Copper Treatment Question

[Powder Blue]

Thanks again Ninong.

John Rice sounds like a knolegeable chap.He recommeds Reefland as a source of info and has added it as a link. He has some interesting photos of himself blowing off his rock and sand in his tank."Creating a storm he calls it" as part of his cleaning routine. I was surprised as an old friend of mine's wife vacuumed his tank substrate and all the coral died shortly after. John says his corals feed on the waste.

I would like to try a garlic treatment. Perhaps the garlic is a good immune booster and fights the spot on that front. John's tank is a 450gal not 550gal. My mistake. Should I simply mince up some fresh garlic and soak my food in it then add? I would like to do it soon as my Regal"s condition is making me depressed and heart sore to watch him battle.

My LFS said he will keep contracting WS and I should let him fight it off on his own. Seems creul. I do not particularly like copper.

Kind regards
Sam

[Ninong]

I would like to try a garlic treatment.

Some people simply mince some garlic cloves extremely fine and add a pinch to their fish food. Others use garlic extract, such as Kyolic, and add a few drops to their fish food.

John's tank is a 450gal not 550gal. My mistake.

He lost that tank several years ago when the 400w Iwasaki lamps caused the acrylic top braces to fail because they were mounted too close and because the cooling fans did not come on.

My LFS said he will keep contracting WS and I should let him fight it off on his own. Seems creul. I do not particularly like copper.

The only sure way to eliminate Cryptocaryon irritans from the main tank is to remove all of the fish and allow the tank to go without any fish at all for at least six weeks. As far as treating fish in a hospital/quarantine tank is concerned, you can use copper or formalin or hyposalinity. The parasite cannot survive at a specific gravity of 1.009. Some people who prefer to not use chemical treatments have had success with hyposalinity. You gradually lower the specific gravity in the separate hospital tank all the way down to 1.009 SG and hold it there for three weeks before very gradually raising it back to normal. It will do you no good at all to remove one fish and treat it while the other seemingly healthy fish are allowed to remain in the main tank because they are potential hosts that will allow the parasite to continue its life cycle even if you don't see anything.

Here is a link to an explanation of the parasite's life cycle: http://www.breeders-registry.gen.ca....umr/crypto.htm

[Powder Blue]

Thank you Sir,

I may try the garlic treatment as I would rather not shove my gang in a small 3ft for 6 weeks.

Sorry to hear about John's 450gal. Must have been a devistating loss.
Will check your link today and I will be posting a photo or two soon for any comments. Strange things have happened in my tank which are not the rule. You could perhaps also correctly identify my Anemone for me. He is flourishing in a relatively low light enviroment with 5 30w tubes.

Regards
Sam

[Ninong]

If you have an anemone, here is another link you may wish to store: http://biodiversity.uno.edu/ebooks/intro.html

[Samper]

Hey guys I have a lot to say so stick with me for a minute and try to decipher my rambling. I started this hobby after a friend of mine who has been doing this for 20 years or so showed me his tanks. I'm in the US Army Infantry so I could use all the stress relief I can get however Ich has just about pushed me to the breaking point. I started with a small 20 gallon tank to learn, spent about 300 bucks on some nice fish and live rock. About 1 week after getting my fish I lost a percula and a flame angel for no reason at all that I could see. A few days later I started to notice the "salt grains". This seemed to seriously disturb my buddy and after hearing what he had to say about it I started researching, that's how I originally found this forum. My buddy has warned me many times about reading these pages due to all the bad info out there. He says I'm just confusing myself by not listening to him. The reason I'm here and not listening is because he told me that by getting a uv I could get things under control for the most part. I got my UV in ran it for a day also gave all my fish a freshwater bath mixed with a product called APPLUS Cure-ICK. This seemed to have perfect results as I have not seen a spot in a month. Then all of a sudden last night my nightmare returned and I lost a percula. I removed him from the tank before he actually died cause my friend said when a fish dies the parasite sort of explodes off to infest the rest of your fish. Is this true? I have also been told that perculas have very fine scales and are therefore affected by parasites much more than fish with larger scales. Is this true? As of now the only two survivors of my original outbreak are a cherub pygmy angel and a royal gramma. I cant afford to lose any more fish, everyone seems happy and I see no spots but I know they're there. I have setup a ten gallon clean system. When this happened to my friend one time he removed all his live rock, inverts, crabs, everything but fish and put them in a seperate tank. In his main he left his fish, his crushed coral and that was it. He then treated with copper. I don't know the concentration but he only treated for.....well it was under a week for sure. WHile doing this he turned off the UV, didnt get around to asking why yet but if you could tell me I would appreciate it. Dangit I keep hitting something and losing all this typing.....anyway I cant afford to lose anything else. Like I said I have a ten gallon clean tank set up. I have 25 or so lbs of live rock, 1 arrow crab, 1 blue legged hermet, 2 anemones, a mated pair of cardinals, 1 pygmy cherub angel, 1 flame hawk, 1 royal gramma who by the way is the only survivor of my original outbreak, 1 percula whose buddy died in my arms last night, a large patch of zenia and a nice size rock covered with shrooms. Where do I even begin? What cannot be treated with copper? What needs to go in the clean tank while I treat? What is the concentration in a 20g tank that I need to use of CU? Basically what do I do? Any advice you give me I will discuss with my buddy but I'm starting to wonder how much he actually knows. I live in north carolina so I'm on eastern time, was planning on starting this whole process tomorrow at noon so any advice you could give me would be great. If any of you feel like really helping me out I would be willing to give my cell number to certain individuals here, I've done my research and figured out who here knows their stuff and you know who you are. Just PM me if you wanna talk or if you feel like typing answer my stuff here to the best of your ability. I cant afford to lose anything else and really cant handle the stress at the moment so Thanks in advance
Chuck.

[Samper]

Hope that rambling makes sense to you guys.

[rayjay]

Samper, I hope I'm not reading this correctly, but I believe you are saying you have six fish left (was 7) in a twenty gal tank.
Sorry if I'm getting this wrong, but if not, the tank is severly overloaded and trouble is bound to happen.
One of the lastest and most comprehensive writings on the ick was in a 5 part article begining last November 03 by Terry D. Bartelme in Advanced Aquarist. Each month for the next four months had a continuing article. The orange link is for the first part Cryptocaryon irritans and the next parts can be found in the archives of www.advancedaquarist.com.

Ninong, I have had to lower the s.g. down to 1.0075 to eradicate the parasite as 1.009 didn't work.
In Terry's article I believe he mentioned that some of the parasites can adapt to hyposalinity so chemicals would then be the only way to kill off the parasite.

[Samper]

When I bought my fish I got the smallest that I could find, juveniles in most cases my water quality is near perfect was tested last week so I'm not worried about overload. The fish should mature and not really get any bigger.

[rayjay]

Where did you get the idea they won't get any bigger?

[Ninong]

Where did you get the idea they won't get any bigger?

Probably from his friend who told him it was OK to use copper in a reef tank provided he removed the inverts and live rock during the copper treatment. The same guy who told him he should stay away from boards like this because we would just confuse him with bad advice.

In all fairness, the myth about marine fish not getting "bigger" in a 20-gal tank -- which is what Samper has -- is very common advice given out by many LFS employees who have been trained to answer certain questions in a way that will not discourage sales. It's sad but true that many pet store employees have been coached to say things that are absurd.