Is it possible?

[puff(er) daddy]

I have a 125gal tank with a 8inch mapp puffer and a 6inch blue spotted grouper. The grouper has ick for about three to four weeks. Me being a beginner to this hobby I just found out what it was.
Anyway, the grouper looks like he's getting better. He is still not eating but it's less parasites on his body. Is it possible for him to kick the ick without help on my part?

 

[beth]

With Ick the tomite is the swimming stage when these parasites become infectious to fish. During this stage of the ick life-cycle their function is to find a host fish, or die trying. After they attach to the gills or body of a fish, they develop into the second stage, the parasitic trophont. During this stage they burrow into the fish, feeding on it’s tissues, which can cause considerable damage and even result in a secondary bacterial infection on the infected fish. Once well fed the trophonts stop feeding and develop cystic coverings. This becomes the inactive tomont stage and during this final stage the cysts may stay trapped in the mucus of the fish, or fall off and sit on the bottom of the aquarium. Within 6 to 10 days hundreds of new tomites emerge looking for fish hosts and the cycle begins all over again, and again and again until something is done about it. The only time this parasite is vulnerable is during their free swimming stage. The standard treatment for Ick is copper sulfate and hyposalinity.
Please be aware that your whole tank is infected at this point.
In order to suggest a treatment course, if you need help with that, you will need to give us info about your tank. Is it fish only, reef, do you have live rock, live sand? Do you have a separate hospital tank or not, are you keeping any inverts?
[ August 02, 2001: Message edited by: Beth ]

 

[puff(er) daddy]

I have just fish in my tank with five turbo snails. I have two corals for decoration and driftwood. For subtrate I started out with sand not live just regular sand. Then I added cc after. I'm beginning to set up a hospital tank as we speak. It's a 10gal. would that be sufficiant?
Is there still hope or is it to late.

 

[puff(er) daddy]

So you saying that I can treat the fish in my tank without setting up a hospital tank?
Ok, what's buffer and how do I measure the amount I'm putting in and the amount that should be in the tank?

 

[beth]

You will have to setup something for the snails as they will not survive hyposalinity.
There are test kits that measure ph and buffer-levels.

 

[puff(er) daddy]

Thanks, I'll keep you updated!

 

[puff(er) daddy]

He's dead. I did a water change and removed some of the cc from the tank. I alse tried to give him a f/w dip which went well until I added him back to the display tank.
I'm really discouraged! I don't like to lose any of my animals. I'm going to take a time out in the saltwater fish game until I get enough knowledge. I still have my puffer in the tank I hope he makes it. He looks fine. I'm really at a lost of words right now. Please tell me where I went wrong, besides being over axncious.

 

[pufferlover]

At this point is the Puffer showing any spots on its fins. I have found that when my Puffers are starting to get ill with parasites their fins are the first to show many small spots on them. Since you must have had some Ick in that tank if the grouper was spotted I would still do the hypo for a month to kill it off. I have used hypo a number of times with my Dogface Puffers and it has worked every time with no bad reaction from the Puffer. You rae lucky in that you only have one fish to clean up at the moment and altho Ick prone the Puffers for my money seem to come out of those battles more often then not. If not real sure of hypo procedure use our search feature upper right there have been many good discussions on that subject lately. Just click on it type in hyposalinity and you will find step by step instructions plus do's and dont's. Don't be discouraged we have all been there and yet we all bounce back and start again because this hobby is addictive.

 

[puff(er) daddy]

Thanks for the reply. No my puffer is doing fine right now his eating habbits have returned he must have reacted to the water change. Ok, I'm going to do that hyposalinity thing I'll let you know how that turns out.
I have a few questions for you(pufferlover).
My puffer is a 7to8 inch arothron mappa, some say scribbled puffer, maybe the same but anyway, what should the water levels be for this fish.(ph,nitrite,nitrate,ammon.,and salinity)?