New Life Ich Shield-Documenting my Experience

[Spartanman22]

So recently I've had an outbreak of velvet (99.9%) sure. Unfortunately I lost my two dwarfs, but rather than dwell on that I'll use this as an opportunity to grow my QT process knowledge and to re-asses my tank stocking.

I am going to give the New Life Ich Shield a try for treatment. I've read a lot about this product on another board, and am confident in its viability. I am basing my dosing regime on Dmorty's experiences from RC. I dosed 900 mg to my QT tank, which equates to 45 mg per gallon.

The current fish in QT include: Scopas tang, Swallowtail angel, Picasso pair, and Melanurus wrasse. There will be a leopard wrasse added as soon as I can catch him (which I realize will reset my timeframe).

The instructions state to dose 0.6 grams per 20 gallons, but that the dosing amounts are calculated to allow plenty of wiggle room. The treatment process is supposed to last 21 days per instructions.

The display will remain fallow for 6 weeks. After 21-30 days of treatment I'll do a large water change and then add carbon back to the HOB filter.

All fish minus the swallowtail ate 10 minutes after adding the Ich Shield. I'll keep my progress documented as I go along.

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[Spartanman22]

Unfortunately lost the swallowtail last night. I don't think it's attributed to the medicine but more so that it's just been too long since disease onset and treatment. The clowns and tang look good though.


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[anarchy]

Hope the tang makes it and the others also. Might have to add it to my collection if you indeed plan on getting rid of it

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[Joesfiddy]

What fish brought it in do u know?

 

[Spartanman22]

Hope the tang makes it and the others also. Might have to add it to my collection if you indeed plan on getting rid of it

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Scopas are my favorite tangs, very underrated IMO. I was hoping to get a Yellow Scopas, but those are harder to come by and I found this guy. I'll let you know. The Swallowtail was the tank bully and would have prevented me from adding any other angels. Now that he's gone I may not have that issue. But I think the Scopas would benefit from a bigger tank.


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[Spartanman22]

What fish brought it in do u know?

I'm about 99.9% certain it came in on a Multibar angel. I knew I was rolling the dice by not QTing this fish, but with them being notoriously finicky eaters I wanted him in a reef setting ASAP. It worked, I got him eating really well, but unfortunately it proved to be a bad idea. Lessons certainly learned. No fish will ever skip QT again regardless of how delicate they are.


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[Spartanman22]

As of this morning the Scopas, clowns, and Melanurus wrasse are still doing well. They all ate last night, and the Scopas is still a glutton!

Prior to this whole outbreak I had 4 anthias and a pink margin fairy wrasse going through TTM. They will be done with that next week. So, I'm trying to figure out what to do with them. I'm leaning towards adding them to the QT and running them through treatment as well just to be safe. Either that or I'll just keep doing transfers until the QT fish have been through the full treatment and the display has completed the fallow period. Then I can move the QT fish back to the DT and the anthias and wrasse into the QT.


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[anarchy]

Scopas are my favorite tangs, very underrated IMO. I was hoping to get a Yellow Scopas, but those are harder to come by and I found this guy. I'll let you know. The Swallowtail was the tank bully and would have prevented me from adding any other angels. Now that he's gone I may not have that issue. But I think the Scopas would benefit from a bigger tank.


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I completely agree very underrated. I had a choice between the scopas and my orange shoulder and i went with the orange shoulder but ive always wanted the scopas. Good replacement for the purple tang ill never be able to get

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[Spartanman22]

Did a 5 gallon water change last night and dosed an additional 225 mg to account for changed water. All fish still doing well. The Scopas has no visual signs of infection anymore. The clowns still look beat up though.

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[Spartanman22]

Yesterday officially started my fallow period. Finally was able to catch the leopard wrasse. The Melanurus, Scopas, and clowns had been in treatment for a week already. The clowns look way better after one week and so does the Scopas. The Melanurus never really had any visual symptoms so no real change with him.

All of the fishes appetite is improving though, which is good. Initially after treatment the appetite died down in all of the fish.

I've been doing weekly 5 gallon water changes and re-dosing with Ich Shield to compensate for the fresh 5 gallons.


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[Spartanman22]

Update:

All fish look to be doing very well. The clowns look perfect and their appetite has increased quite a bit. They weren't showing much interest in food last week.

I added the 4 Lyretails and pink margin that I had in TTM to the medicated QT tank. Everyone's getting along fine and they are taking to the medication well. One of the anthias is much less active than the other three, but it's been that way since I got them.

My tang, however, seems to have taken 1 step forward and two steps back. He responded really well to the Ich shield treatment, and within a week looked much better. However, I think he was suffering from both flukes and velvet. So, the velvet issues has been taken care of but now the flukes are becoming an issue. His appetite has slowed and he has white blotchy marks on his skin.

I'm only about half way through the treatment cycle and am not going to cut it short. So I think at this point my best bet would be to do weekly freshwater dips.

So far from what I've seen this Ich Shield works quite well for velvet.


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[Spartanman22]

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[madjoe]

Did u see any flukes come off with fw dip those white marks do look like flukes to me more like chemical burns or water quality issues

 

[Spartanman22]

I haven't freshwater dipped him since putting him into QT 2 weeks ago. I do weekly 5 gallon water changes and my ammonia detector is showing "safe". I'll do a big water change tonight. All other fish appear fine. Unfortunately it looks like it's too late for the Scopas. But he lost his appetite about 3-4 days ago.


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[Spartanman22]

I lost the Scopas and a small Lyretail. The Lyretail was definitely the runt of the group and was never very active, nor did it ever eat very well. So not too surprised by that one.

Scopas had a very pinched belly. He had stopped eating well about 4-5 days ago, but 4-5 days no eating shouldn't kill him. There was something else at play there. Ammonia crept up a bit to the "Alert" zone on the Seachem ammonia badge. I performed a water change and it's back to "safe" as of last night.

Many experiences suggest that CP doesn't always end well with wrasses, particularly flashers. I've had a black leopard, pink margin, and Melanurus all go through 2 weeks of CP now and they seem to be doing really well. The Melanurus has had a suppressed appetite but is still eating. All behavior seems normal and there are no signs/symptoms of disease.


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[Spartanman22]

This morning I found my pink margin laying upside down. I prodded him gently and he proceeded to swim straight up and sticking his head out of water. I'm not sure what's going on. All other fish appeared normal. The ammonia alert badge was on "Safe". He was fine last night.

In all honesty, QTing is getting a bit discouraging. I've now lost a Multibar angel, potters angel, swallowtail angel, Scopas tang, Lyretail anthias, and potentially this wrasse (which I expect to find dead when I get home). The Multibar, potters, and swallowtail were all velvet related deaths as they died very shortly/immediately after removal from DT. But the Lyretail was a random death, Scopas was doing great and then in the course of 4 days he stopped eating and died, and now this wrasse is looking poor.

I think the problem is that the CP is suppressing the fishes immuno-response and opening the door for secondary infections. But that's just my theory. I'm picking up a UV sterilizer today. I was intending to install it on my DT, but maybe I'll hook it up to the QT instead.


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