These were shipped via air cargo. The heat packs were still warm when I got them; bags were in the high 70s.
Copper and salt
- Thread starter ryansmith83
- Start date
I wish I could say there was improvement but this is what she looked like as of last night.
The only good news is that her labored breathing seems to have slowed and she seems more comfortable. She still looks absolutely awful.
Now it looks more like ich to me, but if it's ich, it's the most severe case I have ever seen. I'm convinced it's some kind of ectoparasite/protozoan like ich or velvet because columnaris usually looks like a bacterial infection with slime coat bunching up and sloughing off, and this is obviously not that.
Regardless of ich or velvet, the copper should be working on it, and the salt especially should be helping if it's ich. Maybe I'm just being impatient. Today was day 5 of the copper. I don't know how long it usually takes to look better. There's an impatient part of me that wants to remove the copper and do a salt dip or a potassium permanganate bath, but I'm trying to tell myself to wait and let the copper do its job (let's hope it does).
Oddly, the other three fish don't even look to have anything on them. If they do it's not noticeable. I'll have to flashlight them later when they're sleeping and see if I can see anything.
The only good news is that her labored breathing seems to have slowed and she seems more comfortable. She still looks absolutely awful.
Now it looks more like ich to me, but if it's ich, it's the most severe case I have ever seen. I'm convinced it's some kind of ectoparasite/protozoan like ich or velvet because columnaris usually looks like a bacterial infection with slime coat bunching up and sloughing off, and this is obviously not that.
Regardless of ich or velvet, the copper should be working on it, and the salt especially should be helping if it's ich. Maybe I'm just being impatient. Today was day 5 of the copper. I don't know how long it usually takes to look better. There's an impatient part of me that wants to remove the copper and do a salt dip or a potassium permanganate bath, but I'm trying to tell myself to wait and let the copper do its job (let's hope it does).
Oddly, the other three fish don't even look to have anything on them. If they do it's not noticeable. I'll have to flashlight them later when they're sleeping and see if I can see anything.
A couple of mine looked worse than that-- my case was definitely ich. The salt did little or nothing on its own and I had given it a fair shot, in fact they got worse. The previous last time I'd ever dealt with ich was pre-1995 (I know that because of where I lived at the time) when I was unaware of salt as an ich treatment. Can't say my post-derecho experience convinces me about salt for ich, it might work for some, but I don't see an advantage vs meds. Not that I don't use salt for other things, like healing minor scuffs or eye injuries, etc.
After adding the Copper Safe things visibly improved within just a few days; three, maybe, before they were looking appreciably better-- this was a few years ago so I don't remember down to the day. But in my case they (the rotkeils in particular) looked so bad by then that for the first few days I overdosed the medication. Not to recommend that, just relating what I did.
Hope things improve soon.
After adding the Copper Safe things visibly improved within just a few days; three, maybe, before they were looking appreciably better-- this was a few years ago so I don't remember down to the day. But in my case they (the rotkeils in particular) looked so bad by then that for the first few days I overdosed the medication. Not to recommend that, just relating what I did.
Hope things improve soon.
I've been keeping the tank blacked out for the CopperSafe treatment so I only check them at night with the flashlight on my phone. Three of the four have still never shown any actual parasites. They also have all their fins intact. How this one female ended up in such bad shape while the others look relatively unscathed is beyond me. At any rate, last night it looked like the female was finally sloughing off slime coat along with the attached parasites.
I checked them this afternoon and it does in fact look like the parasites are gone. There are a few missing scales and some scuffs on her sides from bumping around the tank in the dark, but otherwise the body looks good. The fins have all burnt off so I'll probably have to do some work on those when the copper is finished.
Another promising sign -- the day after I received them, I offered her food and she spit it out. Today I tried a few pellets and she happily ate and chased the other fish away from the food. Fingers crossed that we're almost out of the woods.
I checked them this afternoon and it does in fact look like the parasites are gone. There are a few missing scales and some scuffs on her sides from bumping around the tank in the dark, but otherwise the body looks good. The fins have all burnt off so I'll probably have to do some work on those when the copper is finished.
Another promising sign -- the day after I received them, I offered her food and she spit it out. Today I tried a few pellets and she happily ate and chased the other fish away from the food. Fingers crossed that we're almost out of the woods.
After a month of Fritz CopperSafe, salt, and heat in a blacked-out tank, I finished up the treatment for velvet last week. Saturday morning I woke up to the heavily-infected female laying eggs. It's amazing how far she's come in a month. Most of her fins have grown back and she's eating well.
