anthias and ick

[Tourkid]

hey leebeca!

So I have more ick issues.... (can i ever get a healthy fish?? why is this so hard??)

anyway... I got 4 anthias for valentines day. 3 females and a male (bartletts)

They had ick after about 4 days in my qt. (it was cleaned out and left empty for weeks b4 start up)

Then the male developed popeye and possibley fin rot. I bought maracyn 2 and started treatment and double dose.
male died overnight. It was at the top breathing extreamely heavy that whole night

I did 100% water change and re acclimted the 3 remaining fish back into qt. (using reef water and added a new dirty spounge to the aquaclear)

I stopped all meds. I have used this new lifegaurd medicine from instant ocean with my last sick fish (the wrasse) And no harm was done.. so im giving it a shot. Im on the 3rd day of treatment out of a 5 day treatment plan.

The ick is just out of control. No signs of bacteria infections or internal parasites, but theyre fins are practically polka dotted.

Im going to finish the treatment, but Ive convinced myself this isent going to cure the ick.

Im really nervous about copper treatments with all the bad experiences i have had. I just seem to get it wrong everytime. so im asking you what the best treatment you would recommend. cupramine with salifert i havent tried yet. having a test kit that doesent work is always partly my problem.

I can preform hyposalinity with no problem. but lasttime i did it the wrasse was worse off. did terrible with it. and im not sure if anthias would fair any better.

I like coppersafe since it stays at the same levels until you run carbon.. but cant find a kit for chelated copper that works (can u reccomend one?)

Ive seen others asking about this lifegaurd. I found an interesting acticle im encloseing and im hoping you have heard somthing about it or can give your opinion. Ill update if it works on the ick, but how could it in 5 days??

thanks as always
maggie

heres the link

Tetra Pressroom

[leebca]

Congrats on the acquisition, Maggie. Sorry to hear of the problems. Such is life in the hobby. It's hard to actually get a 'perfect' fish through the system these days.

The difference between a copper treatment and hyposalinity treatment:
1) Hyposalinity stresses the Marine Ich parasite. Some make it through, but don't survive the second or third time around with the salinity stress.

2) Copper kills the parasite.

I favor hyposalinity when the fish is healthy and there is plenty of time. In the description of the fish you have, it doesn't seem like they have the time to put into 'stressing' the poor little parasites. I'd use he copper 'hammer' and spread death and destruction amongst their parasitic population. But then. . .that's me!

Cupramine is safe and easy to use. You make a dose to add copper; then you follow that up with another dose to bring the copper into the proper concentration. The ramp up of the copper is easy on the fish.

A great and easy test kit to use is the Salifert Copper Test Kit. Hold the copper quantity between 0.3 and 0.5 readings on the test kit, without allowing it to go lower, nor above 0.6.

Regardless of my admiration of Lifeguard, Instant Ocean and the others, there are just three treatments for Marine Ich, and the product you're using isn't one of them. ;) It's interesting hype but if it truly was always successful with killing Marine Ich, like I wrote, it would make international headlines! Regarding the 5-day plan, I think you're beginning to see the light. The miracle drug would have to kill the parasite while it is attached to the fish. Other than some very controversial medications of the quinine family, it won't happen.

Hope this helps.

[Tourkid]

darn.. I had a feeling you'd say that

Ill buy me some cupramine and the salifert kit tomorrow. at least i can get em both in one place around here. Ill be re reading your sticky on it too.

[leebca]

Do you ever buy from Byerly's Aquarium? Is it still there in Columbus? (I'm assuming you're from Columbus, OH -- each of the 50 states has a city named Columbus). I knew old man Byerly and his son that ran the store in the 60's and 70's but the family doesn't own it anymore.

[Tourkid]

How funny!! Yes actually. Not often, but they are the only lfs here that has both things! Ill be goinmg tomorrow. They just moved theyre store from the original location (a 80 some yr old woman drove her car thru the biulding and into a row of tanks!!) There new store is slow to get going but theyre around!!

Phishy business just opened there store and is taking over the saltwater business in columbus, gotta admit its the best store ive ever been in (in my whole yr 1/2 of reefing) lol but its great!

Did you live in cbus before? Or just passing thru? its turning into a great city< theyre really biulding things up nicely

[leebca]

I graduated from OSU and worked in their Quantitative Chemical Student Laboratory Department for a couple of years. See my bio: Bio - Lee (a.k.a. leebca)

[Tourkid]

hu. ive read your bio before but for some reason missed that. osu is a great school!! Im thinking about going to college.. im pretty late on the ball but I finally found somthing im interested in

I had a quick question. byerlys isent open till 12, so im heading there as soon as they open. I have 1 more day of lifegaurd im supposed to dose, ill skip that.. but I learned my lesson mixing meds. should I run carbon and do a huge water change before i add the cupramine? any other precautions i should do before adding the copper?

[Tourkid]

had an afterthought might jog your memory

when i turned 18 i got sent to columbus on a scholorship for arts. I lived above the dirty dungarees in an apartment on the corner of 11th and high street, and met my fiancee (of 7 yrs now) in those apartments on chitenden and high street. those apartments are STILL there, commercial property now. and the dirty dungarees was torn down and in place of it is eddiegeorges resturant!! theres a mall behind it now too....

was the spot bar there when u went there? we watched local color there every tuesday. (this was 98/99) nothings there anymore but the mall on the left and osu on the right... BUT adriaticos (sp) pizza is still there.. yum..... !!!

[leebca]

Without knowing the true makeup of the product you're using, and without knowing first hand from the manufacturer if it interferes/interacts with a copper treatment, then I'd take the conservative actions you suggested: a large water change and carbon treatment; or a super large water change (over 90%) and no carbon. That's all I'd do.

I lived my Freshman year in East Baker Hall (the East was the male side). Then moved off campus further south near 8th (I think). I don't remember the bar you mention. I spent most of my time on campus or to the south. Had a friend on the north campus and went to a new bar there called The Library (so we could tell our parents we spent the night at the library).

[Tourkid]

south has changed unbeileveably in the past 5 years. all the art gallerys are still there, but now its called the arena district and they built a stadium, a few concert halls, big screen tvs hanging off the sides of biuldings, its all really weird.

Newport music hall is still bumping every single weekend!! (i heard of the library but cant mentally picture it.)

Back from byerlys, got some work cut out for me

whats up with the 10.5 gallons?? isent a standard size 10 gallons?? and i think mine is probley filled to about 9 1/2 gallons so the water doesent hit the bulbs in the canopy.

Im going to dose the normal first amount, but in 48 ours i may need to add less than recommended dose...

[Tourkid]

ah. one question i forgot. cupramine kills the bio filter right? so i need to do water changes daily?? Have you figured out how much cupramine to re add to a 1 gallon water change?

[leebca]

The bio filter shouldn't die; however it probably won't function for a while. The bacteria that handle the nitrification process are going to be 'upset' by the addition of copper. But the copper you're using is a very protected kind. The bacteria can choose to continue; or they can choose to enter into a metabolic freeze.

To imagine how winged out you can get. . .I have 'trained' the bacteria in my QT to like working in copper. Since the QT was going to be used for a copper treatment, I got sand/substrate from a local fish store I knew put Cupramine into their system. Thus, their bacteria were already living in copper. After my biological filter became populated with the copper tolerant bacteria, I removed the sand. My biological filter works with antibiotic, copper, and many kinds of medications.

The Cupramine bottle will give you the amount of medicine to add to a volume of tank water. Just scale it down. Just remember that the first addition is half the addition, so to add the right amount of Cupramine to the replacement water, you would need to add twice the recommended first dose.

[Tourkid]

ok got it. My bacteria im sure doesent like anything meds related. is theyre any way to tell that i should do a water change? like.. a way to tell that my bacteria isent working? doh... just reread this b4 i sent it... just test for ammonia and nitrite right?

So for every gallon replaced.. 2/10ths of a milliliter needs readded... geez... i already ruined my big dropper from a salifert kit, i shoulda used the smaller one, now im going to ruin that one. lol that dropper cupramine comes with was garbage, and i had to use my 'good' tweezers to get it out of the bottle my poor eyebrows heehee

[leebca]

Correct. Ammonia and nitrite tests. Those sticks do pretty well to let you know some is detected (but not very good for accurate quantification).

There are always multiple ways to deal with a challenge. Don't you watch Star Trek? a.k.a. skinning cats.

As you pointed out the measurement for 1 gallon is small. What if you put, say, 10 ml of the medication in a known volume of salt water (say 2 cups = 460ml). Then you can pull out a larger, easier to measure quantity, to get the right amount of medication into the gallon.

[weez1959]

Just to help out a bit, if you can go to a vet, they can sell you a syringe for administering meds to a cat or small dogs. They are 1 ml in 0.1 increments and are very accurate. I paid $2.00 for a half dozen. If you clean them you can re-use them for quite a while. I keep one on my cupramine bottle with a rubber band so I don't mix meds in case I didn't rinse well enough.
Hope that helps.

[Tourkid]

well they dident look as good as usual this morning, hiding a lil n stuff, so i changed out 2 1/2 gallons of water for new reef water.

then i added 1 ml of cupramine to 2 cups of water.

then used 1/2 a cup of the 2 cups whitch should be .2.5.. i broke it down.. im terrible at math.

threw out the biofilter... will test for ammonia and trites now....



my wrasse u helped me save came up missing today.. i think my nem ate it... im getting a lil sick of fish... just having a rough morning i know... but so much effort to keep twitcher alive for it to just be eaten alive in a few hours really bugs me

[Tourkid]

another off the wall question...

If im working on the qt, and get copper water on my hands... will soap and water be enough before i go messing around in my reef? or does it take more than 1 wash?

[leebca]

Sorry to hear about Twitcher. Maybe it'll turn up?

If im working on the qt, and get copper water on my hands... will soap and water be enough before i go messing around in my reef? or does it take more than 1 wash?

Actually, human hands should never touch or enter the aquarium water. I wear plastic gloves anytime I need to 'get wet.'

Cupramine will bind to some organic materials, but it is a weak chemical bond. Soap and water should remove any residual copper to below affecting quantities, although the other problems of human contact are more important.

[Tourkid]

sometimes when u reply i get an e mail, other times i dont... weird..

well i added the second 1/2 of the copper today. they are doing really well with it. I was pretty scared really. lol

the salifert test im just not getting. im not colorblind but it seems to me the blue matches the 10.0 color, but that cant be right.

as for the hands in the tank thing. i do my best to keep em out!! When i turkey baster all the poop and extra fod out sometimes my nails hit the water. and i asked because i wanted to pull the screen out of my overflow afterwards and dident want to spread the copper.

but i do have a big box of gloves

Ive had my 90 set up for a few weeks now. Its alot harder to keep track of everybody and it seems so much taller.


I found twitcher.... Inbetween 2 bags of filterfloss on my shelves.... it tore me up. I have a real problem with attachment to fish.. not sure thats a bad thing. but im bummed out for sure.

As i always read, but 'it could never happen to me' syndrome, i had a hole in my top about 2 inches by 2 inches and he must have gotton scared.

the anthias are looking great though, i apreciate all the time you put into helping people thru this forum. I most likely would have given up long ago. each fish i get i get a new understanding of getting and keeping them healthy.

[leebca]

Tourkid,

Don't why you wouldn't get a notice of my post. When it happens the next time, you can send an e-mail to the Admin/Owner and let them know. Since it doesn't happen to me, I can't bring the matter up with any kind of proof.

The second addition, if done properly, based upon the right volume of the tank water, should put the color in on the 0.5 ppm reading. Did you mean 1.0 rather than 10? You can check a bit of the kit out by running a blank and a diluted sample.

Take freshly prepared salt water and run the test. It should none detected. Now do a 50:50 dilution of the QT medicated water with the blank water, and run the test again.

You definitely want to get the test running properly, but if you're sure of your additions, then all should be well. Is there any chance there was copper in the QT water before you added the med?

Some fish are jumpers. When I think of most of our marine fishes, I'm amazed how placid they 'float about' the tank. One good stroke of their tail can send them crashing into a sidewall or top without much effort. We sometimes underestimate the strength in a healthy, 'happy' well nourished fish.

I'm certainly glad to help. I'm particularly glad you have not given up. Getting into this hobby is like being an electrician, plumber, microbiologist, biologist, carpenter, and equipment geek even before getting to the husbandry part.

I don't think I'm sexist or politically incorrect, but I have found over the decades that the male aquarist is very much on top of the mechanics of the system; whereas the female aquarist is more into the care and providing proper foods to the animals. Anyway, my point is, male or female, we need aquarists such as yourself who care.