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Ok, so turns out that there was a carbon filter at the bottom of my cannister from the previous owner..... hence the non-effectiveness of the meds. I cleaned and re-packed the filter, re dosed with cupramine, and started losing tetra's within the hour.
I have a sneaky suspition that we are gonna lose a lot of fish tonight
I read a post on aquarium salt being effective against ick, what does everyone here think?
fishsage
Edit-Theoretically, if the fish don't make it, how the heck do I de-ick my tank??????

55G -5x Bosemani, 3x Emerald Cory,3x Red Rainbow, 3x Turquoise Rainbow. 20G-Empty. 10G -4x Danio 3x Cory Fry 1 Gold Mystery Snail. 10G- 1x CAE, 2x Tetra 1x ADF

Its certainly worth a go, but perhaps dont expect it to be as effective as it once was. There are brackish strains of whitespot, and because salt is used as a treatment , as often as not you might come across a brackish strain since it will have survived the treatments tried in shops and elsewhere, certainly Ive had whitespot occurances where salt made no difference whatsoever.

It might help, it will certainly kill some whitespot, but whether or not it kills all of them , well you cant tell until you try. Thankfully salt is generally not that reactive with most medicines so its something you can use , knowing you can turn to meds after or during if it doesnt seem to be working.

Strains tolerance to salt varies geographically and according to wholesaler stockist culture too, so it might be worth a go, but over here in the UK, the days of salt being effective are more or less over.

Just wondering, wont salt cause more harm than good? I mean, since the chance of affecting/killing the ick you have completely are slim, and considering the fish are FW, it might not be truly feasable. That is, unless the fish all die. Then, you really dont have to do anything really. Since there are no fish, and no host for the ick to infest, it will just die off. At least thats what i learned. I

Bottom line is that salt isnt the best, as LHG said. Also, if it gets soo bad, you could just sterilize by bleach, all of the gravel, or just replace it all. That will kill the gravel borne ick. Then just wait for water borne to die, then add gravel again.

Good luck!

-Goby

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Hi,
First of all, if that filter was operating either for
the former owner or you or both for a month or more, the
carbon had lost all of its ability to adsorbe the
medication and was merely another form of mechanical
filtration.

You have to carefully read the instructions that come with
the medication.

http://www.seachem.com/products/product_pages/Cupramine.html
http://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/Cupramine_faq.html

As far as using salt either with the medication or along
with the medication is concerned, I would not use it.

Tetras are fish that have never been around salt in their
water. That makes them very sensitive to salt and with
them already stressed by the parasite, adding to that
stress with the use of salt would seem counterproductive.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

I thought salt was a BIG NONO for Ich these days that does not mean it will not work. I would prefer a good white spot cure. If you have any scaleless fish eg loaches make sure you have the correct one.

I would double dose once and once only then carry out as recommended. I would also double dose the first time only Melafix then as recommended it will not cure/stop the Ich but it should help in De stressing the fish.

Turn off all the lights for at least 2-3 days, lift the temperature up a little this helps in speeding up the life cycle of the Ich. Feeding sparing as possible every second day then even less what you normally use.

Tank treatment I would recommend treating the tank for at least 3-4 weeks (many say this is an over kill) but it is one certain way of killing all traces of Ich in your tank.

How did it get into your tank:-
Many ways through your water supply.
introduced plants, or fish these are the three basic causes.

Ich can and is a big problem in my area of Aust particularly during winter to combat over the years I have resorted to storing my water in 25Lt water containers for one week. By doing this the Ich does not have a host and just dies. That does not mean I cannot get Ich it can come with a new fish or plants I put into the tanks. I got a small dose in the Betta Tank this was brought in via one Cardinal Tetra.

Here is some additional information about Ich. I suggest you cut and past it for future reference as you never know when it will come in handy.


WHITE SPOT ICH

“White-spot” Parasite, Ichthyophthirius multifiliis

This disease is easy to recognise, as the skin of the infected fish becomes covered with white spots, each the size of a pinhead. Each spot represents the site of one, or sometimes two, parasites. All parts of the body gills, may be attacked.

The causative agent is named Ichthyophthirius multifiliis. It is a spherical and large by protozoan standards, measuring up to 1mm in diameter. Short, hair-like processes known as cilia are spread densely over the surface. A horseshoe-shape nucleus is also present which is clearly visible under the microscope.

By the means of the cilia the parasite rotates vigorously and burrows into the surface layer (epidermis) of its host. It feeds on skin cells and surface debris. The burrowing action causes a local irritation and the epidermis grows across the parasite to enclose it, thus forming a “White Spot”

Reproduction occurs away from the host. After maturing in the skin, which takes a few days to three weeks, depending on the temperature, the parasite bores out, swims away and comes to rest on a submerged object such as a stone, or plant. Here it forms a jelly-like cyst within which a series of rapid cell divisions take place. In a few hours, several hundred daughter cells or swarmers, are produced, which break out of the cyst to find a new host. Alighting on the skin, they burrow in to recommence the life cycle. If they fail to find a host within three to four days, they perish.

Symptoms
If the protozoan is introduced into a tank containing healthy fish, little harm may occur, other than a fleeting infection with a few parasites. If however, the fishes are already weakened for some other reason, e.g. lack of oxygen, the parasite will quickly cover the whole body surface, causing irritation and opening up wounds for secondary infections. The host mobility may become affected. In sever cases, death may result.

Prevention
If white-spot appears in an otherwise healthy tank, the parasite “must” have been introduced either as an adult on a newly acquired fish, or as the cyst form on, for example new stones, a plant or even added water. The only certain method of prevention, is to quarantine all new stock, including stones, plants etc; preferably in water at a temperature of 77F. Allow one week’s quarantine.

Treatments
There are too many treatments today to recommend any specific one. Many can be bought easily at aquarium outlets.


Several very interesting points to think about.

Very easy to recognise.
Its reproduction cycle.
No host they will die.
If introduced into a healthy tank little harm may occur.
Pay attention to all tank details.
Weakened fish, and lack of oxygen can/may and will cause sever deaths. All this is usually caused by poor tank maintenance and/or incorrect and faulty equipment.
Prevention is the best cure
A Parasite “must” be introduced into the tank.

This information was collected from Fresh Water Tropical Fish

***********************************************************************************
Calilasseia
POSTED BY Calilasseia

Posted 24-Nov-2006 01:48
The key facts to remember about White Spot (and I'm sure Keith has covered these, but I'll repeat them just in case) are:[1] Only one part of the life cycle of Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, the causative parasite, is susceptible to medication, which means that ...[2] Medication has to be applied even when the symptoms appear to have gone for up to 7 days afterwards, to make sure that all the susceptible stages of the parasite have been eliminated. The parasite in question has a three stage life cycle. The part that manifests itself is the trophont or feeding stage. This stage burrows through the fish's slime coat, attaches itself to the outer layer of tissue or epithelium, and starts feeding upon the fish. This stage is impervious to medication because it forms a protective cyst around itself. The next stage is the tomont stage. This forms when the parasite has ingested sufficient nutrients from the fish to begin reproduction. This stage is largely invisible in the aquarium, because it detaches from the fish, falls into the substrate, and remains encysted while it divides into daughter cells - something like 1,000 daughter cells for each tomont. Because it is encysted, it is impervious to medication again. The third stage is the larval or tomite stage. Each daughter cell becomes a free swimming tomite, which is microscopic and invisible to the eye. At this point in the life cycle, the parasite is vulnerable to medication. The trouble is, of course, that the swarming tomites are microscopic, and so you can't actually see them directly with the naked eye, which means you have to keep medication levels in the aquarium maintained at sufficient concentration to kill the tomites for as long as they are likely to persist. Depending upon temperature, the tomites could mutate into mature trophonts in as little as 3 days or take as long as 7 days. In an aquarium that contains solely Labyrinth Fishes, one means of dealing with the parasite is to increase the ambient aquarium temperature to 85 degrees Fahrenheit during the medication stage. This speeds up the parasite's life cycle, and ensures that the medication can destroy all the free-swimming microscopic tomites before they have a chance to attach themselves to a fish and begin the cycle anew. With NON Labyrinth Fishes, however, this could induce unwanted additional respiratory stresses - Labyrinth Fishes can cope with this because they are able to breathe atmospheric air to compensate for the lower concentration of dissolved oxygen at higher water temperatures, but fishes that rely exclusively upon gill-based respiration cannot do this. Some fishes such as Clown Loaches can be subjected to elevated temperatures as they experience these in the wild periodically, but it's not a good idea to do this with certain other fishes - Panda Corys spring to mind as one species that should NOT be subject to temperatures above 80 degrees F because they're inhabitants of cooler waters in their native Peru, and will die of heat stress if 'cooked' in this manner. So, depending upon ambient temperature, the tomites will appear in as little as 3 days, or you could be unfortunate and the tomites could take 7 days to appear. In cooler aquaria (e.g., a Panda Cory aquarium kept at 72 degrees F) you could be required to maintain medication for up to 14 days. If the fishes can be moved to a hospital tank for treatment, and medicated there, this is preferable because you don't have to subject your main aquarium's biological filter to adverse effects from the medication - you can just destroy the parasites there. Removing the fishes from the main aquarium also has the advantage that any free swimming tomites that arise in the main aquarium are left with no hosts to attach to, and thus starve to death. So, at the end of your medication period in the hospital aquarium, you are free to return the fishes to the main aquarium. Of course, your problem here is that you have to remember to add a small quantity of fish food to the main aquarium as if you were still feeding fishes so that the biological filter in the main aquarium is kept ticking over whilst the fishes themselves are temporarily rehoused. Once the fishes have been removed from the main aquarium, by the way, you can speed things up vis-a-vis destroying remaining parasites by increasing the temperature to 105 degrees F while the fishes are absent, which will speed up the life cycle considerably, and result in the accelerated production of tomites ... which then find themselves bereft of fishes to attach to. And, they starve to death quicker at the higher temperatures, because they use up their reserves more quickly. Get yourself a cheap plastic aquarium that you're never going to use as anything BUT a hospital tank, put your fishes in that, medicate them, then whack up the main aquarium temperature to 105 degrees while the fishes are in the 'hospital'. Once the fishes are free of parasites and have remained so for 7 days, you can return the main aquarium to its normal temperature and reintroduce the now treated fishes. Any watertight container that is safe to house fishes in (i.e., it hasn't ever been used to mix weedkiller or insecticide, and doesn't leach toxic material into the water) can be pressed into service as the 'hospital' for the duration, so long as it is possible to maintain aeration and some basic filtration (e.g., sponge filter) within the container during the medication phase. Oh, and DO NOT use activated carbon filtration or ion exchange resins in the hospital aquarium because that will remove your medication! EDIT : Almost forgot. I use Protozin. Protozin is somewhat expensive, but it is claimed by the makers to be formulated so as to impact as little as possible upon filter bacteria. And, upon the occasions I have had to use it, it works well

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

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Keith

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Ditto what frank said

Carbon has a use life of only a month, less if it's been picking stuff out of the water, like a lot of tannins.

As for the salt. From what I've read, it "stimulates" the slime coat of fish by burning them a bit to get them to produce more.

Yes, most ich is intolerant to salt, and was used for many years in the early days of fishkeeping, but with the new medications available I wouldnt suggest it.

While medicating, make sure you increase surface agitation by adding an airstone. If you havent got a pump and stone handy lower the water a smidge and see if you can get the output of your filter to splash across the surface. Anything that breaks the surface tension of the water will increase the exchange of gasses. This is very important when medicating.

^_^