Update with good news, and maybe some bad news

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chefkeith
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Re: Update with good news, and maybe some bad news

Post by chefkeith » Fri Mar 22, 2013 3:40 pm

A few questions:
Is quinine sulfate safe for plants and biological filters?
Also, can it be used with a UV Sterilizer?

Ardillakilla
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Re: Update with good news, and maybe some bad news

Post by Ardillakilla » Fri Mar 22, 2013 3:47 pm

It's very light-sensitive so UV and other lights should definitely be off. I would even try to keep the room dark most of the time, if possible.

It's safe for biofilters.

It's probably safe for plants.

The only things it may harm are invertebrates and maybe corals.

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chefkeith
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Re: Update with good news, and maybe some bad news

Post by chefkeith » Fri Mar 22, 2013 4:07 pm

Thanks. If it's not good for invertebrates, then I'll need to remove the snails and shrimp before the treatment then. Which is not a problem.

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chefkeith
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Re: Update with good news, and maybe some bad news

Post by chefkeith » Fri Mar 22, 2013 4:09 pm

I also think I may remove my planted tanks from the tank system and treat them separately.

Ardillakilla
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Re: Update with good news, and maybe some bad news

Post by Ardillakilla » Fri Mar 22, 2013 4:20 pm

If you removed all the fish from the planted tanks and are careful to prevent re-contamination, the ich life cycle should be broken after a few weeks.

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chefkeith
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Re: Update with good news, and maybe some bad news

Post by chefkeith » Fri Mar 22, 2013 4:34 pm

Good idea. I'll move the fish from the planted tanks later. There are dozens of bristlenose fry and a few boesmani juvi's in them. Also hundreds of MTS snails that I didn't think about earlier. I'll set-up a snail trap for them later. I'll just deal them all separately and set-up a few more quarantine tanks later.

The 2 main loach tanks are 1st priority.

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chefkeith
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Re: Update with good news, and maybe some bad news

Post by chefkeith » Fri Mar 22, 2013 10:52 pm

Before starting the Quinine treatment I decided to some tank maintenance. So I removed some of the driftwood and large PVC pipe caves, so that I could do some substrate vac'ing. As I did, I noticed a few more clowns with frayed dorsal fins. That really opened my eyes that there are some underlying issues at play here.

I checked out and cleaned the FX5 canister 1st. I couldn't believe how dirty it was. Then I checked out 2 Filstar XP2's, and they were dirty too, even though I just cleaned them 11 days ago. So I cleaned them again. Then I checked 2 XP3's canister filters, that I cleaned just 6 days ago, and they weren't too pretty either. So I cleaned them also. I had to clean an Eheim canister also.

I guess I've become complacent in my ways. I usually never clean all the filters at the same time. I usually just do a couple of them each month. That simply wasn't often enough. The organic load was way too high, which probably caused the frayed fins when I slowly turned up the heat to 86F. Or maybe the fins were frayed before that and I just didn't notice. Like I said, I've been complacent.

The plants, the UV sterilizer, and the drip water change system have probably masked this underlying issue for years. The DOC's and suspended solids have been there, just not in the form of nitrates, TDS, or something else that I could easily measure. My loaches have grown quite a bit over the years, but I haven't changed or increased the tank maintenance required to keep up with them. I kept up with the automatic drip water changes and grew more nitrate consuming plants, but this simply wasn't enough.

So this was a huge wake-up call. I still haven't dosed the tanks with the quinine sulfate. I want to give the loach tanks another good water change before proceeding. I want to make sure the organic load is reduced as much as possible, so I might do another substrate vac also. I hope they survive my negligence. My apologies to them.

My apologies to those here that have tried helping me. There is no medical cure for crowded tanks and an inadequate maintenance routine. In another thread, I remember Loachloach giving some sound advice about tank size not mattering if the tank is overstocked. When I 1st read that I didn't think that applied to my tanks, but right now I just learned first hand that it does. I think I may need to double the foot print and triple the water volume of my tanks, or give up about half of my loaches. I guess I knew this day would come sooner or later. When I got these loaches I was planning on building two-500 gallon ponds/tanks to house them. That plan just kept getting held back due to escalating utility costs. Never thought electricity and heating was going to get so expensive when I started fish keeping. I was going to convert my garage into a fish house, but like I said heating and cooling got too expensive.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'll do another update after I start the quinine treatment.

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Re: Update with good news, and maybe some bad news

Post by NancyD » Sat Mar 23, 2013 12:00 am

Oh No! Ich! I've heard of using quinine but never tried it. It used to be you could sign for it at the pharmacy counter...back in the day...Good luck to you & Gracie, fingers crossed for you. Let us know dosage etc & how it goes...
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NancyD
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Re: Update with good news, and maybe some bad news

Post by NancyD » Sat Mar 23, 2013 12:46 am

double post
Last edited by NancyD on Sat Mar 23, 2013 1:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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chefkeith
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Re: Update with good news, and maybe some bad news

Post by chefkeith » Sat Mar 23, 2013 4:44 am

I treated the loach tanks with quinine. Dosage I used is 1 gram per 25 gallons. I dissolved about 10.5 grams in a bucket of warm water. Added it to the tanks and now the loaches are really freaking out. I hope I didn't use too much. I don't know what to do. I'll just wait it out I guess. This is turning into a nightmare.

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chefkeith
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Re: Update with good news, and maybe some bad news

Post by chefkeith » Sat Mar 23, 2013 5:09 am

This is not good. Some of the clowns have shed their slime coat. I'm doing a massive water change to get this under control.

Ardillakilla
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Re: Update with good news, and maybe some bad news

Post by Ardillakilla » Sat Mar 23, 2013 8:00 am

I checked my notes and it appears I used ~7.4 mg/L in the past. This was for a duration of several weeks but with a cichlid. I don't recall him having a reaction bad enough to warrant an immediate water change but I vaguely recall him twitching a little.

I used the National Fish Pharmaceuticals quinine sulfate aka "Crypto Pro." The instructions call for a 1/8 teaspoon or 0.625 mL scoop per 10 gal. I weighed that out as 281 mg on an analytical balance.

1 g / 25 gal = 1000 mg / 94.6 L = 10.57 mg/L. At that dosage level, 10.5 g would treat 993 L or 262 gal.

So, the dose was perhaps a bit on the high side. Shedding slime isn't always a cause for alarm, especially if not all of them are doing it. It just means something in the water is irritating to them and may not carry any more meaning than our noses running. When I picked up my loach at the vet one time, they mentioned that s/he had shed a bunch of slime as a reaction to the anesthesia and not to be concerned if I saw "stuff" floating in the water.

Maybe you only want to do a 50% water change? Or if you start over from scratch, perhaps start with 0.25 mg/L and observe for a few hours. Then go to 0.50 mg/L and eventually to 7.5 mg/L. I often do this sort of gradual dosing when I'm nervous about treating my fish.

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chefkeith
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Re: Update with good news, and maybe some bad news

Post by chefkeith » Sat Mar 23, 2013 9:17 am

It got really bad. Almost all the clowns shed their slime coat. The slime coats then floated to the surface and became sudsy. Then all the Boesmani got tangled up in the slime and got asphyxiated, so I moved them all to one of the planted tanks. 2 died so far.

The loaches are in really rough shape. I moved the weakest 15 of them to a 85g quarantine tank. I couldn't capture the rest without a net, so I gave up on that. They have calmed down finally. I haven't lost any clowns yet.

The loach tanks I treated were 195gallon and a 125 gallon. That's 320 gallons in tank size total, but I calculated the actual volume to be 265 gallons of water, so I used 10.6 grams of the quinline. That's the dosage level the guy at the LFS gave me. He gave 16g to treat 400 gallons, twice. I weight it out on a pocket scale, so it was accurate enough. If I was using Cryto Pro, the dosage for 265 gallons would of been 7.38 grams.

I'm still working on switching out all the water on the loach tanks. I'm not set-up to do fast water changes on those big tanks. So it will take me awhile, if I don't pass out first.

NancyD
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Re: Update with good news, and maybe some bad news

Post by NancyD » Sat Mar 23, 2013 2:00 pm

Keith, I'm so sorry, what a mess.
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chefkeith
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Re: Update with good news, and maybe some bad news

Post by chefkeith » Sat Mar 23, 2013 2:49 pm

I just finished the water changes and getting everything running again. I did the water changes with 5 gallon buckets and about 50 buckets worth. I filled, dechlorinated, salted, checked TDS, checked Temp, then pumped in, then repeat. The tanks are still a mess with slime coat everywhere. It looked like spider webs when removed the water. I've never seen anything like it. I'll probably be skimming the slim coat mucus off the surface of water for the next few days. I never could of imagined this happening. I should of stuck to my original plan, and kept with the salt treatment. The kuhli loaches that I treated with salt the day I got them are doing fine. Go figure.

The loaches are in rough shape and some have dark blotches or discolorations all over their body. Gracie looks about the worst. I thought she was a real trooper though. She never hid once and stayed rather calm while the others were freaking out. She simply wouldn't let me catch her and move her to the quarantine tank, and others followed her lead. She won the battle and left no loach behind. Simply put, she's Amazing.

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