[Reef_Geek]

An update to my battle with Cryptocaryon irritans.

it was Oct 19th when I got really sick of catching my fish at random (whenever I had success catching them) for several minutes of freshwater baths. Oct 19th, I caught all the infected fish, turned my frag tank into an isolation tank (no medicine), and house them for easy catching and daily dips. This is in essence a mix of pseudo-hyposalinity and pseudo-tank-transfer method.

I left behind in the main display: my fake hawkfish (Geometric Hawk), my real hawkfish (Flame Hawk), my two mandarins (Green & Blue), and my Royal Gramma. I was unable to catch them and/or they showed no spots.

Today (Oct 22, day 4 of treatment) the infected fish show 95% spot free with a few at 100% spot free.

Treatment as follows:
1) isolation tank held at pseudo-hyposalinity at 20 ppt. Noticed my amphipods and isopods in the live sand weren't happy upon dilution (emerging and swimming frantically) but many are still alive when I dig in the sand/rubble. I also see a chiton still trucking along the glass. At the very least, the lowered salinity made the infected fish (w/ parasite ridden gills) more comfortable at osmo-regulation, and may have curbed infectious phase parasite viability.
2) fish continued to eat like nothing was wrong... nori, frozen Artemia enriched with Spirulina for HUFAs, and frozen Mysis.
3) daily freshwater baths at 30 minutes on tangs & clowns, using water conditioner to neutralize chlorine (StressCoat and then AquaPlus when I ran out), matching temperature but otherwise tap water with Calgary tap water pH. A few times I added Herbtana to the baths but not sure that it really did anything.

I'll likely treat one or two more days and move them back to the main display. Two tangs have already returned. I've increased my isolation tank salinity to 26 ppt as I don't want to kill my live sand biodiversity and bio filter critters.