fellterrier December 21, 2015 Share December 21, 2015 My QT tank had a real bad bout of ich. I nearly lost my golden back trigger from it. Nothing was working and when I was about to give up and he was near death(I was previously treating with Kordin Rid Ich). I went the Hyposalinity route. Took the tank down to a sp of 0.9 and after 3 days of watching this fish suffer he's finally eating again and acting normal. Hypo is the way to go imo. I'm totally sold and won't try anything else. Dodged a 2k bullet. I had both the Goldenback and a female crosshatch trigger in there. I feel good today Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHSublime December 21, 2015 Share December 21, 2015 When you say nothing was working, do you mean the rid ich? Did you try anything else besides that and hypo? Glad the fish is ok. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fellterrier December 21, 2015 Author Share December 21, 2015 Yeah I just used Rid ich which worked very good for me in the past, for some reason it just didn't work at all. Could be the size of my QT which is 72 gallons. All I know is that by the time I decided to go the hypo route, The female crosshatch was heavily infested and the golden back was down in the tank breathing extremely heavily and near deaths door. Made a tremendous turn around after 4 days in a hypo environment. I will always go the route from here on out. I dodged a bullet......eating again and doing well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkiboy December 21, 2015 Share December 21, 2015 hi sel, thanks for posting up. there's a lot of variables and questions but to keep things concise and as informative as possible technically hypo-salinity does work on most strains of ich provided you are very diligent and meticulous about lowering the specific gravity down to 1.009 (using a recently perfectly calibrated refractometer and an additional back up alternative source) and keeping the specific gravity at 1.009 for 30 consecutive days. now if it inches up even slightly, hypo-salinity will fail. this is why when folks are dead set on this methodology or it's the only method feasible for a client it's pretty much a requirement to use an auto top off system. two issues with hypo-salinity that you may already be aware of are 1) hypo-resistant strains of ich have been proven to exist (yambot,2003) and seemingly in my experience with clients that come to me for help the numbers are increasing as more folks leave hypo for other treatment options. and 2) marine velvet will initially sometimes look like ich. the problem being hypo-salinity does not treat ich. so let's say you misdiagnose your golden back trigger and it turns out the fish has velvet, you are pretty much screwed because you will kill most fish mixing chemicals like copper with hypo-salinity. I am so happy to hear things are better. if you are 100% on the diagnosis and feel 100% you can keep specific gravity stable then I would stay with it. thanks again for sharing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fellterrier December 21, 2015 Author Share December 21, 2015 Yeah bro. I'm all over it. I did the research and based on my experience, I knew it was the dreaded marine ich. Like you said, you have to stay on top of the specific gravity as well as the ph. No ATO on my QT, But I check the salinity with my digital refractometer twice a day. I always have make up water at the ready. Like you said, you have to make sure the specific gravity stays below 10. If it doesn't, the ich will regain a foot hold. I cannot express how important that is when doing this treatment. Diligence is importance. I swear by it now and will always use this method. I watched that Goldenback come back from a near death experience. It was scary to say the least. I would have lost 2 very expensive triggers at the same time.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkiboy December 21, 2015 Share December 21, 2015 (edited) glad to hear it sel. i wouldn't rely on just one refractometer. the milwaukee's will go out of calibration just as easily it seems from time to time. a back up hand-held that is calibrated daily if doing hypo is a smart move too. that's awesome you've had success like this and saved your fish thus far. in regards to your experience with kordon rid-ich which is formalin. that is some seriously nasty stuff. typically one has it in the reserves for emergency situations. it is capable of removing most "surface parasites" like brooklynella and marine velvet (although velvet trophonts are so myriad in number that you still will have to treat with copper or cholorquine phosphate afterwards) but deeply embedded ich trophonts in the epithelium are probably not affected by formalin. what formalin has shown success with is eradicating prazi-resistant flukes/worms. worth mentioning also is that there is some anecdotal information that is being gathered that some fish treated with formalin will not live past 18 months; they die of cancer is the theory. Edited December 21, 2015 by monkiboy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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