ich in a large system

[s ruppa]

what is everyones thought on ich in a large system? do you QT all your fish? do you QT your coral or live rock in a set up with no fish for 6-8 weeks? what i have read is that ich will die in 6-8 weeks if it has no host.

i have read many threads on this forum and have not seen mention of QT when adding livestock to these 180+ set ups.

thoughts? opinions? discussion pertaining to dealing/living with ich in a large system

steve

[steve the plumb]

You can buy a UV unit the bigger the system the bigger the price tag.I know I will get one.I have to say I was lucky and didn't have ich in my old 150 gal tank.So far I see no ich with my new tank and I have bought several new fish.

[Elliott]

always a good idea to qt all new livestock: corals and fish. even more important in a large tank where it's more difficult to catch fish or rid the entire tank of disease. ich needs a host to survive so the only way to remove it from a reef tank is to remove all the fish and wait 3-4 wks

[Sifodyas]

UV will have limited impact as it affects only the bacteria in the water column. QT is the only reliable method you'll have.

[nyvp]

if none of the fish are complaning just leave them alone. I have had ich in my tank for the last year and everyone is fat and happy. My palani tang has had ich on it ( 6 or so spots)full time for 8-9 months now.

[s ruppa]

i agree with what everyone has said. i QT all my fish. i have never put a fish in my tank that shows signs of ich. but i have had ich anyway. usually like nyvp said if the fish are not complaining i leave them alone. i am going to start my 180-210 build in the next couple months and i was trying to decide if i want to make it a policy to QT my current and future live stock in a hypo salinity enviroment.

thanks for opinions
steve

[Elliott]

I too have had ich in my tank, it comes and goes. I agree with nyvp, it appears the fish just live with it, sort of like herpes

[steve the plumb]

Ich won't necessarily kill your fish.In a good system most healthy fish will fight it off.UV is supposed to help but isn't the magic cure.I have seen unhealthy systems with fish that have ich and the fish look very bad.It is better to quarantine all fish if you have the space for an extra tank.I myself have limited space plus I know its wrong but I don't feel like setting up and running another tank unless its one that I can keep looking nice(meaning a show tank)I do however try to buy carefully and I buy from the lfs that I know takes good care of there fish.

[burris]

If you have multiple tanks plumbed together, then UV placed between them can prevent ich from spreading from tank to tank, but it won't really help with ich that is already in a tank. Prevention is the best bet. If you have valuable fish, quarantine everything wet. 6-8 weeks of no host will indeed kill the ich. It is not like Herpes, after 10 months the ich will have died out on its own if you dont reintroduce it.

[jnarowe]

Qt is always a good thing but you may not catch it, and sometimes the QT process is very stressful on the fish. You have to use your judgement in each case. I QT, but have had Ich in my system. At one point I was fairly sure I was going to lose my PBT. He was in terrible shape and was the only fish that would not go into the trap.

So what I did was feed very high quality home-made food, soaked in vitamins, aminos, and Garlic Guard 3 times per day. With a highly nutritious diet, the fish were fine in very short order and it has never come back.

What is being said about it coming and going is true IME, if there are stressors like fluctuations in water quality and salinity, over-stocking, new arrivals, etc. All of these things can lead to an outbreak because the fish become stressed and it weakens their immune systems.

[mflamb]

I started my 390 system with dry rock and sand. I put live sand and dry rock in my 50 QT for several weeks and then added Chromis. I used hyposalinity to make sure there was no ich in the system. Then I put the sand in the 390 and the rock in the refugium and return section of the sump.
The Chromis were in QT for several months. (due to an injury, I was unable to finish my 390 any earlier.) I just added a Naso Tang, a Royal Gramma, and another Chromis that were in a 46 bowfront QT for 6 weeks. They all went through hyposalinity OK.
I also have a Vlamingi Tang that's been in the 50 QT for 8 weeks. It also went through hyposalinity OK. The Vlamingi goes in the 390 in 5 days. I'll start dipping SPS in TMPCC and FWE and putting them in the 50 QT. When I have a full load, I'll treat the 50 with Interceptor two times and observe them for a couple weeks and then place the corals in the 390. That's what I do with corals and fish.

[khoivo1]

instead of hyposalinity treat,,can i just do copper treat for a month just to make sure they will not bring itch into my susytem even thou they don't show no sign of icth?? ?? which is safe/? or better change fish will survise??

[kawasaki00]

Remember copper is a poison. Some tangs do not react well to copper. It is better to hypo than copper. 3 or 4 weeks is not long enough in the display tank. Needs to be 5 or 6. I hate to hypo every fish but with a PBT in the tank it is an absolute must. If you want a ich free tank QT must be done with hypo. I bought a maroon clown a couple years ago that showed no sign of ich, upon placing him into the tank 5 days later the PBT was covered in ich. Catching all the fish in 240 and hypo'ing them all was such a ordeal that I vowed to never add anything unless QT first. Which means fish get hypo for 5 weeks and coral, snail etc get 4 weeks in the QT.

[WetSleeves]

I would do a quarrantine with anything wet that you plan to put into your system.
I have been using formalin and hypo with some success. If there are real nasties I also have nitrofurazone and copper. I'm using amquel (and light feeding) to neutralize ammonia.
I never used to quarrantine anything. It only took the death of a dozen or so of my favorite fish to convince me otherwise.
The first thirty times you drop a fish in it may not bite you, but that thirty first time it will wipe out everything you've worked to acquire in the course of a week.

[jnarowe]

kawasaki00: I would seriously doubt that the maroon clown brought Ich into your system, but your method is good. Copper is a poison and I would not want to use it for treating fish. Many fish are just too sensative to have a good survival rate with copper, and their immune systems can be weakened substantially by it. It's a tough call with Ich.

[tmz]

Originally posted by Sifodyas
UV will have limited impact as it affects only the bacteria in the water column. QT is the only reliable method you'll have.

I agree QT is a must. It doesn't matter what size tank you have.

UV will have some effect depending upon the size of the sterlizer. It will easily kill bacteria and algae(including; amyloodinium,aka ic or velvet, which is a dinoflagellate and is almost always fatal) and thus help perevent secondary infection which often kills fish even if they are able to survive a cryptocaryon irritans (ich)infestation. Cryptocaryon is a protozoan and and is much larger than algae or bacteria and requires much more radiation to kill. It can be killed but requires a significantly oversized sterilizer. Using a sterlizer on a qt is also a good idea,in my opinion.

[cbeitel]

Ick sucks

Good advice above. Please remember disease is rampent in the fish business. The fish are subjected to multiple acclimations which stresses them out and lowers their immune systems. Some suppliers are better than others, but they all proliferate diseases due to this problem. The fish are also exposed to diseases from other parts of the world in wholesalers and LFS tanks.

My advice is to buy captive raised first and wild caught second. Buy the fish only after your LFS has had the fish for 1 week and is eating. Good stores will hold them for you. For my reef customers, I always make a point of saying how long I have had a fish and what their health has been. It almost never fails, that if I have had a fish for 1 week+, they always do well in my customer's tank.

Then QT at home... I don't like copper, but we find it a nessessary evil in serious cases. Even afer all those precautions, you could still have a problem. It only takes a drop of affected water.......

Good luck,
Chip

[steve the plumb]

I have used tetra marine ommed for ich in my old 90 gal reef and it worked but I have never used anything since then.Its a blue liquid and I don't remember whats it it but it didn't harm any inverts at the time I had starfish,shrimp many hermits and snails.The fish did get better but I was told by my LFS guy(back then) that if my tank had good conditions and the fish weren't to stressed it would go away on its own.I guess cleaner shrimps and a cleaner wrasse may help.

[jnarowe]

what we have found with a couple of our LFS is that it is better to be there when they arrive from the airport, and to take them before they get into the LFS' tanks. By doing so you can try to select the best that arrives, and save them from the less than ideal LFS tank conditions. That is not the case with all LFS of course, but here locally this seems to be the best way.