I have ICH! Couldn't be happier! Buying more fish tomorrow! Thoughts?

[OakRaid]

I was also wondering, with running our tanks fallow for this length of time.
I would think the biological filtering capabilities would have run down from being fishless? Would this cause a spike?
I guess we could just add back a few fish at a time to make up for this. Or should we be adding something to the tank to keep it cycling at a higher rate? Maybe more coral food, sense there will not be any fish waste??
If so what food would you guys recommend??

 

[OakRaid]

Matt .. on my Hyposalinity tank I put in a bunch of chaeto, hoping it would use up a lot of the amonia before it had a chance to do any damage. Was worried it wouldn't live in the lower salinity .. But so far it is doing fine. Don't really know how much it is helping, but it is growing. Just another thought if you wanted to throw some in there.
Another plus the fish are using it to hide in.

 

[phishphood]

I wouldn't worry about chaeto not growing in hyposalinity. It might not grow as fast, but I've had it sitting in a bucket of 1 part tank water, 4 parts rain water on my porch and it stayed green for at least 2 weeks (at which point I froze it and tossed it).

 

[MontanaBay]

[quote author=OakRaid link=topic=5195.msg64281#msg64281 date=1226702048]
First increasing the temperature will NOT speed up the life cycle of "Marine Ich"
[/quote]

Check this out:

Influence of temperature and host species on the development of Cryptocaryon irritans
Diggles, BK | Lester, RJG
Journal of Parasitology. Vol. 82, no. 1, pp. 45-51. Feb 1996.

The course of infection of the parasitic ciliate Cryptocaryon irritans was followed on Lates calcarifer and Macquaria novemaculeata at 20 and 25 C. The parasite was originally isolated from locally caught Acanthopagrus australis. At 20 C trophonts stayed on the fish longer, tomonts took longer to excyst, and the resulting theronts were larger than at 25 C. On L. calcarifer at 20 C, trophonts grew slowly at first but eventually became significantly larger (mean tomont diameter 466 x 400 mu m) than at 25 C (mean diameter 373 x 320 mu m). On M. novemaculeata, trophonts never grew as large as on L. calcarifer and at 20 C they grew poorly. The number of theronts produced per tomont was directly related to the size of the tomont but was not influenced by incubation temperature. The tomont incubation period was not related to the diameter of the tomont but was significantly influenced by the host origin of the tomont. Theront size was also significantly affected by the host origin of the tomont but not the diameter of the tomont. These results show that C. irritans exhibits variability in morphometrics on different hosts and under different temperature conditions. This variability needs to be taken into account if utilizing morphometric data for separating strains of C. irritans.

also

Studies on cryptocaryoniasis in marine fish: effect of temperature and salinity on the reproductive cycle of Cryptocaryon irritans Brown, 1951
P. J. CHEUNG 1 , R. F. NIGRELLI 1 G. D. RUGGIERI 1

Abstract. Trophonts of Cryptocaryon irritans Brown from infected three-spot damselfish, Dascyllus trimaculatus Ruppell, were kept at temperatures ranging from 7 to 37°C to observe encystment and development of the tomites. At 30, 25 and 20°C, the percentage of trophonts that had encysted in 16 h were 70, 77 and 64% respectively; at 37°C, 44% encysted and at 7°C only 10% had encysted.

The optimum temperature for excystment was 30°C; 50% excysted in 5 days and 100% in 7 days. At 25°C, 60% of the tomites started to excyst on the eighth day, and 70% on the ninth day. At 20°C, 10% started to excyst on the ninth day, reaching 40% on the tenth day. No excystment occurred at 37 and 7°C.

And more on hyposalinity

Newly encysted tomonts were placed in various dilutions of sea water (31 %0) and kept at temperatures ranging from 7 to 37°C. Low salinities, i.e. 16%0 and lower caused tomonts to rupture. At 37, 20 and 7°C, 35% of the tomonts started to rupture immediately in 50% sea water, while at 30 and 25 C, 30% of the tomonts ruptured in 25% seawater. However, none of the cysts developed normally at these dilutions. The percentage rupturing increased with decreasing salinity.

 

[OakRaid]

Ok .. Let me change this a little bit .. sorry
First increasing the temperature will NOT "" significantly """ speed up the life cycle of "Marine Ich"
This does work "" much faster "" for "Fresh Water Ich" but NOT for Marine Ich.

 

[Vincerama2]

So with hyposalinity, how long for a tomont (whatever) to rupture? I mean, can you stick your fish in straight freshwater for one minute and all the tomont things pop, then stick your fish back into the tank before it bursts? (well, you know what I mean)

V

 

[MontanaBay]

[quote author=Vincerama2 link=topic=5195.msg64303#msg64303 date=1226711489]
So with hyposalinity, how long for a tomont (whatever) to rupture? I mean, can you stick your fish in straight freshwater for one minute and all the tomont things pop, then stick your fish back into the tank before it bursts? (well, you know what I mean)

V

[/quote]

no, the tomont is the non-fish reproductive stage, after they have encysted in the substrate.

trophont = parasitic stage on fish
tomont = encysted reproductive stage in substrate
tomites = the infective stage, release from tomont back into the water column

so fw dips probably won't do much, other than stimulate the fish's response to produce more slim and possibly rid parasites, but this is stressful and many people don't like doing it anymore.

 

[MontanaBay]

[quote author=OakRaid link=topic=5195.msg64297#msg64297 date=1226708028]
Ok .. Let me change this a little bit .. sorry
First increasing the temperature will NOT "" significantly """ speed up the life cycle of "Marine Ich"
This does work "" much faster "" for "Fresh Water Ich" but NOT for Marine Ich.

[/quote]

at 30C (86F) there trophonts encysted 10% faster than at 25C (77F), 10% is pretty significant. Plus increase temps speeds up the life cycle of many other parasites that might be hanging in his fish during QT.

Cheers,

Josh

 

[reef89]

what is hypo-salinity?

 

[sfsuphysics]

Wow, necro post!


Anyways

Hypo = under
Hyper = over

so Hypo-salinity would be "under" salinity, meaning lower than normal.

 

[GreshamH]

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php

Treatment Option 4 - Hyposalinity:

Low salinity has been demonstrated to be an effective treatment against Cryptocaryon irritans (Noga, 2000). A salt level of 16 ppt or approximately 1.009-1.010 specific gravity at 78-80*F for 14 days was reported to kill the parasite. I have never experienced problems when placing fish into a hyposalinity treatment, but have routinely witnessed fish showing obvious signs of distress when brought back to normal salinity levels too quickly. For that reason, I try to limit the specific gravity increase 0.001-0.002 points per day.

One of the alleged benefits of this treatment is the resulting conservation of energy for the affected fish. Reef fish have to constantly drink saltwater and excrete the salt to maintain the proper osmotic balance. Lowering the salinity of the surrounding environment eases this energy demand on the sick fish, thereby allowing them to expend more energy towards fighting the infection (Kollman, 1998 and Bartelme, 2001). On the contrary, keeping fish in low salinity means that they don't "flush" their kidneys sufficiently. After long-term exposure, this can cause kidney failure and kill the fish (Shimek, pers. comm..)

The drawbacks to this treatment are the same as for many of the treatment options discussed above. Invertebrates and certain fish will not be able to tolerate it, so you should not apply a hyposalinity treatment in a display tank. Sharks and rays are two fish groups that do not tolerate this procedure. I would also not recommend this approach in the presence of live rock or live sand. The hyposalinity treatment will likely kill the worms, crustaceans, mollusks, and other life in and on the substrate, causing a severe drop in overall water quality.

I have another word of caution when using this treatment. I would strongly suggest the use of a refractometer or perhaps a salinity monitor. Swing arm style box hydrometers are notoriously inaccurate. The glass, floating style hydrometers are better, but easily broken. An accurate measure of the salinity could mean the difference between being inside the effective treatment range or being too high and ineffective or too low and jeopardizing your fish.

Even given its few drawbacks, hyposalinity is a great method of curing infected fish of ich in a proper hospital tank. Of the treatment options discussed this far, in my opinion, it is by far the safest. While none of these options is appropriate for use in a display tank, and all have their drawbacks, weighing the pros and cons of each leads me to recommend hyposalinity above the others.

 

[GreshamH]

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php

Treatment Option 4 - Hyposalinity:

Low salinity has been demonstrated to be an effective treatment against Cryptocaryon irritans (Noga, 2000). A salt level of 16 ppt or approximately 1.009-1.010 specific gravity at 78-80*F for 14 days was reported to kill the parasite. I have never experienced problems when placing fish into a hyposalinity treatment, but have routinely witnessed fish showing obvious signs of distress when brought back to normal salinity levels too quickly. For that reason, I try to limit the specific gravity increase 0.001-0.002 points per day.

One of the alleged benefits of this treatment is the resulting conservation of energy for the affected fish. Reef fish have to constantly drink saltwater and excrete the salt to maintain the proper osmotic balance. Lowering the salinity of the surrounding environment eases this energy demand on the sick fish, thereby allowing them to expend more energy towards fighting the infection (Kollman, 1998 and Bartelme, 2001). On the contrary, keeping fish in low salinity means that they don't "flush" their kidneys sufficiently. After long-term exposure, this can cause kidney failure and kill the fish (Shimek, pers. comm..)

The drawbacks to this treatment are the same as for many of the treatment options discussed above. Invertebrates and certain fish will not be able to tolerate it, so you should not apply a hyposalinity treatment in a display tank. Sharks and rays are two fish groups that do not tolerate this procedure. I would also not recommend this approach in the presence of live rock or live sand. The hyposalinity treatment will likely kill the worms, crustaceans, mollusks, and other life in and on the substrate, causing a severe drop in overall water quality.

I have another word of caution when using this treatment. I would strongly suggest the use of a refractometer or perhaps a salinity monitor. Swing arm style box hydrometers are notoriously inaccurate. The glass, floating style hydrometers are better, but easily broken. An accurate measure of the salinity could mean the difference between being inside the effective treatment range or being too high and ineffective or too low and jeopardizing your fish.

Even given its few drawbacks, hyposalinity is a great method of curing infected fish of ich in a proper hospital tank. Of the treatment options discussed this far, in my opinion, it is by far the safest. While none of these options is appropriate for use in a display tank, and all have their drawbacks, weighing the pros and cons of each leads me to recommend hyposalinity above the others.