Originally Posted by
florida joe
http:///forum/post/3046899
WOW you are assuming I have more then one moment of clarity a day
Actual there is no reproduction, I assume you mean in the reproduction stage.
Hypo is effective as long as you keep your tank in the proper salinity range. If you keep your QT/HT at hypo levels for six weeks ( important because we do not know positively what stage of the parasite was introduce into our tanks) you are assuring yourself that all of the parasites in their encystment stage have been exposed to a close to equal pressure differential and can not divideCopper
Again we must take into consideration what stage the parasite is in when we start treatments. By the time we notice white spots on our fish there can already be parasites in the reproductive stage, which can last up to 4 weeks.
I would think,( “scale less Fish) would be more prone to irritation to copper
Remember now that the fallow DT and the fish treatment has now been decoupled. My original question has been addressed to my satisfaction with the information you provided on the life cycle; particularly that the encystment stage can last up to 28 days. This was new information to me, as the baseline for discussion regarding ****** has always been Beth’s sticky in the disease forum stating a life cycle of 2 weeks. Now I understand that the cycle has a broader range “from” two weeks to 5 weeks; depending on how the reproduction stage goes.
This is where I shifted to treatment of the fish. For that, the given is the fish was removed from the problem environment and put in a “sterile” QT/HT. So we can assume that the parasite life cycle stage is known as the fish is brining it into the aquarium at that point. Knowing that the two treatments deal with the parasite in different cycles; hypo in encystment and copper in free swimming; I was trying to put the timing in my head as to the actual time needed for each treatment. In another post, your likened the hypo treatment to the parasite “drowning in itself” without the osmotic pressure differential needed to divide. My question is how long that process takes in that stage. If I understand that it is not an immediate result; then I can see why the recommendation you put forth is for 6 weeks of hypo in order to catch the 28day potential for the encystment stage.
For Copper, am I to understand that it kills during the theronts stage? If so, once the Trophonts stage is complete, it should be impossible for the fish to be “re-infected” at proper copper concentration. So if we assume again that the parasite was only introduced to the QT with the fish, one would think that 7-10 days in the environment with proper treatment dose concentration to get through the Trophonts stage would be sufficient in a copper environment; at which time you could remove the fish from the copper environment. I’m not trying to short cut, but rather minimize overkill because I don’t like keeping a fish at therapeutic copper levels do to adverse reactions and would like to minimize exposure.
