Treating ich in the display tank... impossible or just suboptimal?

[AndyR83]

Hello,

One of the lessons I’ve learned the hard way in this hobby has been the importance of implementing a reliable quarantine process. I’m building a QT as we speak based on the information I’ve found on this site. I fully understand that the issues I’m having were caused by my own poor practices and have reached a level of competence and awareness that compelled me to implement appropriate changes. I’m reaching out tonight for guidance getting started with this process.

Over the past few weeks I’ve suffered some very hard hitting losses due to ich and/or velvet (two powder blue tangs and most recently a beautiful harlequin tusk.) I’ve also had several beloved fish show symptoms that resolved spontaneously without intervention. Presumably, these fish were able to “tough it out” until the parasites dropped off on their own to begin the cycle anew. Tonight, my favorite fish of all (dogface puffer) has developed those all too familiar white spots.

I’m deeply conflicted at this point. Now that my favorite fish is showing white spots, I want to take swift action to help her. That said, I’m currently 0/3 on this. The other three fish all died scared and alone in a quarantine tank despite aggressive efforts to treat them (FW dips and Cupramine, plus one attempt that included hyposalinity treatment.) I’d almost rather let the poor thing stay in her own comfortable surroundings if she’s likely to die no matter what I do. I hate the idea of stressing her out and making her final few days so unpleasant.

I’d like to break this cycle once and for all. I have read extensively on this topic and am looking to eradicate the issue rather than manage it. I’m very confident that my implementations of the strategies mentioned above were all properly executed. Human emergency medicine has been my specialty for just about 20 years now and I’m certainly no stranger to procedures far more complex than these.

While I realize there are various perils and challenges related to treatment being administered to a display tank, are there any reports of this having been accomplished successfully? I am aware that no treatment options are considered reef safe, and am ok with this. Given the very large number of livestock (325 gallons of DT) it would be far easier for me to remove the few small corals and inverts I have than all of my many fish.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated! If it helps, please assume money is no object. This fish is like a member of the family. We love her dearly.

 

[Old Fritz]

There are a few things you can do

1) remove all fish and treat them in a qt until the fallow period is up in your dt (this is the recommended way)
2) remove all rock, sand, and inverts from the dt and treat with copper, then once the treatment is over add carbon (only for cupramine) to remove all copper and add cuprisorb to be safe. After that add your rock, sand, and inverts back in after testing the water for any residual copper
3) leave all rocks and sand in the dt and treat with copper. This is not recommended for a few reasons.
1. your sand and rock will absorb copper making consistent copper levels difficult
2. there is no guarantee that you will ever be able to add inverts back into the tank because who knows how long your rock and sand will be leaching out copper

option 3 is doable, after all thats what I did when I worked in a petco, but I never attempted to add inverts to the tanks ever again.

 

[AcroNem]

Honestly, there is really no viable in tank treatment for Cryptocaryon, or really any other parasite. Your one option would be to remove rocks and invertebrates and treat with copper as has been said. The issue with that is encysted Cryptocaryon can survive a very long time in anaerobic zones (which can be found in substrate and rocks) in your system even through medication, so it is advisable to just treat everything in a proper quarantine system and allow the system to run through the correct fallow period.