Treatment time with copper or chloroquine

[Shufflepig]

After researching the life cycle of Marine Ich and marine velvet I am wondering why when treating an infected fish in a hospital tank or propholactically treating in QT, exposure to the meds needs to be at least 21 days. It appears that the trophont only stays on the fish for 7-9 days before dropping off to encyst. Therefore if you treat the fish for 9 days all trophonts will have fallen off and all free swimming theronts should be dead. If you remove the fish after 9 days it should be disease free.
Now the tank may still contain the cysts but if you break down and clean the tank you can eradicate any remaining cysts.
I would think exposing the fish to less days in either medication would only benefit him.
Any thoughts?

 

[andys]

Following

 

[HotRocks]

I think the general consensus is this:

Adding a couple days to be sure, treating for 10-14 days (I treat for 14 days) in therapeutic copper or CP with a transfer to another sterile QT can successfully remove parasites.

I also would recommend a 14 day observational period in the sterile med free tank to be sure it was a successful treatment.

If you don't use the transfer at 14 day method, and are utilizing only one QT then you would actually want to treat for a full 30 days at the therapeutic level prior to removing the copper or CP.

 

[Humblefish]

You can treat for only 14 days provided two things:

1. The copper or Chloroquine level is at full therapeutic for the entire 14 days.
2. On Day 15, you transfer the fish to a different QT at least 10 feet away.

 

[ap7x]

Sorry to bump an old thread but the question didn't really seemed to be answered. Unless the answer was: To be safe, throw in a few extra days...

Not even 9 days, but trophonts drop after 3-7 days correct? So technically, as inferred by OP, after those 7 days, the fish should be disease free, none of the theronts that could have existed for whatever reason could re-infect the fish (let's assume copper was therapeutic entire time 100%).

Excluding user error with therapeutic levels or something, is there a specific reason(s) I am missing where up to an extra 7 days (see 10-14 days a lot here) is recommended when transferring to a sterile tank after? Came across this while trying to find an answer myself since my fish are in copper now and already there seems to be appetite suppression day 2 of therapeutic levels, so I am looking at it as the same as OP: less days in copper unnecessarily = more benefit to fish.

Of course, 3-7 more days in copper probably won't be the main cause of a fish dying in QT but to really nail the details... thanks!

 

[4FordFamily]

Sorry to bump an old thread but the question didn't really seemed to be answered. Unless the answer was: To be safe, throw in a few extra days...

Not even 9 days, but trophonts drop after 3-7 days correct? So technically, as inferred by OP, after those 7 days, the fish should be disease free, none of the theronts that could have existed for whatever reason could re-infect the fish (let's assume copper was therapeutic entire time 100%).

Excluding user error with therapeutic levels or something, is there a specific reason(s) I am missing where up to an extra 7 days (see 10-14 days a lot here) is recommended when transferring to a sterile tank after? Came across this while trying to find an answer myself since my fish are in copper now and already there seems to be appetite suppression day 2 of therapeutic levels, so I am looking at it as the same as OP: less days in copper unnecessarily = more benefit to fish.

Of course, 3-7 more days in copper probably won't be the main cause of a fish dying in QT but to really nail the details... thanks!

The bottom line is margin of error. When you’re talking about a potentially high number of parasites, is it a risk you want to take?

As someone that lost a ton of fish recently to a failed treatment (CP was removed unknowingly because the pad in the Marineland filter is poly and thus removed it). 4 days in final observation (after what I thought was a 14 day observation period)a nd fish were already too far gone from velvet, then almost all of the other survivors died from secondary gram negative bacterial infections that took hold afterward. We didn’t look for velvet didn’t think we needed to. This infected observation tank was a 125 galllon full of ornamental and expensive angels tangs and wrasse. By far the most trying thing I’ve been through in this hobby in 14 years.

It was so successful, 3 days from release in my 500 gallon. Everything had worked perfectly. 96% success across dozens of fish.

So, human error and margin of error. 10-14 days should do it and protect you from the very unlucky case that something atypical happens.

Fallow periods are padded as well. Not worth the risk and aggravation of not being patient.

I hope this helps.

 

[ap7x]

Oh for sure, I understand the human error part. Or something unexpected like the poly filter, which I read from y’all too - sorry to hear about it. Not the same scale, but I’m here because of a velvet wipeout as a “welcome back to the hobby” present

But I guess that is the answer then? 7-8 days is technically safe to transfer to sterile tank and any extra days whether 10, 14, 20 or what not is just extra safety net for non-lifecycle related or actual treatment effectiveness reasons?