All my fish have ich in my reef tank And I don't know what to do. I don't have no way to take them out and quarantine all of them and I have corals in my tank so need help please on what to do????
Ich in my tank need help please
- Thread starter Genius
- Start date
Sorry you have ich, many of us have been there. If you can”t quarantine the fish for treatment and let the tank go fishless for 76 days to eradicate it, you are most likely going to lose your fish. You can try to feed selcon and garlic, but in my opinion it’s temporary. Look up humblefish he has a forum for treatment options and there is a sticky from him on reef2reef as well. It’s not difficult to set up a QT tank for just your fish for treatment.
I have a Q.T tank but it's a 10 G for when I get new fish. It's my first time having ich in my Display tank
While not a cure, you can feed the fish with Metro & Focus soaked food. It will kill all of the attached parasites on the fish and give them some relief pretty quickly. Then keep feeding Selecon or Vitachem soaked food to help build up their immune system.
Treating marine Ich in main tank
Let's talk about marine Ich for a moment. Most (uninformed - ) hobbyists who believe that their marine fish have Ich ask about a way to treat it in the main tank. Most of the answers they receive is that the best and most effective way (some would say 'the only way') to get rid of Ich is to...
www.reefsanctuary.com
Looks like you will have to do ich management if you can’t remove the fish. What Adam suggested is the right start. Maybe add a UV if you can as well.
Ich eradication vs. Ich management
Ich eradication vs. Ich management The purpose of this article is to discuss the pros & cons of ich eradication and ich management, and present the best methods for implementing each. Ich eradication - Simply put, this method means doing everything possible to keep ich out of your tank. That...
www.reef2reef.com
This is something interesting regarding the 76 day fallow period. I didn’t read the aforementioned article but it was from 1997 and the conditions that the tomonts lived that long was unrealistic to what we keep our tanks at.
45 Day Fallow periods
I've been doing some research into the "76 day fallow period". I never heard of that prior to coming to Reef2Reef this past summer. I had always used 32 days as the maximum time for a tomont to remain viable under tropical conditions, and then I would round up to 45 days to help ensure that...
www.reef2reef.com
How long a fallow period to use is a form of risk assessment. Once you are in the situation like I was a year ago where your tank is fallow and your fish are in a separate tank, it only takes one tomont to start the cycle over again. 76 days fallow is if you want to be absolutely sure ich is eradicated this way.This is something interesting regarding the 76 day fallow period. I didn’t read the aforementioned article but it was from 1997 and the conditions that the tomonts lived that long was unrealistic to what we keep our tanks at.
45 Day Fallow periods
I've been doing some research into the "76 day fallow period". I never heard of that prior to coming to Reef2Reef this past summer. I had always used 32 days as the maximum time for a tomont to remain viable under tropical conditions, and then I would round up to 45 days to help ensure that...
Yeah, take what you or anyone want from it, and the longer the fallow the better of course. But the conditions the 76 days was determined is unrealistic of what we keep our tanks at. Again, take what you want from it, just putting it out there.
It would take a bit of luck and be a major pita but if the timing of metro/focus doses was just right there is a small chance it could be eradicated.
My preference is just management at this point. Address the current issue and give the fish relief while boosting their immune systems. I think it's pretty much impossible to have a ich free system long term in this hobby. The parasite is supposed to die out in a couple years due to lack of genetic diversity. The issue there is, that nothing new can be added to the system without a long QT process. Than means no frags, no nems, no pods, no snails, not anything. That just doesn't seem realistic to me. All it takes is one cyst or any of the other 4 stages of the life cycle and the clock starts over.
My preference is just management at this point. Address the current issue and give the fish relief while boosting their immune systems. I think it's pretty much impossible to have a ich free system long term in this hobby. The parasite is supposed to die out in a couple years due to lack of genetic diversity. The issue there is, that nothing new can be added to the system without a long QT process. Than means no frags, no nems, no pods, no snails, not anything. That just doesn't seem realistic to me. All it takes is one cyst or any of the other 4 stages of the life cycle and the clock starts over.
- Messages
- 273
- Reaction score
- 195
I would read up on the Reef2Reef thread addressing ich Management versus Eradication. But, if I may, I suggest that you think about this much longer term than this outbreak. What will be your overall protocol for fish care going forward? If you are not going to QT fish before they go in your DT, then it is pointless to go fallow and QT your fish now. You will just introduce ich (or worse) in the future. Hence, you are in Management mode.
BUT... if you want to permanently insure that your current and future fish are free from parasites, then I think you need to wrap your head around what that would look like and take a longer view. It is very easy to remove fish for 72 days, believe me. Just buy a Brute tub for them and add filtration and heat. Or buy a 40 breeder and do the same. Then read up on QT protocols.
There is no "right" answer. But those are your options, and I would encourage you to think not about how you spend this weekend, but how your protocol will be for the life of these fish and the tank.
BUT... if you want to permanently insure that your current and future fish are free from parasites, then I think you need to wrap your head around what that would look like and take a longer view. It is very easy to remove fish for 72 days, believe me. Just buy a Brute tub for them and add filtration and heat. Or buy a 40 breeder and do the same. Then read up on QT protocols.
There is no "right" answer. But those are your options, and I would encourage you to think not about how you spend this weekend, but how your protocol will be for the life of these fish and the tank.
I agree with this. My biggest fear with not QT'ing isn't ich. Like I said above it can be very difficult to be 100% you'll always be ich free with the amount of things we put in and take out of our tanks. Not that I'm not going to do my best with my new system. But Brook & Velvet are much bigger concerns. Chances of getting one of those from frags or another source are pretty slim. If they get in a system there won't be fish for long untreated. Getting them on new fish is a much higher probability.
Note that while 76 days is extreme based on conditions used in previous studies, there are other studies that have shown that Ich can survive almost indefinitely in an anaerobic environment. Practically speaking, if you had Ich encysted to your sand bed, then buried it while fishing all your livestock out, then it got uncovered by a powerhead or whatever 4 months later...it reactivates and boom. Chances of this happening? Greater than 0, less than 100.
I agree with Cook, it's all about risk analysis/management. I'd argue even at 76 days, your risk is not zero because of potential issues in treatment, cross-contamination, and the aforementioned anaerobic environment issue. I don't have anything to back this up, but I would wager that risk of reinfection is less than 5% at day 45. Everything we do in the hobby is a dice roll, but there are actions we can do to increase our odds of winning...some easy some not. Is waiting to day 76 worth getting to say 99%? Only you can answer that.
I would recommend going to Petco and buying some larger tanks to do a proper QT and fallow period. By the time you account for the cost of management (supplements, UV, etc), potential loss of fish, and that dread every time you have an outbreak...the cost/effort differential is minimal. I did it, and I don't regret it. Though I do wish I had more experience at the time. Unfortunately, I lost a few fish to preventable issues due to not being experienced enough in running temporary tanks and QT.
I get what you’re saying but you’re just making up numbers at that point and based on your theory of possible 4 months, why bother with the tank. Might as well tear it down and sanitize everything with that mindset.
I get its all about minimizing risk, again, take what you want from it but the study is outdated and the idea of our reef tanks kept at that temp to keep the cyst from hatching is unrealistic.
Do what you want with the information and you can disagree with it all you want but that’s what the research is based on.
In all fairness, I am only aware of two data points for reef hobbyists to go off of and both are flawed. The first being the 76 day and the second being the 30 day. The 30 day is based off the accepted average life cycle of Ich (with some safety margin) and the minimum amount of time to properly treat and observe fish in quarantine. The 76 day may be imperfect, but it is the best research we as hobbyists have available and presents a decent most likely worst-case scenario. Meanwhile, the 30 day is reasonable, but I don't think anyone would bet their house that a tank is guaranteed to be Ich-free after 30 days. If your reputation depended on giving people advice that had the best chance of eradicating Ich...which benchmark would you choose? This is why so many in the industry perpetuate the 76-day rule even though it is imperfect.
I don't think saying there is a chance of failure at 4 months is a defeatist mindset. It's just being realistic. The best way to keep Ich out of your tank is preventative, once you have it...you are only left with poor choices. Tearing down your tank and starting over is certainly one of them...especially if your tank is newer. But for those with established reefs...I would go fallow for 6 months before I reset my reef back to day 0.
Again, you can go on feelings or the facts on why the 76 day was based on. Maybe you prefer feelings to help you sleep better at night and that is perfectly fine. I’m not arguing with the period, just putting out the info.
- Messages
- 1,069
- Reaction score
- 443
i can say i always thought that 1 study that people found where ich survived under certain conditions for 76 days was overkill imo it was just one study under exact conditions i always thought ich would probably die without a host more in the 30-45 day period but ive never had ich but i did have velvet and it killed all my fish in like 2 days
- Messages
- 1,455
- Reaction score
- 2,360
So the majority of this hobby is anecdotal at best. Some of it is proven science but a lot is not. What works for some might not work for others. Let's please try to remember that, and to take advice as just that - advice - and remember that it won't always be applicable in all cases.
Yeah. The way I see it is the min is 45 days fallow but the farther you go out, the better the odds are in your favor. But we all know everyone in this hobby gets impatient at time, so just giving people some info and its entirely up to them. Heck, that’s why we see a lot of these threads, a lot of hobbyist don’t want to wait 30 days to add their new beautiful fish they just bought.
But back to this thread, @Genius you should look into management as many have suggested but if you get a wipe out, hope it doesn’t happen, just know that you should really go fallow and invest in some type of QT.
- Messages
- 418
- Reaction score
- 115
I had a bad outbreak many years ago. I lost half of my fish, the worst one due to human error while dipping it. If you plan to catch and dip be sure to have a good plan in place. I did not go fallow and the other fish survived and I never had another outbreak. Added other fish and they never had an outbreak. I moved and upgraded multiple times bringing along the sand and rock for years. In my experience healthy fish resist ich fairly well. More recently I added a uv but it's unclear to me how much it helps.
Hope things get better soon.
Sent from my SM-G991U1 using Tapatalk
Hope things get better soon.
Sent from my SM-G991U1 using Tapatalk
Similar threads
