSpira is a very good one.

As Kevin stated,12 weeks of copper is not required. Copper is toxic to all marine life forms. It is less toxic to some than others. The ich parasite is similar in biologic structure to shrimp as they are both crustaceans. Copper is more toxic to crustaceans than to marine fishes. Think of it like chemo-therapy for cancer. You are injected with toxic chemicals to kill the cancer cells. The doctors are being that healthy cells can withstand the treatment while the cancer cells can't. Same thing with ich. The qt period after the copper treatment is to give the tank time to clear of the parasite. To give the parasite time to complete it's life cycle.

 

As to the mandarin, they are very resistant to most parasites sure to their very thick slime coat. Just the opposite of tangs. Tangs have a very thin slime coat.

 

Peng, do what you will, but if you do choose copper treatment you definitely do need a copper test kit designed for the type of copper you are using. This is very likely why your previous attempts at treatment have failed and ended in the death of your fish.

Thank you! This is very helpful! I just got Seachem test kit and I asked the LFS where I got my PBT about their water and they said that they always have Cupramine in their tanks at therapeutic 0.5 mg/L level. This is a great relief, since I got this PBT from them.

Some fish has it. It might not be visible but if ICH is in a system, a fish has it. ICH can also feed off of other parasites as well, so multiple strains of ICH can cause the parasite to live longer then a single strain would.

 

ICH is an animal, it doesn't magically appear. It has to be put in the tank, for it to be in the tank. There is no way around it. If you take a fish without ICH and put it in a tank that has no ICH in the system the fish will not get ICH.

 

 

Peng- have you read about hyposalinity?

Yes I did. Both hypo and copper seem to be very upsetting for tangs, especially for powder blue. I think I may try using Cupramine, monitor closely, and see how it does. If it's not doing good I'll stop the treatment.

Ooh, that's a challenge with a big enough reward it could be worth doing just because! I'm with Chris on this. Question: what's going on with ich during the periods that no fish have it? If it has a 12 week life cycle, and your fish are all healthy for say 26 weeks, then how is it still in your tank?

Thinking of using copper on tangs/Angels just makes me pretty worried.

PBT and tangs like Achilles are just super prone to ich unfortunately. I had an Achilles in my 400 gallon display for several years and ich would come and go on him and he was fat and healthy, sold him when my tank was broken down. If you had had the fish for 6 months and he is fine except for the ich IMO dont worry about it.

That is really true. The worst thing that can happen is that when I add cupramine there is a chance it will die during treatment.

It's my OPINION and personal EXPERIENCE that if you have an ich problem so bad that you are considering treating with medication, you have problems that need to be resolved prior to any treatment. Healthy fish don't get ich. Fix the first part and the second will fix itself.

I know you've treated it with success so I wonder how do you think if I treat them with Cupramine. I use to follow the instructions on other fishes and they would just get killed. I think this time I'll use a test kit to monitor. But I'be heard that mandarine won't survive it.

It's my OPINION and personal EXPERIENCE that if you have an ich problem so bad that you are considering treating with medication, you have problems that need to be resolved prior to any treatment. Healthy fish don't get ich. Fix the first part and the second will fix itself.

Hi Micah I don't have a bad ich problem. Only PBT gets it and it comes and goes. Usually several dots, when it chases around with yellow tang.

This is definitely a complex answer, I'll address one part:

Treating a PBT alone will not rid the main tank of ich. Ich has hany places to hide and live, even without the PBT.

 

PBT are best left to MONSTER tanks, or the ocean IMO. Made the same mistake with a PBT...

 

After observation of PBT in the wild, I have concluded they need open swimming space to breathe,they don't do well confined...and are almost constantly stressed to breathe. Some can adapt, but the vast majority do not. Similar species have similar problems respirating correctly, Powder Browns, Achilles, and others with that same demeanor...most having similar survival rates.

Thanks for the reply. I will treat them all if I do... But yeah it's like a really tricky question.

Hi I know there are tons of people here who successfully treated fishes with cuppramine for ich... I have had no success and in the past they all died during the treatment.

 

I have a PBT that has ich. It has been living in my aquarium for about half a year and the ich comes and goes. Usually several dots on it's face. Other fishes and tangs don't seem to get it. Is it worthwhile to get all fishes (4) out and put them into an aquarium with cuppramine? I have an empty 60 gallon cube, but it's not drilled and I don't have any extra skimmer for that tank. I can pull out a power head and a hang-on-glass filter for it but I'm not sure if this is gonna work...

 

Another big big issue is that I have a mandarin goby and a cleaner shrimp. I dont know if ich will stay with the shrimp. And I don't know how mandarin can survive without its pods... But I do want to make my tank ich free.

 

I didn't use any Cu test before. I think I need to buy one if I was gonna do the treatment this time... But I don't really know... I do want to see my PBT swimming free with ich, but I don't want to lose it... It came with lots of ich and bony dying face and I tried a lot and it got so fat now... 

 

Would appreciate some help from you guys thanks

Two years. Gorgeous!

Do you still have them?

Finally got a breath from school. Sorry every body for the late reply. It has been crazy this week. I'll reply to everyone when I get home tonight. And thank everybody who replied to me.

Any idea would be appreciated. Thank you!

My 90G SPS dominant tank has been doing well for a couple month until about last month. Problems started to pop up...

 

Things were fine until I purchased 4 green chromis, 2 anthias, 1 red star, and 1 sand sifting starfish. First pH started to hike, which I had no idea why. I added vinegar to lower it, and I added too much. pH lowered to 6.XX immediately, and I used kalkwasser to increase it right after that and it went back to 8.1X. Then I started to doubt my pH probe so I bought a new one and found the old one was off. After calibration the old one still can't match with the new one.

 

During the pH spike, the pink birdsnest generated those "bubbles" on it's skin, and burp, they broke eventually, exposing the skeleton outside. They stopped when the new probe was on and pH fell into acceptable range.

 

However, during this time, cyno started to grow, crazily. They basically covered the surface of many stones. Many SPS corals were damaged. Their tips started to have STN. And they started to brown up. Acropora, monti, except for birdnest, had tip burning. This stopped when I bought a dual reactor from BRS and plugged it in with Phosguard and ROX.

 

Now I've tested a few times by HANNA; the result for phosphate stays around 7~9 ppb. I used to have this figure without any cyno. I'm so puzzled why the cyno still are here despite I suck them out every time I do water change.

 

suspicious factors as following:

too many fishes. problem wasn't there before I added 6 new fishes

sand sifting starfish. it eats good things in the sand bed?

 

clues:

cheato started to grow very fast. It used to not grow at all.

some SPS browned out

Green Birdsnest's started to have STN from bottom up. It's a small colony.

Phosphate was once 45 ppb, reduced to 7~9, while cyno didn't seem to change that much.

water flow is generally strong

I've been doing heavy water changes since the case happened

 

I'm planning to move all the rocks out and sell the majority of fishes.

What a deal!

I'm in too

How big is the tank? Try rearranging the rocks. Depending on the size of tank that might help.

 

A Bannerfish and Tang probably don't make the best tank mates to begin with. And adding the peaceful Bannerfish after the Tang just makes the situation worse. If the situation doesn't get better in the next couple days expect to lose the Bannerfish, unless you remove one of the two fish involved.

 

I haven't had great luck using a mirror, but I've seen others have success with it, so it's definitely worth a shot.

 

Good luck! Hopefully everyone starts getting along soon!

 

Thank you. I already returned the fish... It decided to eat corals...

Introduced a H. Diphreutes yesterday and the powder blue went crazy on it.

It was the most violent fish chasing I've ever seen. It was so aggressive, and constantly using its scalpel to hurt the bannerfish. The bannerfish has been hiding all the time except for when the lights are off.

 

I'm currently considering the mirror trick.

Any suggestions?

I had these little polyps showing up that I didn't like so I just put a piece of hydno next to it. Problem solved...Although I've got more so maybe it's time to move the hydno again.

 

Good approach! That should help with the nuisance anemones too!

 

 

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I believe it means "in my experience"

 

thanks

 

 

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All the following don't go with SPS-that's the short story-and IME;

 

Zoa

Candy canes

Gree toadstool

Acans

 

Thanks.

 

What's IME?

 

 

 

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Your toad stool will let out stony coral inhibiting toxins into your water column. Constant skimming' date='water changes, and replenished carbon relieves the symptoms but you need to keep up on them and or keep the Sarcophyton,Sinularia, and Lobophyton corals to a minimum.[/quote']

 

I think I might give it away to see if there is any improvement. I was searching online and one said her/his SPS looked a lot nicer when the toadstool was given away.

 

 

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It has been couple months since some of the SPS stopped growing. Milleporas in my tank generally don't grow but encrust. Some acroporas grow very fast, and nice coloration too. But most of them grow very slowly.

 

I suspecting those:

 

Zoa,

Cancy canes

3.5"-4" green toadstool

Pulsing Xenia & amthelia

Acans

 

Others are all acroporas. They don't really shed nor touch each other. I don't have carbon.

 

I bet the leather coral might be contributing to this

 

Thanks

 

 

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Pull off the doser and see how it goes. Sometimes it's the test kit's problem.

 

 

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Yes. A yellow tang won't be bad. Purple tang is nice too.

 

 

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