Quarantine of my new fish

[hectorharvey]

I am quarantining a Royal Gramma (close to four weeks now) in hopes of making him ich free before he enters my DT. It has never shown any sign of ich. I brought it near death with hyposalinity, (1.010) but it is doing much better as I am raising it back up. I brought it down slowly over the course of a week and watched the PH closely.

Question: If all fish have ich, quarantining will not get rid of it without some treatment. If the fish cannot handle hypo salinity, how do I rid the ich?

The DT will have been fish free for a min of 8 weeks before I move the gramma in.

My LFS sold me a bottle of Para Guard, but after reading a bit about it I am not optimistic. Seachem seems to recommend 21 days of treatment, but I hate the thought of doing that to a perfectly healthy fish.

 

[seth the wine guy]

Don't stress about Ich. I don't think you can completely eliminate it from any system. The parasite has too many "in's" to get in your water column. The life cycle of the parasite makes it tough. I think of Ich the same way as bacteria in my mouth. With a weakened immune system I'm sure it could make me sick an possibly kill me. But, I eat right, sleep well, and stay healthy. The bacteria never have a chance.

QT is a great practice. I don't subject mine to any extreme conditions when I do. I'm not any QT guru but it's really not as complicated as you might think.

 

[oil_fan]

QT is great way to prevent additional infections into your DT.

As for treating ich, from what I've read, increase the heat upwards of 78-80 degrees and give plenty to eat. You can use a UV lamp to kill the parasites that are in the water column. Basically from I've read (none of my fish have ever had ich), the idea is to increase their immune system so they can fight it off on their own.

 

[johniii]

oil_fan;709619 wrote: qt is great way to prevent additional infections into your dt.

, the idea is to increase their immune system so they can fight it off on their own.

+1