SUPER ICH?

[Bilbo]

I have been having a problem with sugary white dusting on my flowerhorns, rams and discus. Normally i would say "Oh well, it's just Ich" and raise the temp but not so. My temp is already at 85 degrees and Ich is supposed to "burn out" with warmer water like that. I have treated with Coppersafe and it seemed to help some but it is back with a vengeance. I also have used Praziquantal but still nothing. Last night i dumped a little over 3 pounds of salt in my 125 gallon and a little over 1 pound of salt in my 55 gallon. This makes the water about 3 ppt salinity and is safe for most fish. Ich dies at 1 ppt. And while true Ich is safe as long as it's on the host fish inbedded, the phase where it is not safe is when it is free swimming just out of the egg. I want to see if this salt works but i have my doubts.
So my question is... is there truly a Super Ich strain out now? And my other question is... Is there ANY other diseases out there that show symptoms very similar to Ich (Sugary white dusting over fins and body?) I kind of feel like a newb now as i have never come across this delima in the 20 something years i have been breeding fish. Thanks

[JenTN]

Velvet?

[Bilbo]

Velvet? Oh my gosh! I think you may have something with that. I have never had velvet before. Ever. The reason it may be velvet is that the spots are usually "offwhite" more yellowish in coloration. Whatever this disease is, it is SUPER contagious. Now i'm not saying it is vevet for sure but it would explain why it's not dieing at my 85 degree temperature.
I feel like i'm soooo close to whipping this here. Please.... more comments!!! I need to know what this is. If it is velvet, what is the most effective treatment? Supposively coppersafe reeks havok on velvet but when i used Coppersafe it just sort of knocked it back a little. There is some write up that says turning the lights off may work since Velvet has clorophyll in it. Would this work? Admittedly so, i have super lights down close to my aquarium top that enables healthy algae growth. Would truning these off solve my problem eventually?

[JenTN]

I'll let someone else help since my last dealings with velvet was when I was a kid. But they would have a goldish sheen to them from my memory.

[Brent1972]

I used 1 ml Acriflavine per litre aquarium water for 7 days . I have also been told that salt at 2ppt will cure it but will take a long time.

[Bilbo]

JenTn, i want to thank you so much for bringing that up. Thank you so much. Although Ich is essentially treated the same way as velvet, i never thought in my wildest dreams that i had it. I have heard of velvet ALL my life but i have never EVER seen it in the 25 years i have been keeping fish. EVER! So it never occured to me that this is what it could be. I mean what i THOUGHT was Ich WOULD NOT DIE AT 86 degree temp!!! I was getting so frustrated!! If it had not been for you i would still be puzzled. It was indeed Velvet as the nodules are off white in color. On one fish they are brown. Also they are very small bumps. More like powdered sugar than salt. Anyways, thank you so very much!
Brent1972, thanks for the post buddy! It doesn't look like i am going to have to treat with Acriflavine. I am glad of that because i have heard that stuff can cause infertility in fish? Again, thanks for the post!
All in all things are going excellent. I had put 3 ppt in the 125 gallon tank and the 55 gallon tank. This was a little over 3 pounds of salt in the 125 and a little over a pound of salt in the 55. This was 2 days ago. The salt seems to be working beautifully. The white spots are disapearing rapidly (one fish is almost all void of them now). And while i am aware that this is simply do to the phase the parasite was in (in getting ready to enter the next phase), there have not been any reoccuring spots which leads me to believe that the salt has stopped the Velvet or Super Ich in its tracks. I suppose i will leave the salt in there for another 2 weeks to make sure the disease is obliterated or at least knocked back. I'm hoping my fish will develop an immunity to such things as i have researched that some fish do. Also another bacterial outbreak on one of my fish do to a secondary infection is also clearing up. The salt is working wonderful thus far. I just need to leave it in there long enough to really do it's job. I dont want to help anything bad in there build up a resistance to the salt in case i have to use this method again next time. Thanks!

[JenTN]

No problem, just glad you have it sorted out. My mother kept mollies and my grandmother too and I remember an outbreak of velvet in a tank.

[Len]

If it's velvet, salt will slow down the reproduction, but it probably wont kill it off completely. Methylene Blue should do the trick. I had this problem many times years ago when I kept livebearers and didn't QT. Malachite green worked too but I don't know if you can even buy it anymore.

[Bilbo]

If it's velvet, salt will slow down the reproduction, but it probably wont kill it off completely. Methylene Blue should do the trick. I had this problem many times years ago when I kept livebearers and didn't QT. Malachite green worked too but I don't know if you can even buy it anymore. Even salt at .3% ? I mean, i litterally tasted the water and it is super salty! If it doesn't kill it i wonder why i haven't had any new spots on the fish? I have heard Methalene Blue works as well but i am really not wanting to put that in my tanks as of yet.

[Len]

You are seeing no new spots because salt will help slow down the reproduction, but it still won't completely kill it off. That leaves the opportunity for it to take hold again when you stop adding salt and as you saw it does spread fast. If it were me, I'd be using an effective treatment once the disease was properly identified. Keep in mind it is protozoan and if left too long it will kill the infected fish. There are other medications that work, but meth blue is by far the safest and doesn't pose the risk of sterilizing your fish either.

[Bilbo]

You are seeing no new spots because salt will help slow down the reproduction, but it still won't completely kill it off. That leaves the opportunity for it to take hold again when you stop adding salt and as you saw it does spread fast. If it were me, I'd be using an effective treatment once the disease was properly identified. Keep in mind it is protozoan and if left too long it will kill the infected fish. There are other medications that work, but meth blue is by far the safest and doesn't pose the risk of sterilizing your fish either. OK what is confusing me is that Velvet is very similar to Ich in how it reproduces. Once it leaves the host (which it is in the process of doing now) it falls off and starts deviding. Once it develops new protozoas they will then swim through the water looking for another host. If they don't find a host in a matter of days, they will die. So if i am not seeing any new spots on the fish within the next few days, it means that the new velvet hasn't attached itself to the fish and began feeding correct? And if this is the case, be it Ich or Velvet, how could such a protozoa stay free swimming in the tank with no host and with the salinity in the water so high? Keep in mind that Ich cannot live in a salinity above 1 ppt and my tanks are at 3 ppt. Also keep in mind that my temp is at around 86 degrees which speeds up the life cycle of both parasites. Please elaborate as i am trying to understand the life cycle of Velvet and how it could live in this high of salinity when Ich can not. I was under the impression that both Ich and Velvet can be treated with salt.

[Len]

Unless I misunderstand, that doesn't make sense. They are not going to stay free swimming without a host because they have plenty of them - YOUR FISH. Do what you will as they are your fish, but in your previous post you had said that in 25 years you've never had experience with this and now you debate how to treat it. I've tried salt in the past and it never got rid of it completely and it just kept coming back. How many pounds of salt do you want to go through to experiment with your theory and maybe at the expense of your fish? One caution I will give you since I saw you posting about plants is that meth blue will melt them quickly, so remove any plants if you decide to use it.

[Bilbo]

Unless I misunderstand, that doesn't make sense. They are not going to stay free swimming without a host because they have plenty of them - YOUR FISH. Do what you will as they are your fish, but in your previous post you had said that in 25 years you've never had experience with this and now you debate how to treat it. I've tried salt in the past and it never got rid of it completely and it just kept coming back. How many pounds of salt do you want to go through to experiment with your theory and maybe at the expense of your fish? One caution I will give you since I saw you posting about plants is that meth blue will melt them quickly, so remove any plants if you decide to use it. I am not trying to debate. Please reread what i typed if you have time. I am wanting you to elaborate more on the life cycle of Velvet and also why salt destroys ich but not Velvet since every write up i have seen says to fight Velvet like Ich. Also the reason i said free swimming was this... My fish were obviously suffering from Velvet or a Super Ich. They had the nodules on them. At no point before treatment with salt did there ever come a time where the fish was void of these nodules after displaying them for over a week. This was because at any given time, there were new parasites at a different phase in the cycle that would attach as the others would fall off. Well, then when i used salt, i noticed after about 2 days that there were not any reattaching. This led me to believe that the salt was kicking the butt of the free swimming parasite. Why? Because before there were ALWAYS nodules before. So it makes me think that none have reattached.
I am not trying to debate you. I am trying to understand how salt effects these creatures in relation to their life cycle. There were some holes in your explaination and i was simply asking you to fill those gaps so it made sense to me. I am not arguing that salt will cure it no matter what, i am asking you to just explain the details you have left out. At no point in my posts above after you chimed in will you find that i am saying salt is the cure.

[Len]

you stated "I suppose i will leave the salt in there for another 2 weeks to make sure the disease is obliterated or at least knocked back" which would indicate that was your intended cure because you thought it was going to be effective and my point was that it was my experience that it is not and will come back after you stop adding salt. You mentioned concern about causing sterility so acriflavin is out. Not sure if you have shrimp or anything else that is copper sensitive, but to be safe ruled out copper containing meds. next best were the two I suggested because although they will knock your filtration back a bit, they wont wipe it out as long as you follow the recommended doses.

but to answer your last question I never really cared enough to study the life cycle of it. It kept coming back, salt wasn't doing the trick so I followed the advise I was given to use meth blue or malachite green. It worked so beyond being told that the salt would slow it down but not kill it off completely I didn't see the need to inquire further - my fish were recovered so the end goal was reached cheaply and quickly. Look at it another way, you already put 3 pounds of salt in your tanks. Assuming you are going to practice good husbandry and do large daily water changes every day especially while the fish are sick, you'll go through roughly 20 pounds in a week (give or take) or 40 in the two weeks you suggested using it. Salt does have it's place, but usually as a dip, not as a long term additive in a tank in my opinion although others may disagree.

Just for kicks, I looked on kensfish.com and he has malachite green and quick cure for about $3 a bottle but no meth blue.

[Bilbo]

you stated "I suppose i will leave the salt in there for another 2 weeks to make sure the disease is obliterated or at least knocked back" which would indicate that was your intended cure because you thought it was going to be effective and my point was that it was my experience that it is not and will come back after you stop adding salt. You mentioned concern about causing sterility so acriflavin is out. Not sure if you have shrimp or anything else that is copper sensitive, but to be safe ruled out copper containing meds. next best were the two I suggested because although they will knock your filtration back a bit, they wont wipe it out as long as you follow the recommended doses.

but to answer your last question I never really cared enough to study the life cycle of it. It kept coming back, salt wasn't doing the trick so I followed the advise I was given to use meth blue or malachite green. It worked so beyond being told that the salt would slow it down but not kill it off completely I didn't see the need to inquire further - my fish were recovered so the end goal was reached cheaply and quickly. Look at it another way, you already put 3 pounds of salt in your tanks. Assuming you are going to practice good husbandry and do large daily water changes every day especially while the fish are sick, you'll go through roughly 20 pounds in a week (give or take) or 40 in the two weeks you suggested using it. Salt does have it's place, but usually as a dip, not as a long term additive in a tank in my opinion although others may disagree.

Just for kicks, I looked on kensfish.com and he has malachite green and quick cure for about $3 a bottle but no meth blue. I think I am good. Thank you for your replies.