2nd Fallow Ich Fail - Please help before I give up

bshonesy · Aug 4, 2023

So I have just recognized that my 2nd fallow period has failed this morning, and I'm going to have to try something different. Here's the history:

I started losing fish rapidly in Nov 22 (10 months ago) after buying new fish that were supposed to have been pre-quarantined, saw white ich-like spots, took a scrape post-mortem and posted the photomicrographs and Jay Hemdal helped confirm it was cryptocaryon irritans. Also did a Aquabiomics test which also confirmed and did not detect any other parasites other than trematodes which did pop up once they were in QT as a skin fluke infection (treated). So I'm confident that what I'm dealing with is Ich vs velvet for example.
I did a fallow period of 76 days which included 35 days in copper power 2.25-2.5 at 27C (the fallow tank was also set to 27C).
Re-introduced and Ich reappears, but no deaths - fish go into Copper for 60 days, after which I notice a re-emergence of the skin flukes so they get treated with Praziquantal for 3 rounds x 8 days. All in I was 90+ days fallow at 27C. My carbon reactor was taken offline throughout, and I did stir the sandbed and blow off all rock and areas of the sump several times at the beginning of the fallow.
2 weeks after reintroducing, spots are back on my tangs.

Relevant Tank Details:

150G DT, ~35G in a 75G sump
A negative space aquascape of live rock - so lots of flow around it - vs having deep areas of piled live rock.
~20-30 lbs of live rock in the sump along with a MarinePure Biomedia Plate that is broken into 4 cubes.
Only have 5 small corals
Gold rimmed Tang, blue tang, regal angel, blue spotted pufferfish, yellow watchman goby, clownfish

What can I do differently? Maybe I just need to start over with this tank...

bluemon · Aug 4, 2023

Did you have any new invert additions while it was fallow?

Also, is it possible you just missed a fish in there?

Surdokas · Aug 4, 2023

Cooper treating fish is like giving them chemo every time you treat them it's really hard on their system. Just start feeding them a few times a day, soak their food in ginger powder (from grocery store) as long as they are eating they will be fine.
The only time I've lost fish to ich was due to freaking out and tearing them which just stresses them out more. An unstressed fish will stay healthy enough to fight off ich.

bshonesy · Aug 4, 2023

bluemon said:
Did you have any new invert additions while it was fallow?

Also, is it possible you just missed a fish in there?

No new additions, and no I got all the fish out.

Tcook · Aug 4, 2023

How frustrating! QT tanks and DT in the same room? Which copper preparation did you use? Did you use a Hana checker? @vetteguy53081

vetteguy53081 · Aug 4, 2023

bshonesy said:
So I have just recognized that my 2nd fallow period has failed this morning, and I'm going to have to try something different. Here's the history:

I started losing fish rapidly in Nov 22 (10 months ago) after buying new fish that were supposed to have been pre-quarantined, saw white ich-like spots, took a scrape post-mortem and posted the photomicrographs and Jay Hemdal helped confirm it was cryptocaryon irritans. Also did a Aquabiomics test which also confirmed and did not detect any other parasites other than trematodes which did pop up once they were in QT as a skin fluke infection (treated). So I'm confident that what I'm dealing with is Ich vs velvet for example.

I did a fallow period of 76 days which included 35 days in copper power 2.25-2.5 at 27C (the fallow tank was also set to 27C).

Re-introduced and Ich reappears, but no deaths - fish go into Copper for 60 days, after which I notice a re-emergence of the skin flukes so they get treated with Praziquantal for 3 rounds x 8 days. All in I was 90+ days fallow at 27C. My carbon reactor was taken offline throughout, and I did stir the sandbed and blow off all rock and areas of the sump several times at the beginning of the fallow.

2 weeks after reintroducing, spots are back on my tangs.

Relevant Tank Details:

150G DT, ~35G in a 75G sump

A negative space aquascape of live rock - so lots of flow around it - vs having deep areas of piled live rock.

~20-30 lbs of live rock in the sump along with a MarinePure Biomedia Plate that is broken into 4 cubes.

Only have 5 small corals

Gold rimmed Tang, blue tang, regal angel, blue spotted pufferfish, yellow watchman goby, clownfish

What can I do differently? Maybe I just need to start over with this tank...

At times it takes repeat treatment and you want to run tank at 80.5 degrees and siphon in between to rid of any dead cysts and other matter
I had a person with similar issue and they added ruby rally to tank and the issue finally ceased which it may have been velvet

kevgib67 · Aug 4, 2023

Well, you can always go the ich management route. Uv if you don’t have one running, polyp lab medic, heavy feeding , soaking food in Vitachem, Selcon and Garlic Extreme.

Jay Hemdal · Aug 4, 2023

bshonesy said:
So I have just recognized that my 2nd fallow period has failed this morning, and I'm going to have to try something different. Here's the history:

I started losing fish rapidly in Nov 22 (10 months ago) after buying new fish that were supposed to have been pre-quarantined, saw white ich-like spots, took a scrape post-mortem and posted the photomicrographs and Jay Hemdal helped confirm it was cryptocaryon irritans. Also did a Aquabiomics test which also confirmed and did not detect any other parasites other than trematodes which did pop up once they were in QT as a skin fluke infection (treated). So I'm confident that what I'm dealing with is Ich vs velvet for example.

I did a fallow period of 76 days which included 35 days in copper power 2.25-2.5 at 27C (the fallow tank was also set to 27C).

Re-introduced and Ich reappears, but no deaths - fish go into Copper for 60 days, after which I notice a re-emergence of the skin flukes so they get treated with Praziquantal for 3 rounds x 8 days. All in I was 90+ days fallow at 27C. My carbon reactor was taken offline throughout, and I did stir the sandbed and blow off all rock and areas of the sump several times at the beginning of the fallow.

2 weeks after reintroducing, spots are back on my tangs.

Relevant Tank Details:

150G DT, ~35G in a 75G sump

A negative space aquascape of live rock - so lots of flow around it - vs having deep areas of piled live rock.

~20-30 lbs of live rock in the sump along with a MarinePure Biomedia Plate that is broken into 4 cubes.

Only have 5 small corals

Gold rimmed Tang, blue tang, regal angel, blue spotted pufferfish, yellow watchman goby, clownfish

What can I do differently? Maybe I just need to start over with this tank...

Sorry to hear, so very frustrating!

It sounds like you did everything correctly, but the devil is always in the details. Two things come to mind; 1) Some break in the biosecurity (as was mentioned, introducing anything "wet" from another tank incurs the risk of reintroducing parasites. 2) Are you 100% you are seeing ich and not mucus plugs? Tangs frequently develop mucus plugs from some stressor, but these spots are larger than ich trophonts are.

Here is a write up I did on the mucus plugs/cones:

Idiopathic mucus plugs/cones: Fish sometimes develop excess mucus that excretes from the producing skin cells and rather than spreading out along the body, rises up as a cone or a plug. These presumable develop from some sort of skin irritation. If you do a skin scrape on them, all you see is mucus. They do show up on dark colored fish more often, probably because the contrast makes them easier to see. The cause(s) for this is unknown. In some cases, they just go away, in other cases, the fish dies - but in those cases, it is probable that there was a secondary issue. There may be some correlation between copper sulfate use, or a reaction to a previous skin infection. There is also some strong correlation between this issue and the species of fish; surgeonfish, tetras and Anabantids are all known to develop this. Many people misdiagnose these mucus plugs as Cryptocaryon or Lymphocystis, but the plug or cone shape to the mucus is diagnostic to some degree.

Here is an article I wrote on biosecurity: