Quote:
Originally Posted by reef_guru  geekdafied this question is for you, would a ( fresh water/ very low salinity ) dip take care of the problem?
you seem to know your stuff. |
I set up a 20g QT, put all the fish in it that were left. Treated with various meds to no avail. Freshwater, formalin and various other dips would knock it off. The only thing I could think of that could possibly work is be more dilligent about it then I was. I got caught up with other things going on in life and didnt follow my own steps to stop this, but my hyposthises should work in theory. This will also work on various other parasites with little to no changes to treatment.
1. Move all fish to a QT with a slightly lower salinity then the display tank( if your tank is 1.025, drop the QT to 1.022. Dip all fish prior to QT. Raise the temp to 82F degrees in the QT and display tank to help speed up the life cycle of the parasite.
2. Treat QT with copper or cupramine for 1 week.
3. At the end of the first week, have a 10-20g plastic tub(the kind you can find at walmart) on hand, and have the salinity lower then the QT, like 1.020. Move all fish to the plastic tub.
4. While fish are in the plastic tub, break down the QT, and clean it out really good and all equipment in it. Run tap water as hot as you can get it(not boiling hot) and fill the QT up with all equipment running to kill any potential eggs left in the tank.
5. Set the QT back up with a salinity of 1.018, and dip all the fish again prior to adding them back in to the QT.
6. Do a 3/4 dose of copper or cupramine or something similar and do a 1/4 dose of paraguard (all around medicine).
7. Repeat every week for 8 weeks, and each time dropping the salinity down .002-.003 each time, dont go below like 1.009, fish can tolerate 1.0009, but thats the very bottom. We use to house all the fish in the store at 1.018 to help keep stress down and make it easier on them to acclimate to customers tanks cause 99.9% of the time, their tank had a higher salinity.
If there are no visible signs on infestation on your fish by the end of the 4week, then the meds you have chosen to use have worked, and continue these steps for 8 weeks. If at the end of 8weeks, all is well, then start raising the salinity back up.
A recent study from the UM stated that Ich and other parasites CAN host in other things such as crabs/shrimp and other segemented crustaceans when a fish is not present. SO I would reccommend tossing all shrimp and crabs out of the tank when you move the fish to a QT. Let the tank run fishless for no less then 3 months.
NOTHING excepting cooking the eggs will kill them.
The emperor isn't getting worse. He is in copper and it seems to be helping. Maybe the disease will go away. He's really holding his own considering the symptoms have been bad for over a week now. Oh and the white spots are fading. 
