ICH!

I believe that my tank woes were due to several factors (correct me if I am mistaken):

-major tank change a month ago

-decreased flow due to plumbing oversights (being fixed today) that are beyond my female brain's comprehension ;)

-Addition of new fish

-UV sterilizer pooped out without me realizing it.

 

My water parameters as of 4 days ago:

-PH 8.2

-Salinitiy 1.024

-Alk: 10.2

-Calcium: 420

-Mag: can't remember but it was good

Temp: 76-78

Ammonia: 0

Nitrites: 0

Nitrates: 15 (I have since done a water change and have not checked it)

 

The setup:

-210g tank with two overflows

-~40g sump with sock filtration--->36w UV sterilizer (now working)--->Protein skimmer (not sure on size/details)----> chaeto/chemi-pure----->then spills over to sponge filtration----->pump

-Reeflo Snapper/Dart hybrid 3600GPH

-5 koralias on wavemaker controller

 

That's all I can think of for details.  I cannot upload pics right now but I did upload some to the tank show off forum a couple weeks back. No pics of the sump area.

 

 

 

You have essentially two main choices here: (1) maintain optimal tank conditions and feed very healthy food frequently (such as vitamin enriched food or garlic to improve the fishs' immune system); or (2) remove the fish and treat them for crypt.

With respect to option 1, you will NEVER rid your fish of the parasite, and the best you can hope to achieve is a balance where the fish, although infected with the parasite, are able to cope with it. If you elect option 1, you can hope to achieve a balance with occasional spotting and abnormal behavior, including flashing, darting, scratching, reduced activity, and reduced feeding. After dealing with the crypt parasite multiple times and observing it in many other systems, fish always show some signs of being infected. I almost always observe a noticeable increase in activity and feeding once fish are treated and the parasite is no longer affecting the fish. Fish can live in a controlled crypt infestation for many years.

Option 2 has three accepted treatment approaches -- all of which require the removal of the fish from the display and treatment in a hospital tank when one's display is a reef. There is NO treatment which you can apply in a reef tank which will eliminate the parasite. All treatments which can be applied to a reef tank at best will reduce the parasites' numbers (often only temporarily), but they will not eliminate the crypt parasite. Only Hypo, copper (cupramine is preferred), and the tank transfer method work to eliminate the crypt parasite. Hypo works, but it is a very difficult treatment to do correctly because you have to constantly maintain your salinity in a very narrow range, or otherwise the treatment is ineffective. Likewise, when treating with hypo it can be difficult to maintain water quality (particularly PH) which often requires many water changes during the treatment and correspondingly a high chance that salinity will not be correctly maintained as a result of the water changes. Many people fail at hypo because they have their salinity only slightly off the required level.

Conversely, cupramine is much easier to apply because it has a wide effective range and allows for quite a wide margin for error. Cupramine, despite rumors otherwise, is very safe to use on virtually all fish, including copper sensitive fish, like puffers, angels, and tangs, all which I have successfully treated with cupramine on multiple occasions. The main thing about cupramine is you have to ramp up to treatment strength very slowly and more slowly than the directions state on the bottle. Tank transfer method is also viable, but it requires multiple tanks and a lot of work draining and refilling multiple tanks during a short period of time so if you go that direction clear your schedule for a bit.

For me, I just hate to watch my fish infected with crypt and do not enjoy them with less activity and engaging in abnormal behavior. Therefore, I always treat for crypt. Plus, I have to believe that fish overall have poorer health when they are dealing with the stress the crypt parasite causes. I cannot imagine that it is pleasant for the fish to have thousands of parasites crawling around their bodies feeding off the fish. I often see fish infected with crypt suddenly dart into a cave or hide when the parasite causes them discomfort in attempt to get away from parasites biting them. Also, crypt can be a ticking time bomb in the sense that even if you can reach a balance where your fish can cope with the parasite, any major stressor, such as temperature or salinity change, can cause the parasite to get out of control eliminating this balance and kill your fish.

This information was found at the following link: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1930781 I recommend reading the whole thread for more information.
Here is a great link to help you understand the life cycle of ich: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1931912

I hope this information is helpful to everyone as it will be my guideline to stocking a tank free of crypt (ich). This is the method i plan on using for fish QT:

One of the nicest things you will find with cupramine is in addition to its ease of application is it allows for a greatly reduced quarantine period in two ways. First, treatment for crypt and a variety of other protozoans is only a total of 3 weeks at full treatment strength. Second, it can be treated together with prazipro.

Therefore, if you were to go the profolactic route, you should be able to complete quarantine in 4 weeks or so and add your new fish to your display without material risk. What I like to do is get the new arrival eating in quarantine and then upon the new arrival first eating immediately begin cupramine which takes about 4-5 days to reach full treatment .5 strength and thereafter treat for 21 days at full .5 strength. During the last week of cupramine, I also treat with prazipro for flukes and other worms. Much shorter than going the hypo route which I am pretty sure also does not allow for dual application of prazipro. I would add that if you have a decent quarantine tank and filter you should usually be able to complete this entire treatment without a single water change. You just get your cupramine up to .5 and it holds there steady for the whole period (just make sure to top off) and then later treat once with prazipro.

How to use cupramine and prazipro:
Just because I want to keep the information in this thread complete, I want to emphasize that the two ways most people run into trouble with cupramine are: (1) the general failure to properly have a mature biological filter in quarantine leading to ammonia problems; and (2) getting to full .5 strength of cupramine too fast. The directions in my, and many others, view provide for dosing up to full strength too fast, particularly when treating your more delicate species. You really need at least 4 or more safely 5 days to ramp to full treatment strength. Likewise, with prazipro, do not follow the directions and instead dose the recommended amount in two 1/2 doses over two consecutive days and not a single full dose as provided for in the directions, particularly when treating with cupramine at the same time. Also with prazipro, keep the lights as low as possible, especially during the first 24 hours after dosing, because the medication is photosensitive and breaks down with light.