Using hyposalinity to treat ich...

[Terryz_]

Now my tank is having a ich outbreak... I am thinking of reducing the salinity to 1.018 to deal with the ich... Will it help...

[ReDDeviLs]

i read somewhere that it more or less helps abit,but if you have corals,than i guess you cant use that.

[FuEl]

If you lower the salinity gradually it would'nt really affect the ich much. Unless you do a drastic salinity drop. Lower salinity basically helps to fight off ich by reducing the stress placed on the fish to osmoregulate when they're infected. The ich parasite most likely won't be affected much by the salinity drop, however the immunity of the fish should increase.

[Terryz_]

After I lower the salinity, it will increase the fish immunity and in the meanwhile can feed them garlic soaked food to further improve their immunity... Will this work...

[bubble_gum]

After I lower the salinity, it will increase the fish immunity and in the meanwhile can feed them garlic soaked food to further improve their immunity... Will this work...

bro seriously... just cotinue with garlic and dont stress urself up and ur fishes.

believe me.... i have tried medication,FW dips, hyposalinity blahblah bal

uv will help to some extend by nt getting it out of control but it will still be in ur tank. u cant get rid of itch like u just cant get rid of ur mum nagging at you

[Terryz_]

Very stress now man... Gonna get a UV if the price is affordable...

[ervine]

I believe some people used to dunk their fishes in freshwater for a couple of minutes..

Apparently this causes the ich to burst out of their cyst (spelling?) prematurely or something... But I doubt anyone dares to do this to anything other than a $1 clown.. haha... Which I did sometime back actually.. didn't kill the clown.. but neither did it get rid of the ich...

[Terryz_]

It is known that FW dips are useless and will cause death of fishes...

[bubble_gum]

I believe some people used to dunk their fishes in freshwater for a couple of minutes..

Apparently this causes the ich to burst out of their cyst (spelling?) prematurely or something... But I doubt anyone dares to do this to anything other than a $1 clown.. haha... Which I did sometime back actually.. didn't kill the clown.. but neither did it get rid of the ich...

i did it on my pt and bt leh... fish and itch still ok

[jd_n]

IMO the best treatment is to house ur fish in a hospital tank with either copper treatment or hyposalinity or u can do both but do note...be very precise with the amt of copper medication used.

Garlic soaked food is not "shen dan" aka "god" medicine, whether it works or not is still argumentive based on many websites regarding ICH and its treatment. I believe feeding garlic soaked food do help to a certain extend but not totally. And someday, this garlic soaked food is not goin to do much help. Macham u take 1 panadol for headache today and after sometime tat 1 panadol is not gonna work and u have to take 2. How r we goin to increase the concentration of the garlic?

Most of the site would reckon hyposalinity or copper treatment with proven result. If i recalled, hyposalinity shd be reduced to 1.010 (a refractometer reading and not swing arm or floating meter). My refractometer register 1.023 reading whereas my coralife register a reading of 1.019. Look at the difference. and tat may explain why some of the reefer hyposalinity does not register good result.

I have did hyposalinity together with copper treatment before and i reckon the combi of this treatment to be very effective.

The key is to remove ur fish from the main tank for treatment coz tat the best way to treat it, leaving him in a ich environment and curing him is not doing him much help. Juz imagine u r under medication for light flu and was told to stay home but yet u r still mixin ard in a flu enriched environment (still goin out with ur classmates, colleagues, family members...etc who are also carrier of the flu bugs). How r u goin to recover?

Nxt is to target the remaining ich in ur main tank. The best is to go fishless up to at least a month and practice quarantining ur newly bough fish in future else ICH r here to stay for good in ur tank.

Juz note UV, garlic soaked food....etc r not mighty. They do their part to a certain extend only and the rest is up to us.

[vicky]

Remember to some reefers, that Garlic GUARD is for holding the ich on guard and improving the immunity of the fish, it is not to remove the ich. hyposalinity does help. see i post for my frend. my frend did hyposalinity , in two weeks , all the fishes are cure without one dead. u must shock the parasites not the fishes .....

even the immunity is high, the ich really wont go off fast. u really need to clear the ich as fast as could , coz once the parasites lodge in the gills of the fishes, it could kill the fish . so faster kill the ich before it kill your fish. do a combo oh hyposalinity and garlic guard . Fw really dont help, but medicine sometimes help .

[Achilles Tang]

jd_n's advice is sound. I would say the same thing too.

[jd_n]

Ur sentences r sometime hard to understand.

Ich on guard??

Garlic Guard = U refering to Seachem Garlic Guard or garlic soaked food in general be it food soaked in fresh garlic juice, seachem garlic guard, Kent garlic....?

Think u shocked me more than the hyposalinity shocked the parasites.

How to shock parasites n not shock the fish when u suddenly drop the normal salinity level they use to dwell in. It shd be dn over a period of time by reducing the salinity level slowly coz these parasites can't survive in such a low salinity level and thus the life cycle of the ICH is broken.

Like i said, treatin ur fish but not ur tank is "zhi piao bu zhi ben". There r medication tat r reef safe but haven find any tat can totally cure the fish and wipe out the entire ICH population in the main tank.....haven come across any of this medication yet (sad to say, i have try many brands when tat ranges from below $10 - $50 medication and still... no luck:sick: ).

Unless u can do hyposalinity in ur reef tank or dose copper in, i would say the ICH r there to stay as long as there r fishes in the main tank.

[tineng]

Hi jd,

I remeber reading somewhere that a ich lifecycle is a couple of weeks..so if the fish in the main tank is already inflicted with ich, you will have to take out all the fishes and put them in the QT for a few weeks before putting them back....

Any experiece on that? for me, there has not been much serious outbreak and it usually goes away after 1-2 days without doing anything so normally I don't treat them....

[Terryz_]

It shd be dn over a period of time by reducing the salinity level slowly coz these parasites can't survive in such a low salinity level and thus the life cycle of the ICH is broken.

Bro... The salinity must be 1.010 huh... But i dun have a refractometer to measure the salinity... I only got a floating one... So by reducing the salinity it will wipe out the parasite huh or prevent it only...

[Terryz_]

Yesterday reduced the salinity to 1.018... Just now reduce the salinity to 1.014.... According to my floating hydrometer...

[jd_n]

Hi jd,

I remeber reading somewhere that a ich lifecycle is a couple of weeks..so if the fish in the main tank is already inflicted with ich, you will have to take out all the fishes and put them in the QT for a few weeks before putting them back....

Any experiece on that? for me, there has not been much serious outbreak and it usually goes away after 1-2 days without doing anything so normally I don't treat them....

Yup, wat u mentioned abt the ich life cycle is correct. Once any of the fish in the community is inflicted with ich, its best to remove all of them and house them in a treatment tank and treat all of them. Some fishes unlike the tangs may not have visible white spot but to be on the safe side...treat all.

These fishes are going to stay in ur treatment tank for quite sometime until the ich cycle r broken in the main tank (i would stick to a 2mth fishless tank to be on the safe side). During this period, the ich having no host to feed on and will eventually die off.

If ur fish is not seriously infected....its all up to individuals on whether u want to go thru the hassle of treatin them ornt. Its pretty hard to predict whether will there be a full scale ich outbreak since there r sign of them in the tank.

Below is the approach i adopt.

Being the kiasu type...i used Aquapharm cure-ich to work in hand with fishless tank concept and m very satisfied with the result. The above mentioned medication will kill any floating parasite (as mentioned on the instruction, well.. to me no harm tryin ) and in the meantime i had no fish in the main tank for ich parasite to feed on. After 10 days, the medication was stopped and a 25% water change was performed.

At the same time, all fishes went thru hyposalinity and Cu treatment the moment they went into the treatment tank for 2wks. After 2wks, the medication in the treatment tank is gradually reduced by replacing the treatment tank with fresh salt mix minus the medication. Eventually, carbon was added to remove all traces of medication.

On the 31st day like water changes, i gradually intro main tank water into treatment tank.....remove 20% treatment tank water and replacing with main tank water every 2 days for up to 2 wks. Meanwhile monitoring all fishes during this 2wks period for any sign of ich reappearing again.

Finally carefully procedures (off the room light, careful handling by using a small container submergin into treatment tank to scoop up the fish instead of using net....) are also taken when transferring them back into main tank.

Since then, all new fishes newly bought will be quarantine for at least 2wks (monitoring for sign of ich and gettin them to feed) before introducin them to the community.

Lots of work huh...but its a committment and responsibilites of reefer.

Btw...the above mentioned medication is reef safe but have to remove clams and sea cuke. I housed mine in a seperate tank during the treatment period.

[jd_n]

Yesterday reduced the salinity to 1.018... Just now reduce the salinity to 1.014.... According to my floating hydrometer...

As i mentioned, floatin type and swing arm hydrometer may not register accurate readin. Try to borrow a lab grade refractometer for more precise reading.

[vicky]

hmmz try to maintain around 1.010 . when your water evaporate, make sure that your salinity dont rise up.

and i really trust hyposalinity. one of the natural and cheap solution.

and pls really dont put copper even though it is effective. copper sux.

[jd_n]

hmmz try to maintain around 1.010  . when your water evaporate, make sure that your salinity dont rise up.

and i really trust hyposalinity. one of the natural and cheap solution.

and pls really dont put copper even though it is effective. copper sux. 

Hi vicky, ur reply is mostly non constructive and neither is it amusing.

Copper is effective but sux??? Wats there to be sux abt???

U like sayin panadol is effective medicine for headache but dun take it coz it sux!

So, isit the taste of the panadol tat sux, the look of the tablet tat sux, the color of the pill tat sux, the brand tat sux or generally panadol sux?

And hyposalinity is not natural coz these fishes have been living in a constant salinity environment for life till they r caught and sold in LFS. Hyposalinity juz like certain medication r proven methods of combatin ICH and in no way r they natural coz fishes in the wild do not get treatment.

[vicky]

hmmz anything lor. my ways dont really meant for u. but maybe u can take a look at my topic of my frend ich.it might help u . i really cant help much .

but i hope u succeed in removing ich. no problem.

i know u are confused .so i shall stop my what so called"advice" .

[Terryz_]

i now trying jd_n method using copper treatment together with hyposalinity... Hope it works for me too... Keeping my finger crossed...

[delirium]

Dont know why some says FW dip is useless. Ive tried FW dipping twice on 2 fishes. Dip for 3-5 mins then fishes goes into quarentine tank with only air stone. Day 3 already see signs of improvement. FW dip again. Water change every alternate days for 2 weeks. Reduce feeding. Fishes a ok by the 3rd-4th week.

[neutronics]

Ich will take about 1-2 weeks from the day it is visible as white spots on the fish to really kill that fish. Hence, don't panic to drop the salinity to 1.010 immediately.

Salinity should be dropped to that level for about 4-5 days.

After that it should remain at that level (1.010) for about a month from the day the whitespot disappear from view. Unless your tank is a no-invertebrate tank, you cannot perform hyposalinity in your main tank as it will immediately kill corals, snails, shrimps, etc.

At that hypo level, nutritious food, fortified with vitamins (eg Kent Zoe, Selcon, Zoecon) should be given as well as garlic to help raise immune system. Low light, stress guard or other protein coat will help healing of the skin faster.

pH tends to drop below 8.0 at low salinity. So you may have to constantly monitor pH level and raise it higher with pH increasing buffer when it does drop to below desired level of 8.3.

Raising the salinity back from 1.010 to 1.023 should be done at an even longer duration, about 7 days minimum, in order not to shock the recovered fish.

[Terryz_]

Ich will take about 1-2 weeks from the day it is visible as white spots on the fish to really kill that fish.

Think it vary from fish to fish.. It killed my neons within two days... Thats mean i must keep my tank fishless for a month to ensure that it is ich free... Haix... Got to wait again.. Anyway just setup a temp tank for my LS... Hope this is the last of the ich that i see...