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Originally Posted by danny zubot
Wow Lee, I'm bummed out now. I really don't want the ick to return after this treatment, that would suck. Only time will tell I guess.
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In your case, guessing by the severity of the infection and ALL your fish being infected, the mild rule of a little sprinkle of ick on the regal tang ONLY is NOT the case for you. Time is of the essence.
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Originally Posted by danny zubot
The fish seem to be doing ok in the q-tank even though the white spots have gotten worse in the past day. My salinity is down to about 17 ppt from 31 ppt on Sunday afternoon when I started the treatment. Too fast?
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Please tell me your using a refractometer ONLY to measure the salinity, as this is the safest method for measuring. Its not uncommon for the infection to grow while its resisting treatment. Ick doesn't like low salinity. The ick has to rupture to surface & fall off the fish. Your doing good though, but now you should wait for almost 24hrs before going to next step or you will come into big problems. Gradually lower the salinity gives not only the fish time to adjust to lower salinity but more importantly ensures the bacteria in the biological filter can adjust. Or else Ammonia spike and or PH drop.
Here is a great site of reference that you can keep referring back to while treatment that may also answer most of your questions.
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/tr...osalinity.html
Questions it may not answer. The problem with lowering the salinity I have found is that if you don’t let the salinity & bacteria catch up at 17ppt (Wait approx 24hrs) and rush to next step it will kill your bacteria in your filter bed creating a massive spike in ammonia. YIKS! Hence the NEED to let it adjust slowly. I hate this part because the wait seems so long and while your waiting, your fish are in a small tank, all together, that’s bare bottom where the ick life cycle is reproducing & hosting easier from 3-7days. YIKS! Once you get down though to 1.010, you can wait a few hours before going to 1.009 and maintain that level for 6weeks, leaving your main tank fish free.
When will you see results ick gone? After you have dropped down to 1.009 and maintain that you should see results or completely gone in 10-14 days after treatment. But Leave the fish in there for remaining time, leaving your main tank fallow.
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Originally Posted by danny zubot
I figured since I'm quarenteening (sp) every one, I'd go out and buy another fish and put him in there. (bad reef keeper I know) But its doin well and seems to enjoy his new buddies. I figured he came from a bare bottom tank from Gold's so putting him into another BB Q-tank wont hurt him much..
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That’s where you’re wrong and I’ll tell you why. In the past I did this very thing to what I came to regret. Thinking I’m already treating all my fish in a QT tank with Hypo, but there was this other fish (porcupine puffer) I was eyeing so I got it to & figured since I’m doing treatment I might as well treat another & save time. DOH! WRONG!! Turns out while I was treating all the fish over a few weeks of treatment they showed no more signs of ick but their health was decreasing, pale in color, breathing became lethargic for some, a tang stop eating, starting doing a twitch, I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Turns out the fish I added (Porcupine Puffer) brought Marine Velvet (Amyloodinium ocellatum) in the QT tank. DOH! Before I knew what hit me I was losing fish. Hyposalinity doesn’t treat Marine Velvet but copper does. Because of my wrong judgement it cost me most of my livestock & I lost some of my favourite fishy friends. Was a very sad day for me. So as I learned, NEVER to ASSUME your new addition have NO disease. BETTER TO BE SAFE THEN SORRY. Because you added this fish, your treatment option would have been better to go with copper. Other factors to when adding another fish in your QT tank with the others is the increase of Bioload.. But since your already in process with Hyposalinity I will keep my fingers crossed for you.
Keep us updated. Here if you need any help.
P.S for your clown if heavily infected besides the other fish, I would consider a FW dip to relieve a bit of the ick. Worth a try. Also make sure your QT tank and or FW dip water are aerated well, try air stones, they work great. Also don't raise temperature during Hypo treatment, harder on fish & also water evaporates faster making it hard to keep the level of 1.009 for Hyposalinity to be effective. I keep temp at about 77-78 only.