23 days in hypo, have 3 ich spots

[guitarfish]

Hi all,
My poor yellow tang, will she ever get out of jail? I moved her into the QT tank along with my other 3 small fish, took them down to 1.009, where they've been for 23 days. I have a refractometer, that I've checked a number of times with RO water, same temp as tank water (it's an ATC refractometer anyway), and it's dead on ZERO with RO water. My SG is 1.009 or lower, in fact it's been closer to 1.008 this last week.
Tonight I can see 2-3 ich spots on her sides which I'm virtually certain were not there a day or two ago. OK, so the clock begins again, I have to go 21 days at least, after these spots are gone, right? No signs of ich on the other fish, btw.
How does this happen? Were there some parasites that were somehow able to breakout and attach to the fish despite being at 1.009? I'm starting to wonder if my main tank will ever have fish in it.

 

[leenie]

I don't have much experience, but I'm QTing some fish myself. They are also at 1.009 and have been for a few weeks. Anyway, I was at the LFS and saw some ick treatment. When I asked the owner if I could use this in addition to hypo, he said I could, and it would rid the ick faster. He said to use a half dose of the recommended dose. So I did, and the ick seems to be gone in a matter of 1 day. Maybe you can try that and see what happens...

 

[guitarfish]

leenie - I appreciate the suggestion, but those ich potions aren't worth the plastic container they come in. Your LFS needs to sell product, of course they're going to tell you to try it. Ich has a number of stages, and it may seem to be suddenly gone, but it will be back again unless you're using copper or hyposalinity.

 

[leenie]

I AM using Hypo. All I'm saying is I used the solution too and the visible ick was gone in 1 day. So I'm sure the hypo was the main ick deterrent, but I think the solution helped too. It's been 3 days now and still not 1 trace of it. Just my experience. Like I said, I'm no expert, but you were concerned about your ick not going away even while in hypo. Just trying to share what worked for me.
While I do agree that most LFS will sell anything to you, not all of them are monsters. I've gotten some great advice from my LFS and horrible advice from message boards, and vice versa.
Good luck, hope it goes away!

 

[guitarfish]

I understand, I didn't mean to sound mean

I've been through the wars with all that stuff, so I cringe at the thought of it. Yes, my dilemma is I have some strong ich refusing to die in hypo right now.

 

[beth]

What is your source of RO water? I would suggest using bottled Distilled water to calibrate the refract, then adjust the salinity AND specific gravity to: 1.009 sg and 14ppm salinity for hypo conditions.
Are you sure that what you are seeing is ich? Also, you really need to check you salinity reading daily and make sure that the levels don't ever get above the target.
How is you pH?

 

[guitarfish]

Hi Beth, thanks for posting on this one. I calibrated the refractomer with homemade RO water from a RO unit I bought just a few months ago. It never occurred to me to try a different source, but I can get some distilled water today and recheck it the calibration.
I am not certain it's ich, I only saw a couple spots, but my gut tells me it is. I will be watching it closely.
I have been watching the salinity closely. My parameters:
Temp - 80
pH - 8.3 (was down as low as 8.0 last week, but I gradually pulled it back up).
SG - 1.0085 - I have been monitoring daily to keep at or below 1.009.

 

[guitarfish]

I'm really stumped here, everyone.
1) It's definitely ich. There are 5-6 white spots here and there on both sides of the tang, at Day 24 in hypo.
2) My refractometer is dead on accurate. I checked the calibration with a new containter of distilled water I purchased - 1.000, just like my RO water. I check the tank water - 1.009.
I really don't know what to do next, this goes against everything I've understood about hypo.
I did hypo for EXACTLY 21 days on my fish back in Jan and didn't succeed, I assumed then because I didn't do it long enough, but now I'm thinking otherwise.
Do I have super-ich?
I welcome your replies.

 

[elfdoctors]

It sounds like you are doing hypo correctly. I am also concerned that you may not even have ich.
Were there any other symptoms besides the spots? Do you have sand substrate in the tank? Sometimes sand grains can get incorporated into the slime layer of the fish and can appear to look like ich. These spots should appear coarser then typical salt grains. The fish may even have some scratching behavior. The fish should otherwise appear healthy. Perhaps this is what your fish have???
Related to the possibility of "super-ich", there have been reports of ich variants which have been resistant to hyposalinity. Fortunately these have never been reported in the hobbyist trade yet. I would doubt that you would have one of these.

 

[guitarfish]

elf, this has got me pretty upset. It's definitely ich. White spots, was on the tang mostly, but on 2 other fish when I started hypo. You could see some was on their fins, some on their bodies. The tang had it the worst, and scratched and darted around for a couple weeks. Finally he settled down. Hadn't seen any spots for weeks. Then, right on queue, ~21 days after last round, here come more spots. What I initially spotted last night is worse tonight.
I confess I had a couple cupfulls of crushed coral in the tank,. which I removed last night. I understand ich likes to attach to substrate, but at 1.009, it shouldn't be able to survive anyway.
The only thing I can think to do, short of going to copper, which I don't want to do, is try going down to 1.007. But I don't know if that's safe or not. I need more feedback from the experts. I'm quite bummed about this.

 

[elfdoctors]

Any chance of getting a pic?
I have some crushed coral at the bottom of my QT also but I have not had to use meds in it. Crushed coral grains should be too large to be the problem. I think that the sand grain possibility may be behind some of the "cures" from the reef-safe bottle products. It is easy to eradicate an infection that isn't there.
I certainly don't consider myself an expert. Before going to copper (which the moderators occasionally recommend in cases like this), you might consider trying an antibiotic such as Maracyn 2. The open sores that are left over from the ich can sometimes get infected. This happens more often in hyposaline conditions as normal strength saltwater inhibits bacterial growth.
You might also consider taking the specific gravity down to 1.008 initially before going to 1.007. I probably wouldn't go any lower then that as I have heard that that is the usual limit. The safe lower limit for salinity will vary for different species of fish as well as age of the fish. This depends on the ability of the fish to make a dilute urine. If they are otherwise doing well in hyposaline conditions there should only be a small risk to gradually bringing the salinity down and seeing how they do.
That's about all I can offer you (except my sympathy for the hassles you are going through). Hang in there!

 

[guitarfish]

Hi Terry, I'm glad you joined in here. I read one of your newly published articles last night.
THE SPOTS
The spots are slightly raised on the sides of the fish, like a grain of salt. They appear to be more of a soft fuzzy as opposed to a crystal, hard texture. They don't move. They are all consistent in terms of size and shape.
The yellow tang introduced this into my system, he had the most spots. He probably had 20 or more when I started hypo the first time. I did hypo for 21 days, acclimated the fish back to the main tank, and he had new spots and was scratching after about a week.
I moved all fish to QT again, took them down to 1.009. The spots disappeared in a few days, and the fish eventually stopped scratching. However, a couple days ago there are new spots, they look exactly like the original ones, and the fish is scratching again.
LYMPHOCYTIS
I have never seen it in person but I read about it on one of these posts. It doesn't sound like what I've got here. The fact that the appearance of the spots is consistent with the ich life cycle, plus their appearance, (and disappearance) all leads me to believe it's ich.
Also, two of the other small fish developed ich spots at the same time as the tang, and these disappeared around the same timeframe as his did.
SG vs SALINITY
This has always confused me. The refractometer I use as SG on one side, salinity on the other, so I would assume there's a correlation between them. In other words, SG of 1.009 is always equal to...whatever is on the PPT side (I don't have my instrument with me). I usually pay attention to the SG side, and it's been 1.009, +/- 0.0005. I will do some research on the difference between the two.
CONCLUSIONS?
I don't believe I have some resistant "super ich", the odds are against that I think. I've read this isn't something that's shown up in home aquaria, yet.
Is it possible, for whatever reason, my refractometer isn't accurately reporting the level? I just don't think that's the case.
Aside from going to 1.008, are there any other ideas?

 

[guitarfish]

Salinity 12ppt
Temp 80 deg.

 

[muskyhunte]

Did you try using a product called greenx fir ich. I use this on all my new fish in my QT tankfor the first 2 weeks. It says on the box to use every 3 days. If you go by the directions it works well.

 

[guitarfish]

I know someone who uses Greenex - every month. They've been fighting ich for a year.

 

[muskyhunte]

Every time I get a new fish I use 1/2 dosage for protection of my other fish.

 

[cinhark]

I have been having the same problem with my porky, he's been in qt for 3 months now. when I start raising salt in tank after hypo, he starts getting ick again???? just getting very

Im not sure I will ever get him cured, I finally decided to try copper treatment today I sure hope this helps Ive tried everything else from hypo to antibiotics. Good luck

 

[muskyhunte]

go out and get the greenx this is the answer to all your problems.

 

[guitarfish]

I don't know how my thread deteriorated to the level of Greenex. Greenex is garbage. If it worked like you're saying muskyhunte, then people like Terry, Beth, ATJ and others who've QT'd more fish than you and I ever hope to, and who've studied ich and know it like the back of their hands, well, they'd use it and recommend it. Use Greenex if you want to die all the silicon seams in your tank.
It may kill ich at the free swimming stage, but it doesn't completely remove the entire parasite from the tank, which is what we're trying to accomplish.
I decided to go the copper route in my particular case, I don't know why I'm having trouble with hypo, but until I figure it out, I'm going to do something that will work.
Thanks all for your input.

 

[guitarfish]

Terry,
On my first hypo attempt, I setup a QT tank immediately (no time to cycle), lowered the SG over a few days, and kept my fish there at 1.009 for exactly 21 days. I had to do 50% water changes during the latter half of the hypo because it wasn't cycled. This tank was bare bottom. I brought them back out of hypo over 4-5 days. When all was said and done, my main tank had been fallow for 28 days. FWIW, as I brought the fish out of hypo, I noticed my tang was shaking and darting about, acting weird, but I didn't see anything on him. Well, it turns out it was in fact ich, which was visible within a week of going back into the main tank.
I decided to try hypo again. By now the tank was cycled. I moved the fish into it, let them adjust for a few days, then lowered the SG back to 1.009. My intention was to keep them there for at least 5 weeks. The tang continued to shake and behave erratically until about 2 weeks into the process, and then that behavior ceased, and he started behaving normally. I felt I was making good progress. I was monitoring the pH and SG daily. The fish were eating, swimming, and had no signs of trouble. Then, day 23, out of the blue, the tang showed a few spots, more have appeared since then. The tang is darting about again.
The substrate I mentioned was NOT from the main tank. It was a couple cupfulls of CC, which I had stored (dry), for the express purpose of putting in the QT tank to make life a little more interesting for the fish.
As mentioned above, I doubled checked my refractometer with RO water, and store bought distilled water. I've read all the ich related articles I can get my hands on, plus posts from you, Beth, ATJ, and others. I've used separate utensils for the tanks. I believe I did this the way it should be done. I'm stumped.