Adding femsal against Itch

[Icryhard]

I have a blue tang fish, who had gotten 2-3 white dots on its body 2 days after buying it. I went to the store and got Colombo femsal. It says to drop on day 1, 3 and 5. I cannot catch the blue tang since its quick and immediately swims under all my rocks and doesn't come out for a solid 20 minutes. So it isn't an option to treat it with cupper either. Does anyone have experience with femsal, or for that matter know whether it's possible to add it more frequently to suppress the outbreak, without damaging corals and/or other fish? The blue tang seems to be happy and is swimming around just fine. It also eats very well and sometimes just scratches itself to the rocks (that's why I assume it's itch).

On a sidenote (and a second question): How should I treat a fish who's sensitive to this, before introducing it to my aquairum? Putting it in an isolated tank and then trying to catch it later on will also cause stress. How do you people introduce fish which are sensitive to itch?

 

[brandon429]

I would never do that above, I'd do what they're doing here:

Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis

A forum for discussing treatment and diagnosing saltwater reef fish.

www.reef2reef.com

that's a very tight set of responses they're using over and over for five years there. none of it is adding something to a display reef. that won't work.

 

[Icryhard]

I would never do that above, I'd do what they're doing here:

Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis

A forum for discussing treatment and diagnosing saltwater reef fish.

www.reef2reef.com

that's a very tight set of responses they're using over and over for five years there. none of it is adding something to a display reef. that won't work.

Okay, but I have no choice in regards to QT. Either I stress the fish even more, or I try to solve it somehow in its main tank. As of now that's my problem, and I would like to know whether there is a possibility of doing so.

 

[brandon429]

there is no possibility so sorry

that's not being mean, its a reflection that no ten page threads exist for your goal, or a single forum dedicated to it, at best all you can find is a few one off testimonies of it working in someones home.


those forums above are doing the hard work because that's all that works.

 

[brandon429]

don't put it into an isolated tank that is stressful, agreed that's unideal


put the fish into a dedicated sub system set up as an observational holding system, not a bare bones hospital quarantine setup. in order to run the big reef tank, you need smaller marine fish tanks. agreed that scary hospital setups are problematic, but dimly lit/muted earth tone holding systems using terra cotta pots and plastic plants that look somewhat like a fish tank are much better (this is Paul B's idea, from his book and posts)

I don't agree that its better to leave him in the tank, he's stressed rn from skipping required disease preps.

 

[Icryhard]

don't put it into an isolated tank that is stressful, agreed that's unideal


put the fish into a dedicated sub system set up as an observational holding system, not a bare bones hospital quarantine setup. in order to run the big reef tank, you need smaller marine fish tanks. agreed that scary hospital setups are problematic, but dimly lit/muted earth tone holding systems using terra cotta pots and plastic plants that look somewhat like a fish tank are much better (this is Paul B's idea, from his book and posts)

I don't agree that its better to leave him in the tank, he's stressed rn from skipping required disease preps.

And how could I tackle the problem? The fish is quick and there are a lot of rocks with corals. Running after him with a fishnet would only be counter-productive, wouldn't it ?

 

[bushdoc]

I don’t think you can find many people on this forum, who would advocate to treat marine ich in DT especially with this medication.
You could attempt to trap the fish and then treat in hospital tank. You should actually treat all of them. Sorry for your trouble.

 

[adittam]

The ONLY treatments that will eradicate marine ich (not itch) are copper or hyposalinity, outlined here:

Current Quarantine Protocol

2024 Quarantine Procedures Jay Hemdal David Scarborough Protozoans (Cryptocaryon/ich, Amyloodinium/velvet) and Metazoan trematodes/flukes are by far the most common parasites found on newly acquired fish. A carefully managed, proactive quarantine process can effectively eliminate these...

www.reef2reef.com

and here:

Hyposalinity

Hyposalinity Jay Hemdal 2024 This term refers to a long-term bath treatment for marine fishes in which the salt content of the water is lowered and held below the point that certain parasites can survive. The salt level reached, and the time of the treatment are the two variables...

www.reef2reef.com

There are a million other ich medications marketed that are "reef safe", but the reality is, none of them can kill the parasites during all of their different life stages. They continue to be sold because people buy them anyway.

You have two options:
1. Set up a hospital tank, remove ALL of your fish from your display tank (fish traps are another option for the fish that are impossible to catch with a net), and treat them in the hospital tank using one of the above treatments for 45 days while your display tank remains fallow (https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/45-day-fallow-periods.805213/)
2. Feed the fish well, set up an ich mitigation system like a UV sterilizer, and hope for the best, KNOWING that your display will always have ich and any fish in the system could potentially be infected in the future.