ich help

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

Be carefull never to put copper in your display tank, and carbon will NOT remove copper! There is a product I think by Seachem that is supposed to remove copper but it is very hard to remove so never put that in your display or you will not be able to put any invertebrates, probably for a very very long time.

The danger with hyposalinity is this...if you put your fish right away in hyposalinity and it turns out to be marine velvet, then you must raise the salinity to treat with copper (it is not good to treat copper with hypo) and raising the salinity must be very very slow so marine velvet would wipe out your fish before you get the chance to have the right salinity to treat.

This is why a positive ID is important. If it is ick, then treat with hypo, if it is marine velvet treat with copper or preferably chloroquinine right away. Hyposalinity don't do a think for velvet.

For broklynella then it's Seachem Paraguard. In fact I would start my quarantine with full salinity and Paraguard, and only do hyposalinity when absolutely certain it's ick.

I agree avoid copper.

My understanding of MV is that it is very quick, and if you see it, you are probably too late to treat your fish. I believe it is also more rare, and most often it is mistaken for Ich.

I use hypo as a pro-active treatment as per this article, even if no signs of Ich are present. I had a situation one time where I also bought some shrimp along with new fish, and so didn't use hypo, just observed the fish in the QT for several weeks. They all looked good, so I transferred them into my DT. A few weeks later, Ich showed up in my DT, and soon I had a full blown outbreak. I fed my fish well (not much else you can do in your DT), but lost 2 of resident fish before the Ich subsided (I think the survivors can develop a short term immunity). Ironically non of the new fish died, but they obviously were carriers. I now assume any fish I get from anyone, LFS or private, carries Ich. It is certainly very common, no question about that.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/6/fish

I have never used Paraguard, so can't comment about that, other than what you can read on the internet.

I do have PraziPro, which I understand can be used together with hypo. Haven't tried it yet, but it is supposed to help get rid of other parasites like flukes and worms. Will do that next time I QT new fish.