Lionfish with ick...

Veilside0Three

Reefing newb
So my Volitan lionfish came down with quite a few spots on his fins, so i bought a quarantine tank, and some martel coppersafe. He has been in the QT now for about 3 days, i have done 50% water changes daily. He isn't eating, and i'm hoping that its just because he doesnt feel comfortable in a 10 gallon tank... He is however swimming around, looking pretty healthy(other than the spots of course). How long should it take until the spots go away? I really want to get him back into the 90gallon...
 
wait until you can't see the spots anymore then wait a month. But that 10 gallon is probaly stressing him out even more. Plus if he is not eating try putting garlic on your food that you feed him. You might also want to see what gave it ick in the first place.
 
If he's stressing the size of the QT.Then he may not get over the ick.
Stress is what causes the ick to begin with.Since the ick showed up in your main tank,I'd probably just put him back where he's got more room.Most fish will recover if left alone and stressors limited or done away with.
 
If he's stressing the size of the QT.Then he may not get over the ick.
Stress is what causes the ick to begin with.Since the ick showed up in your main tank,I'd probably just put him back where he's got more room.Most fish will recover if left alone and stressors limited or done away with.

The main reason I took him out and put him into QT was because I did not want my firefish goby, yellow sleeper, or scooter blenny to catch it as well. Now that i think about it, if they were to catch it, it would have already happened, right? Since they were in the same tank and all... Should I go ahead and just dip him to get the copper off and toss him back in the 90 tonight?
 
Here are the facts on cryptocaryon irritans (ich).
It is a living creature. A parasite. It's either dead or alive. Nothing causes it. I don't think man has the capability to create life...yet.
If you saw the lion in your main tank showing signs of ich, it is present in the tank. Every fish can be infected by it. Some fish can be resistant to it due to their slime coat or scale structure and not show signs, but it's there. That's why many times you hear people say how it comes and goes in their tanks. The ich is there, but something caused the fish's resistance to go down and the parasite multiplies.
There are 2 100% proven ways to kill ich. Hyposalinity and copper. If you treat the lion with copper it will kill the ich. If you are changing 50% of the qt water, which is a very good thing to do, you must also be testing the copper levels and adjust it to mantain the recommended level. If you don't treat the other fish, ich is still in the tank and can infect the lion again.
You can treat and cure the lion with copper. You can then leave it in the 10g tank till it gets so big it can't turn around. It will be stressed to the max, but it will not get ich. Once the parasite is dead, it's dead. Nothing can make it come back to life.

Marine Ich, Cryptocaryoniasis by Bob Fenner
"There are no "reef-safe" and effective treatments for crypt. NONE. Curing infested fishes involves separating them from non-fish livestock and treating them in that other system (or alternatively moving the non-fish livestock). Infested systems can be made "crypt-free" or better "crypt-virulence-reduced" by having them kept free of fish hosts for several (4 or more) weeks without fishes."


Marine Ich, part 2 by Steven Pro
"Fish can develop immunity to Cryptocaryon irritans that can last for up to six months (Colorni, 1987 and Colorni & Burgess, 1997). It is this natural immunity that makes evaluating the effectiveness of various treatment options so difficult. How can someone ever be certain that what they dosed to their tank or fed to their fish is what caused the cure they observed? The answer is simple, they can't. Until there are controlled, scientific studies, preferably repeated a few times, we cannot be sure that any of the newer homeopathic or "reef-safe" treatments actually work."
 
Quarantining and treating only one fish does no good. The parasite is in your tank, it is on your other fish (you just can't see it), and as soon as you put the lionfish back, it will have ich again. If you want to treat for ich, every fish in the tank has to be treated, and the tank has to be left fish-free for several months. Ich NEEDS a host to survive, and leaving the tank fish-less is the only way to kill off any remaining ich in the tank without using medication or hyposalinity treatments.

I'd say put the lionfish back into the main tank, since quarantining it by itself is not going to get rid of the disease and being in such a small tank will probably be stressing it even more.

Usually with a healthy diet, high water quality and peaceful tankmates, a fish can get over ich by itself pretty easily. Stress tends to bring out the parasite, because a stressed fish has a compromised immune system.
 
Quarantining and treating only one fish does no good. The parasite is in your tank, it is on your other fish (you just can't see it), and as soon as you put the lionfish back, it will have ich again. If you want to treat for ich, every fish in the tank has to be treated, and the tank has to be left fish-free for several months. Ich NEEDS a host to survive, and leaving the tank fish-less is the only way to kill off any remaining ich in the tank without using medication or hyposalinity treatments.

I'd say put the lionfish back into the main tank, since quarantining it by itself is not going to get rid of the disease and being in such a small tank will probably be stressing it even more.

Usually with a healthy diet, high water quality and peaceful tankmates, a fish can get over ich by itself pretty easily. Stress tends to bring out the parasite, because a stressed fish has a compromised immune system.

Okay the lion is back in the 90g. Now is there anything that I can add to the tank that will help but is invertibrate safe?
 
Nothing that will have an effect on the ich parasite. Like ccCapt stated, the only two ways to eradicate the parasite is copper and hyposalinity, both of which will kill your inverts.

If I were you, the two things you can add to their food to help is A) garlic extract, and B) a vitamin supplement, like Selcon.

Just soak their food in a couple drops of these at feeding time. Garlic helps boost the immune system and will stimulate their appetite.
 
Yep, the sand and rocks will absorb the copper, and then leach it out. That's why rock and sand from tanks that have been copper treated are unusable in reef tanks. You should never dose your display tank unless you know you will only ever have a fish only tank with no cleaner crew.
 
try to get the lionfish eating well and it will probably make it through. If it doesn't want to eat put some garlic extract on the food to help entice it.
 
What are you trying to feed the lionfish...

how long have you had it.
Lionfish are preditors and the food choice may be one of the reasons he might not be eating...

When I had my Lion ( RIP HECTOR)
he would eat most frosen... the occasional dried Krill was a treat for him
and he LOVED a goldfish Tiny of course here and there...

Entice him with Live food.... Ghost shrimp ... that may be all he needs to get his appitite back
 
Treatments From Lee:

1. Hyposalinity - Using a refractometer, hold salinity at 11ppt to 12ppt until 4 weeks after the last spot was seen. (Best to use salinity, but if you use specific gravity, that equates to roughly 1.008 to 1.009 sp. gr. units). Raise salinity slowly and observe fish for 4 more weeks. Hard to control pH and water quality during treatment. This is the least stressful treatment for the fish.

2. Copper treatment - Follow medication recommendations. Can be effective in 2 to 4 weeks of treatment. After treatment, remove all copper and observe fish for 4 more weeks. Copper is a poison to the fish and creates some stress. The fish may stop eating.

3.. Transfer method - Fish is moved from tank to tank to separate the fish from the cysts that fall off and the free-swimming stages of the parasite. Two hospital tanks are needed to perform this treatment. The fish is stressed by having to keep moving it between these hospital tanks.

4. Only the above 3 known cures work almost 100% of the time. Other chemicals will kill the MI parasite, but only in special conditions (not good for the fish) or in lab experiments (not using marine fish). Some chemicals will only kill some of the organisms, letting the others escape death to go on to multiply and infect.

5. Not any of the treatments can be done in a display tank with true live rock. Must be done in a hospital tank or quarantine tank. The hyposalinity and the copper treatment would kill invertebrates, live rock, and other non-fish marine life. Substrates and carbonates interfere with a copper treatment.

6. No known ‘reef-safe’ remedies work consistently. Many aquarists think a particular remedy works when in fact the fish acquire an immunity or defense against the parasite. It’s easy for any manufacturer to have an independent study done on the effectiveness of the ‘reef-safe’ remedy but they don’t because. . .

7. Cleaner shrimp and cleaner wrasses are not known to pick these parasites off of fish.

8. Freshwater dips can kill some of the parasites on/in the fish, but not all of them because many of the parasites are protected by the fish's skin and mucous layer.

9. No dip can get rid of these parasites

10. Let aquarium go fishless (without any foreign saltwater additions (e.g., water from LFS system, water from another tank or system -- use only distilled or RO/DI for evaporation and freshly made, uncontaminated salt water for water changes), without contamination from infected tanks, live rock additions, etc.) for at least 8 weeks and the tank will be free of MI. This 'fallow period' has over a 99.9% chance of success.

11. NEVER combine a copper treatment with a hyposalinity treatment. In hyposaline solutions, copper can be lethal to marine fishes.
 
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