Quinine sulfate and puffers?

[Recty]

I have been reading that QS is safe for fishless fish but not too sure about using any anti-parasitic in a main tankk as it will most probably kill off all your inverts whatever lives on/in your rocks/sand.

Fishless fish

It doesnt kill off hermit crabs, but it will kill snails. It also kills of most of your biological filter although I've read mixed results about that. Some people dont have any ammonia spikes and the filter seems fine after treatment and some people totally lose all filtration. I'm willing to have to lose that and slowly build bacteria back up over time in order to be ich free.

I've already removed my two small corals and my cleaner shrimp to a quarantine tank that I'm going to keep them in for AT LEAST 3 months, 12 weeks, with no fish in there. I can handle one small quarantine tank for 3 months much better than 4 or 5 that I would need if I made the main tank be fallow for that time period.

Well if you happen to find any more information about quinine sulfate, I'd love to hear it. I think I've read about everything there is to read about it on the web, plus I've talked to the guy at Fish Pharmaceuticals about it for 15-20 minutes. I think it's the best solution to my problem, hopefully it ends up that way.

[Pufferpunk]

Ok, duh... I think I was typing that one after I took my Lunesta.

[Recty]

Just to keep this thread updated, I started treating Tuesday night. For a while the fish were looking OK. Most are still looking pretty good, but my Sohal tang started looking worse and worse, so I went ahead and treated.

So far I can't even tell a difference in the activity of the fish, they arent cowering in the corners and rocks, they arent acting skittish or anyhow weird. The only difference I guess I can tell is the puffer isnt eating AS MUCH as he normally does, the triggers and tang are all still doing just fine though.

The ich is definitely disappearing off the fish, I'd say they are showing half as much as they were on Tuesday when I started the treatment. This is a 7-10 day treatment depending, lets hope at the end of it they are ich free. Otherwise I'm going to hypo the whole tank!

[Pufferpunk]

Be sure to keep an eye on the parameters. I think you're leaving the rock in there, right?

[Recty]

Be sure to keep an eye on the parameters. I think you're leaving the rock in there, right?

Yep, rock in, inverts out.

I'm testing ammonia/nitrate/pH/salinity every morning and evening for the next 7-10 days.

[coldmachineUK]

You'll have to definitely keep us all updated on this; would be interesting seeing how it goes. Sometimes empirical evidence is required before we can truly make an estimate on likely outcomes.

[Recty]

So far, I havent had any ammonia spikes which is great, I've got about 60g of water (only 25% of total tank volume but it's all I can hold at once) sitting around incase I need to change.

I talked to the Dr. who sells the stuff, he said the ammonia absorbing rocks wont absorb the quinine so I've been using that just in case. I'd rather rely on them just incase the ammonia spikes. I only have enough in there to handle a 60g tank, but still it would take the edge off any big spikes

This is day 2 and a half for the treatment, I put it in around 9:00pm Tuesday night Alaskan time, and it's 11:30am Friday morning. The lights just came one in the tank.

So far the puffer looks amazing. He doesnt have a single spot of ich on him anymore that I can see, and he had quite a bit of it before. This could be due to the ich falling to the bottom to reproduce, but I hesitate to believe they coordinated their efforts and all fell off at once

The triggers look good except my clown. The clown's eyes are really cloudy looking and his body still has white spots. For sure there is only about half as many as he had when I started Tuesday night, but still not gone. Oh well, I've got another 7 days or so of treatment left. Even if they keep disappearing at this rate, they will be well gone before next Friday when I'm done.

My Sohal tang was also getting some spots, but he is completely clear of them now. Again, I hope this isnt just the natural lifecycle of the ich showing, I'm hopeful that the quinine is actually killing the ich off.

Supposedly it kills ich in all cycles of it's life, which would explain why after not even 3 full days all fish but one show almost no signs of ich.

I'll keep updating!

[Recty]

Here's a somewhat close up of him. A couple days ago he had ich spots about 3mm apart, covering his entire body and eyes.

Almost 3 days of quinine sulfate treatment later, he is looking pretty good again.





He is looking a little skinny and I have noticed that since doing the treatment, the puffer isnt as interested in food. It's almost like his tastebuds arent working. He goes after the clam or the other food I drop in, takes a bite then just swims away.

[Pufferpunk]

Try soaking his food in garlic. It's supposed to enhance their immune system too, so a bonus.

[Recty]

Any good ideas for soaking clams in garlic? Or just simply squish some garlic juice into a cup that has my thawing clams in there? I guess I could thaw them in a small cup of tank water, that way the garlic gets all over, otherwise if I try to get enough juice to soak 3-4 clams, I'll have to buy a whole bottle of garlic every time I feed

I already have garlic in my marine seafoods mix that my triggers eat, the puffer ate that at first like a champ, but now he turns his nose at it, little turd.

[Recty]

Another quick update, day 6 of treatment and all fish are looking good. The puffer looks great especially, him and the Humu trigger look the best of all of them. No fish have any spots left now.

Another good piece of news, the puffer seems to have his appetite back, at least partially. I fed live manilla clams this time. Usually, I go to the store, buy a couple pounds of clams, freeze 95% of them and put a couple clams into the tank, so they have never been frozen. I did this on Sunday and he started munching on them right away, so that is good.

[Pufferpunk]

This is great news! How do you think corals & other inverts (anemones & such) would fair with this product?

[Recty]

Corals deal with it poorly. I had a problem with my QT tank that I had my corals in, so I had to move them back into my main tank. I had a nice pulsing hand Xenia and a great green star polyp coral, both were moved to QT. Last Thursday I heard a drip drip drip and didnt know what it was, turned out my QT tank started leaking. I hate craigslist sometimes.

So I had to move the corals back to the main tank. They werent doing very well in the QT anyway, seemed stressed, not really coming out much. Basically they werent in good shape when they got put back into the display and they steadily went downhill. They died after about a day, started turning green and "molding" for lack of a better word.

I cant say for sure that the quinine sulfate killed them, although I think that is what did it, since everything I've read says inverts deal poorly with it.

My cleaner shrimp are still alive though, so that is good news. My hermit crabs are still moving, but not much, they dont really look happy. Most of my snails have either exited the water and are hanging out about half an inch above the water line, or have totally withdrawn into their shells. I pulled one out of the water last night and poked it and it moved, so it's still alive, but not happy.

Anyway, I would certainly not do it with corals in a tank and I'd be real skeptical at doing it with snails.

I do still see copepods moving around and I havent had any ammonia spike at all, in fact, I'm really surprised how well it is all working. I had to remove my protein skimmer so I figured I'd be dealing with lots of excess nutrients, but everything is going along "swimmingly" so to speak

[Paul B]

After further searching on WetWebMedia, Bob Fenner recommends Chloroquine phosphate for treating a DT for Crypt, over quinine sulfate.

Actually quinicrine hydrocloride is what I use and Imix it with copper. Quinicrine can be used by itself and is safe with most inverts except corals. Crabs, urchins, shrimp and lobsters will be fine if you are just using the quinicrine without copper.
It is a prescription malaria drug and not easy to get. The dosage is 5 mg/gal and another dose in 24 hours.
I like to mix copper with the quinicrine and that will give you a cure in about 24 hours but the fish must still stay in the treatment for 10 days.
It will tint the water yellow and also the fish temporarilly.

Also Pyrimethamine 4-8mg/gal can also be used in combination with chloroquine or primaquine.
All treatments for malarie which is also a paracite.
I have only used the quinicrine hydrocloride and when added with copper, nothing is better or faster.

[Recty]

Just an update here, treatment is done today. None of my fish, puffer included, show any ich at all.

I have found over the last 10 days that my fishes appetites are definitely curbed, they eat a quick bite when I feed but they certainly dont pig out like before. This isnt necessarily a bad thing as I'm not running my protein skimmer now so low nutrient levels in the water is great.

I also noticed my clown trigger getting pretty dark. Previously he had a great yellow coloration around his upper trigger and all across the flesh of his back. He is pretty much just all black now with the characteristic white circles on his belly. His tail is the same and his mouth is yellow, but all the coloring across the back has gone away. I'm hoping with good water quality and the quinine sulfate being removed from the water through water changes and carbon his colors will return, he was a gorgeous fish.