Possible New copper free Treatment for Ich within a reef tank

[ldrhawke]

About a week ago I purchased a green bubble anemone. I made a stupid error while adding it to my tank. I accidentally allowed the water in the bag to flow into the tank while trying to remove the anemone from the bag. The next morning my purple tang was covered with ich white spots. Obviously the water in the bag was loaded with ich tomites. My powder blue tang and foxface also as a number of white spots on them, but no where near as bad as the purple tang.

When I saw the Purple Tangs covered with ich spots I proceeded to look up possible treatment on the internet, the prognosis didn’t look good. Treating the whole tank with copper, antibiotic, or formalin, was sure death for my coral. Getting the fish out of the tank and quarantining them was going to nearly impossible with the design of my tank and the live rock layout would require having to tear it all down. I started resigning myself to loosing all the fish, which from what I read was going to happen; as the ich went though it life cycle, re-hatching a new batch of tomonts and eventually attacking and killing all the fish.

Then an idea came to mind. I remembered on several occasions having out breaks of disease and parasites when introducing new Koi into my ponds. The standard initial standard treatment was to add a considerable amount of salt to increase the fishes body slime. The body slime gives the fish a prophylactic protection and helps them to fend off diseases and parasites.

Obviously just adding more salt won’t work in a reef tank to increase body slime. But adding Vodka might. I remember one of the side effects of dozing Vodka as a carbon source to lower nitrates and phosphates, which I have been daily dosing about 1 .5 ml vodka per 10 gallons of tank capacity in my reef tanks with success for some time. A side effect from over dosing was a significant increase in bacterial slime on all surfaces of the tank. If you over dose Vodka by a lot the increased bacteria will not only cloud the water, but it can coat everything with a hairy flowing bacterial slime.

I figured that the Vodka (clean carbon source) increase may also increase the fishes good bacterial body slime and help it to fight off the ich. What did I have to loose? I was going to loose the fish anyway, if I did nothing. I decided to increase my normal daily 1.5 ml / 10 gallon dose by 5 times to 7.5 ml/ 10 gal. I had pushed the Vodka dosing too high before and knew what the effect would be. It had no real ill effects on the coral or fish, other than producing a lot of white bacteria film on the tank walls and causing the skimmer to over flow with foam

The second day after increasing the vodka dose, it appeared to be having a positive effect on the purple tang. The number ich spots were noticeably less. But, on the third day all the fish looked worse, the ich spots seemed to be increasing. The powder blue and foxface had a few more ich spots on their pectoral fins and the powder blue’s body scales seemed to be getting a coarse appearance. I continued the high rate daily Vodka dosing rate.

On the fourth day the water was cloudy with excess bacteria and a white angle hair like slime was appearing on everything. I didn’t dose that day and did a partial water change.

The skimmer continued producing twice the amount of normal skimate, while dosing Vodka. I use a filter floss in my filter bags and the bags virtually blind and stop recycle water flow through them from the heavy slimy bacteria build up in the floss. I changed out the filter floss daily. The bacteria laden floss feels like a hand full of snot when you remove it, it is so loaded with bacteria.

None of the SPS coral seemed negatively affected by the increased Vodka dosing; infact , the SPS had expanded their polyps and looked like they like the increased bacteria. The three clams in the tank definitely liked the increased bacteria and were expanded fully.

On the fifth day I saw a marked improvement. The tank cloudiness was gone. The fish had just about eaten all of the bacterial hair slim on the live rock. And most importantly, there was considerably less ich spots on the purple tang. The powder blue tang and foxface only had a few of ich spots left and the body scales no longer coarse looking.

It is still to early to reach a positive conclusion, but this maybe a safe treatment for marine ich in reef tanks. I won’t be sure until the parasites life cycle has been completed in another week or maybe even a month. At this point it looks very promising. Right now I am just writing this up in hopes of being able have some positive results to publish for others as a possible treatment if they should encounter this dreaded parasite.

I will continue to dose Vodka at about 3ml per 10 gal daily. I don’t view the use of Vodka as a cure, but rather a way of enhancing and boosting the fishes normal skin slim bacteria that it uses to fend off diseases and parasites. Hopefully the ich slowly dies off as the increased body slim keeps it from getting a hold.

ICH (white spot diseases or marine ich-Cryptocaryon)

The Life Cycle of Cryptocaryon irritans
• Free-swimming cells called tomites are released from a mature tomont, or encrusted cyst, and go in search of a host fish, typically dying in a day or two if one is not found.
• Upon finding a host the tomites attach to the gills or body and develop into parasitic trophonts, at which stage the organisms burrow into the fish and begin feeding on its tissues.
• Once well fed the trophonts stop feeding and encyst, at which stage they become inactive tomonts. These dormant cysts can remain trapped in the fish's mucus, be imbedded deep in the tissue, or drop off and fall to the bottom. Over a period of 6 to 10 days the cells inside the cysts reproduce by single-cell division, and become tomites. Once reaching maturity the cysts rupture, each releases hundreds of new free-swimming tomites, and the cycle begins again, but in much larger numbers.

My fish were very healthy to start and they continued to eat well during the ich out break, so enhancing their skin an body immune system slim may have been more effective in my case compared to starting with a very weaken sick fish.

This approach will take further study and trials to reach any positive conclusion, but right now I believe Vodka dosing to fight ich has potential merit in treating the problem and allowing treatment to be safely done in a reef tank.

I fully expect to see continued minor ich outbreaks on the fishes body as ich cycle continues to taper and die out. Hopefully this method of increasing bacterial normal body slime on the fish to allow it to more easily fight off the parasite will prove successful in treating ich and other parasites. I will update this report over the next few weeks.

Fish photos from day 1 and the last photo on day 5 are on my web site (the last photos posted). MobileMe Gallery

[ldrhawke]

Day 7- Fish look clean of any ich

Day 8- Of the three fish affected by the ich, purple tang, powder blue tang, and fox face; the fox face has had one small ich mark show up and the power blue has several small ich spots and is showing some body irritation in it’s movement by scratching against the live rock a few times . The purple tang shows no signs of ich. All three are eating and appear healthy, other than a couple of very tiny ich spots mentioned.

I decided to restart dosing Vodka, and to double my normal 1.5 ml / 10 g daily vodka dosage to add more free carbon to the water column. This will hopefully make more carbon available to the fishes body surface to increase mucus and address the minor reoccurrence. That is about 15 ml of vodka for my 50 g system; 15 ml is about a capful from the vodka bottle I use.

The three clowns have never shown any sign of infection during my ordeal. The mated pair appear very happy that I added the green bubble anemone that started this ich mess. (see attached)

[ldrhawke]

Day 9 What a shock I got this morning when the tank lights came on. I was concerned the ich would reinfest on the next cycle...they did.. It became obvious that ethanol dosing may not be killing ich tomonts as much as it is protecting the fish from them.

I did lean one important thing....free-swimming tomites that hatch, are night time critters. In both cases of heavy infestation, the purple and now the powder blue, it happened in the dark. My poor powder blue tang looked as bad as the purple tang did the first day the ich first struck this morning.



The good news is the purple tang show no signs of re-infestation. The Foxface had a few new white spots. Hopefully that means the fish can build up some sort of immunity. Again, only time will tell.

The other good news is I decide to go back to the initial heavy dose of ethanol. Wthin in 4 hours the powder blue looked like this.

I feel confident that all the white spots will be gone by this evening. I may not turn the lights off tonight if this is what those little buggers can do in the dark.

[sarah]

any news on how the vodka worked in building the fishes immune system? did it work in the end? how are your fish now?

i am worried that my tank may have an infestation of the ich, i cant really afford a HT at the mo and am looking to add coral to the tank at some point so copper treating is out the window.

[leebca]

This is a very old thread. I'm closing it.

However, it should be clear about why there were no further posts.

Think about it folks:

IF there was a new means of curing marine fishes of Marine Ich, it would on the front pages of every hobby and professional periodical. Over 200 years of knowledge of this parasite has not turned up any new treatment. Reef safe additives are foolish. They may or may not be reef safe as many have discovered. But they are not treatments nor cures. Most contain chemicals that stress the parasite in a minor sort of way, but doesn't kill them in the aquarium system in the concentrations being added.

Food fishes are lost to this parasite to the annual cost of millions of US $ and yet there is nothing more to do than the traditional ways of curing marine fish of this disease. Some food fishes are given injections and a temporary (2-4 year) immunity to the parasite, but who will be giving shots to their marine fishes? Other drugs are available only by prescription and still they and others are human carcinogens -- "My fish are cured but I have lung cancer" is not a good trade off.

Adding things like alcohol to marine aquariums is just chasing novel ideas. Let nature keep your aquarium running properly and you quarantine your marine life to keep parasites out.

Refer to here, please: Curing Fish of Marine Ich