Question about ich

[jkta99]

My imperator angel has ich and has had it for about a week so I am going to put it in qt and do hypo. My question is do I have to take all the other fish out too? Some of them had a couple of dots on them but now none of them have any just the angel. So why don't all my fish have it?

[ozadars]

It is related with the resistance of the fish. If the the fish is stressed, scared, not well fed, etc. it is more likely to catch ich. If the others dont have ich you dont need to qt them but I would keep the emperor in the qt for around 6 weeks and watch the others closely. If they dont show any sign of ich then you can add the emperor back. Feed them healthy and bevare of changes in water parametres.

[keeperofthefish]

To get ich out of a tank, it must lie fallow (without fish) for 6-8 weeks. During that time, you'll have to QT all fish and do hypo or copper to take care of the ich. Seriously, that's what it takes. A better answer, in my opinion and having gone through this myself, is to feed the tank with vitamin and garlic-soaked food and add a heavy duty UV sterilizer at a flow rate that turns over your tank 3x per hour and applies appropriate UV wattage to kill protozoans. This is the "least bad" but not foolproof method. We all never seem to learn, but I'm QTing from now on for sure!