New arrival has ick

[bessycerka]

The Fed Ex guy handed me the box, and one of two triggers is LOADED, and I mean LOADED with ick. So, after 1 hour acclimation to 1.023 salinity, I dropped tha salinity in the hospital to 1.020, and re acclimated him/her. Heater set to 82F, and ran to the store to get Cupramine. The thing is, the poor fish is petrified, and surely stressed out to the tenth power. After playing dead for an hour, and becoming pale and splotchty, ( all normal for queen triggers when scared ) the fish is finally upright, but frozen in fear, and going back and forth from splotchy to normal. It's sad, yet comical that the fish has been in this same position for 2 hours now, yet fins, eyes, and gills moving. Like a statue of a fish. With so much ick causing stress, the thing to do you'd think would be get the ick off fast with low salinity, or copper, but I don't want to kill the fish in the process. Any ideas out there? The fish is about 3 inches.....

 

[nycbob]

u shouldnt hv any substrate in ur qt tank. all it should hv r heater and filter. i wouldt hypo him immediately upon arrival. since there is no invert in ur qt tank, why not use copper?

 

[bessycerka]

there's a small amt of gravel for bio ( it cycled a month ago ) so I left it in there, this is the first patient in this hospital. I'm worried that the shock of the copper will kill the fish, as it's petrified and stressed, what do you think, I was also considering a freshwater dip for a minute or 2 to shock the ick, but again, shocks the fish too.

 

[bessycerka]

so the fish calmed down and started swimming normally, I gave it a 60 second freshwater dunk, lowered the salinity a little more in the hospital and put some copper in, we'll see what happens next. The ick spots are now dangling from his body..............

 

[beth]

Do you have copper test kit?

 

[bessycerka]

no, I was in a hurry and forgot to get that, so I used a very small amount of the copper, it said 1 ml per 10 gallons. These things are actually looking like tiny whiskers now, I wonder if this is ick ????? Could be a different parasite.

 

[beth]

Can you post a more detailed up close picture?

 

[flricordia]

That sucks. had to have been shipped with it already, don't you think? Where did you get them?

 

[bessycerka]

I have been trying with a side view pic, but ya know how the autofocus always gets the glass, plus the fish isn't exactly POSING for the shot, I'm still tryin, I never saw this before. I got it from a supplier online from California ( big, and can't say name of ), I don't fault them though, the undulated trigger is a beauty and in good health. I've been speaking with 2 suppliers in California, and they just lost a lot of queen triggers, so there may be something wrong more than we know. The trigger came out of the bag this way.

 

[bessycerka]

OK, in a rush, these are the best right now, when I enlarge the pic to normal size the site tells me the file is too big, so I have to use the small size. As for focus, in a rush this is it. The white spots show up best whan the fish stresses and the colors change, every white spot looks like 5 O' clock shadow whiskers that are white. When the fish turns so that his tail faces you, against the dark background you can see these things sticking out really well. I'm going to have my girlfriend shoot the next batch, she does this well. Hold on.........

 

[beth]

Its ich. Huge ich. Is that QT well established? Add some hiding spots for the fish. It looks like the QT is empty. Even a few pieces of pvc pipe will work well.

 

[bessycerka]

yes, it is well established, 3 months, cycled, & tested, he's the first to be in it. Huge ick, the worst I've seen. We took some more pics, and the battery died, so I'm waiting for them to re charge. I wish the Canon sure shot would MANUAL FOCUS but it wont, it's very easy to see but the camera won't capture it, the flash washes it out and without flash, even leaning on the table camera movement blurs the shot, frustrating.... I will try some GOOD pics when they re- charge. I'll put some staghorn in it.......

 

[s_holman33]

Glad to see you have a hospital tank/qt setup!

Imagine if you had just dumped him in your display tank like most people do?

 

[bessycerka]

yeah, especiall after last night 's, partial water change, and running the Magnum with waterpolisher cartridge on it for 3 days. I'd been prepping that tank for a week!

 

[beth]

You need to either continue with the copper treatment, using a test kit daily to test levels, or go with hyposalinity. Do you have a refractometer?

 

[bessycerka]

No, just a hydrometer. I lowered the salinity to 1.018, and the camera batteries are still on the charger. I put some staghorn in, and threw a magazine on top of the tank. I gave the fish a fresh water bath for 1 minute, and after 40 seconds, he went wild, I thought he'd jump out of the container. It's really a sparky fish despite the ick but, he needs a rest I think.

 

[blazeddiamonds]

Back view/side

 

[blazeddiamonds]

(forgive........learning the camera program)

 

[btb9000]

Buy a refractometer, or copper test kit. You're going to need either or. I personally would go with hypo-salinity.

 

[bessycerka]

Wow, luckily I'm between assignments now, or I'd never have the time to do all of this. Today after doing everything previously mentioned, the fish is swimming as normal, AND eating. Big improvement over yesterday, but despite everything done so far, still speckled. I raised the temp from 80 to 85F in hopes that the ick will leave his body. The salinity is 1.013 now and there's also cupramine in there from yesterday ( 1 ml / 10 gallons )
I have cured many fish, particularly queen triggers of ick. I worked in a store where we had a very high volume of fish moving through the place. I say this because I've never seen a case of ick SO STUBBORN before! Lowering the salinity, raising the temp in hospital tank always seemed to have a substantial effect, then I'd add methelyne blue or malachite green, maintain the levels for a month and VOILA, the ich was gone for good. This fish has shown zero change ( except for eating and calming down ) Unbelievable...........