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Idea about Ich Hypo

C

calaxa

As most of you know, I hypo all my new fish. The first time it was fine for the 4 weeks (6 weeks total in QT) but now that my display doesn't need to go fallow, I'm trying to cut short this process. I'm thinking this is my procedure:

Day 1: Put fish at whatever SG he comes in at and monitor feeding/behavior
Day 2: Lower SG to FOWLR level and monitor behavior
Day 3/4: If feeding is fine, drop SG down to 1.009
Day 11: One week has passed and if no ich has been seen at this point, remove fish to a new tank with same salinity. The thought being the new tank has no contamination. The fish should be ich-free and ich remains in old system on tank walls/substrate/etc. Begin bringing SG back to normal
Day 18: SG should be back to normal and fish can now be introduced.

Any thoughts?
 
S

stcreef

I have a few thoughts on this.

The flaw in your plan that I see is that you wont always see symptoms on the fish indicating ich. Especially if they are in the gills. If I remember correctly, they can remain in/on the fish longer than your timeline til increasing your sg. At which point you could have trophonts in the water that havent released the tomites yet and may not for another 10 days or so.

One other thing is to raise the temp of the water up to 80F to speedup the life cycle.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
I wouldn't shorten the cycle any. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't there (as we well know) and your shortened cycle could eventually backfire on you. If my goal was to GUARANTEE that my system was ich free I wouldn't take any chances.
 
C

calaxa

I forgot about trophonts inside gill.

Just checked a reference again and it says trophont can be 6-10 days. I thought it was 3-5 for some reason. Just getting a little impatient. I want to get my CBB into the display and make room for a whole new batch of livestock. Oh well, I have other projects to work on I suppose but was an idea and I have never seen anyone talk about moving from one QT to another.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
LOL. There are some posts from about a year ago about a guy who believed that you could change tanks (sterilizing the equipment not in use) every 24 hours and in 8 days be free of ich. I think you'd need to have an ich prone fish in full break out to see if this really worked.
 
C

calaxa

I think he might be right if he extends out to 10+ days but that is not the type of work I would want to do. I don't see how that is easier. You save the waiting time and trade off doing all that sterilization.

REEFLECTIONS,

I don't usually like my ocean fish with garlic. Maybe a blackened catfish ;)
 
C

calaxa

Those taste good with butter and garlic. My son (age 4) was actually upset I put them in the tank. He asked why I was wasting two good clams that we could eat. When he saw them open, he said they don't look anything like the ones in his tank (croceas). I tried to explain 40 cent clams vs. 60 dollar clams but I guess that concept was lost upon him.
 
J

jonathan.

calaxa said:
As most of you know, I hypo all my new fish. The first time it was fine for the 4 weeks (6 weeks total in QT) but now that my display doesn't need to go fallow, I'm trying to cut short this process. I'm thinking this is my procedure:

Day 1: Put fish at whatever SG he comes in at and monitor feeding/behavior
Day 2: Lower SG to FOWLR level and monitor behavior
Day 3/4: If feeding is fine, drop SG down to 1.009
Day 11: One week has passed and if no ich has been seen at this point, remove fish to a new tank with same salinity. The thought being the new tank has no contamination. The fish should be ich-free and ich remains in old system on tank walls/substrate/etc. Begin bringing SG back to normal
Day 18: SG should be back to normal and fish can now be introduced.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

Why don't you try using Chloroquine Phosphate along with the process?

Ask Dr. Jim. He can get you the Chloroquine. It's a malaria medicine that is extremely, extremely effective against Crypt and is also very gentle on your fish.
 
J

jonathan.

Phyl said:
LOL. There are some posts from about a year ago about a guy who believed that you could change tanks (sterilizing the equipment not in use) every 24 hours and in 8 days be free of ich. I think you'd need to have an ich prone fish in full break out to see if this really worked.
Click to expand...

Does work. Have done it before. I let my tank run for 24 hours with fresh water in it prior to changing it over to salt water (with powerheads, it can take only an hour or so to get all the salt dissolved...).

But it's a PITA to have to do every darn day.
 
C

calaxa

Jonathan,

Three things about Chloroquine.

1) There is some disagreement about it's effectiveness against ich. I think it probably does work but because it has been shown to be 100%, I'll use the tried and true methods.
2) You say it's gentle on fish BUT I actually spoke to Dr. Jim about this as well. He told me he feels hypo is stressful to fish. Now, I have not lost a single specimen to hypo that was not sick from internal infections and probably would've died anyway. I watch how the fish behave in hypo and see zero stress. I didn't voice my opinion to him but I think meds are much more stressful than this environmental change. I feel the excessive use of meds makes diseases more virulent. Case in point is the over prescribing of antibiotics to people. Simple diseases have become more dangerous and we constantly need stronger and stronger meds. I rather let the fish natural immune system handle something like crypto (obviously aiding it with environmental factor).
3) I use liverock as my filter and do not want to contaminate it with meds. The nitrifying bacteria is already there and I don't want to have to run some other filtration (ie bioballs, canister, etc.)
 
J

jonathan.

calaxa said:
Jonathan,

Three things about Chloroquine.

1) There is some disagreement about it's effectiveness against ich. I think it probably does work but because it has been shown to be 100%, I'll use the tried and true methods.
2) You say it's gentle on fish BUT I actually spoke to Dr. Jim about this as well. He told me he feels hypo is stressful to fish. Now, I have not lost a single specimen to hypo that was not sick from internal infections and probably would've died anyway. I watch how the fish behave in hypo and see zero stress. I didn't voice my opinion to him but I think meds are much more stressful than this environmental change. I feel the excessive use of meds makes diseases more virulent. Case in point is the over prescribing of antibiotics to people. Simple diseases have become more dangerous and we constantly need stronger and stronger meds. I rather let the fish natural immune system handle something like crypto (obviously aiding it with environmental factor).
3) I use liverock as my filter and do not want to contaminate it with meds. The nitrifying bacteria is already there and I don't want to have to run some other filtration (ie bioballs, canister, etc.)
Click to expand...

I actually employ a bit of both when I QT. I hate meds like Copper and Formalin (though I 100% endorse formalin baths before putting a fish in a tank -- an hour in 37% formalin + salt water will clean anything off...) but I definitely do feel that Quinine based meds are very safe for fish.

Case in point being that they are safe for sharks and rays. Two of the most sensitive fish out there, if not THE most sensitive fish. If the meds work on them for clearing parasites AND keep them from stressing, than I think it's pretty safe to say just how gentle the medicine is on fish.

Also one of the few meds recommended for use with eels, again with the sensitivity issue.

Just something to keep in mind.

I kind of like the added protection of having meds in the tank as well as a lowered SPG and an increased temperature (mainly to have the diseases show their ugly heads sooner rather than later).

While excessive use of meds certainly does make diseases more virulent, it's not like crypt lives outside of a tank and can be put back into society. Unless your tank constantly is getting infected and it could be the same strain of ich, I can't imagine we would ever see it somehow become resistant or anything towards a medicine like Quinine. That is unless massive amounts of Quinine are dumped into the ocean any time soon. :)
 
C

calaxa

On those points I agree with you. I guess with ich, I feel it's basically a nothing disease (which it really is). I don't think using meds is a good idea for treating it. On the other hand, velvet is another story. I would also worry about combining hypo with meds. I have not tried it but from what I read (which of course is not always true), they all recommend against. Basically, I am sticking with a method that has worked for me. I like increased temps too (I only push for 82-83) to see any other nasties coming out. Of course this backfires when you have no clue why a fish is dying (ie I had a CBB eating fantastic and suddenly it's bloodied internally and gilling on it's side. I suspect cyanide collection or internal bacterial infection). I administered amoxycillin but by then it was already too late.

What filter are you using for your QT? I might switch to a sponge so I can administer meds more easily. However, my current QT is a 120 acrylic that I plan to actually use (once I stop using it as a QT and buff out the scratches). Very few seams for residual meds but don't want to take chance. MY backup QT for meds is a rubbermaid (think 37G) container
 
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