Be carefull never to put copper in your display tank, and carbon will NOT remove copper! There is a product I think by Seachem that is supposed to remove copper but it is very hard to remove so never put that in your display or you will not be able to put any invertebrates, probably for a very very long time.

The danger with hyposalinity is this...if you put your fish right away in hyposalinity and it turns out to be marine velvet, then you must raise the salinity to treat with copper (it is not good to treat copper with hypo) and raising the salinity must be very very slow so marine velvet would wipe out your fish before you get the chance to have the right salinity to treat.

This is why a positive ID is important. If it is ick, then treat with hypo, if it is marine velvet treat with copper or preferably chloroquinine right away. Hyposalinity don't do a think for velvet.

For broklynella then it's Seachem Paraguard. In fact I would start my quarantine with full salinity and Paraguard, and only do hyposalinity when absolutely certain it's ick.

ick
 

well all my fish is still battling the ick problem..... :sad:

I agree avoid copper.

My understanding of MV is that it is very quick, and if you see it, you are probably too late to treat your fish. I believe it is also more rare, and most often it is mistaken for Ich.

I use hypo as a pro-active treatment as per this article, even if no signs of Ich are present. I had a situation one time where I also bought some shrimp along with new fish, and so didn't use hypo, just observed the fish in the QT for several weeks. They all looked good, so I transferred them into my DT. A few weeks later, Ich showed up in my DT, and soon I had a full blown outbreak. I fed my fish well (not much else you can do in your DT), but lost 2 of resident fish before the Ich subsided (I think the survivors can develop a short term immunity). Ironically non of the new fish died, but they obviously were carriers. I now assume any fish I get from anyone, LFS or private, carries Ich. It is certainly very common, no question about that.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/6/fish

I have never used Paraguard, so can't comment about that, other than what you can read on the internet.

I do have PraziPro, which I understand can be used together with hypo. Haven't tried it yet, but it is supposed to help get rid of other parasites like flukes and worms. Will do that next time I QT new fish.

That is good but I prefer to treat with Seachem Paraguard with normal salinity and if marine velvet would show up, I can treat right away without having to wait until the salinity is right (many days). I am afraid to use hyposalinity just as preventive in case MV would show up. I do have chloroquinine but for those who have to use copper it's not a good practice to do hypo without any sign. Also Paraguard will cure Broklynella which is often confused with marine velvet and can kill as fast. Hypo will not cure brooklynella or MV.

Usually 3 weeks in Paraguard is enough to kill ick if fish are carrier but do not show any sign.

Prazipro is good are a pro-active treatment as well, and it is reef safe (except xenia don,t like it but they survive).

If ID on time and treated on time, probably marine velvet is curable.

If the research on ich has shown anything, it's that there's way more variability within the C. irritans species than anyone ever knew. Cysts have been observed remaining dormant for 72 days and still producing infective stages in the laboratory before. That was one strain in one study. No one has identified the mechanism ich tomonts use to time their 'hatching', so I would very easily believe that some strains have an innate capacity to stay encysted even longer. I've seen it posted somewhere (maybe on RC?) that some people have had to fallow tanks for as long as 4 months to completely rid them of ich.

There's a posting from someone from Seachem in their product forums (I think it's in a thread regarding Paraguard) suggesting adding water from your QT system back to your display after you're 100% sure that ich has been eradicated from the QT system. Their logic is that the ich tomonts are sensitive to the presence of fish hormones, and that adding water from a fish system to your display will trigger the more stubborn cysts to hatch. It's never been tested in the published literature, but it's a really interesting idea.

ick
 

well lost my scorpas tank due to ick. :sad:
just went peacefully.. ick sucks..... this scorpas tang i had was 6 yrs old...

You're lucky, I had a kole, powder brown, chevron, 2 purple dottyback, 1 clown, 2 Heniochus so far this week:(

Lost a medium size Naso, 2 yellow tangs, and a clown fish, in the last 2 days:(

Are you sure it's not velvet?

Sounds like that to me.