I don’t think there is any choice but to go fallow. Option 2 is to try and manage it but who wants to watch their fish die off and just throw money down the drain. I get that some old tanks seem to manage ich better but newer ones its a death trap for them from I have seen. I would love an option 3 if I ran into it again.
Just leave the tank fallow and do TTM instead of copper. I just dont like having to measure copper and have my fish sit through copper for 30 days or so. TTM may be more labor but that doesn't bother me at all. You're guranteed to get rid of ich doing TTM. As long as you do it correctly with no cross contamination. Of course I started my tank with no parasites so I didn't have to do a fallow period. My 300g tank is ich free full of 30 fish from 11 tangs to clowns.
Why would fish die off if they’re healthy? If their immune system is built up enough through quality foods, they can kick ich. Too many people on this website have had ich in their tank and haven’t gone fallow. Some people even say they wanted ich in their tank to help their fish immune system to get stronger, and these are tenured fish keepers. Youtubers get ich as well, they’re not going fallow either. Fish aren’t dying off because ich is in the tank again especially if their healthy. I was extremely hesitant to get “Dory” due to the excessive amount of people talking about how easy it is for them to get ich. I’ve been in the hobby since March. Got Dory in April. I know especially in the beginning my “husbandry” wasn’t the best, she had a few ich spots on her after I put her in my tank. Raised the temp, the sugar fell off, and haven’t seen ich on her since. I don’t worry about it either.
Nah i already did 4 fallow periods one of them being 90 days still got ich my guess is from low oxygen areas. So far the fish arent showing any signs of ich and they are very fat since i feed 3 times a day frozen food with selcon. I jist might not add another fish in my tank since it might ruin this lol
I would argue that if fish have ich, they aren't healthy. Ich isn't always a death sentence, but it sure can be. The parasite load can increase exponentially with each life cycle, and in a glass box ich can overwhelm a fish. Newer tanks have more problems than old, seasoned ones.
Well here’s the thing. If you’re new to the hobby, you don’t know so to say you wouldn’t buy into youtubers, sure, that works for you, but someone looking for info, YouTube is a well. As someone who has done a lot of research since I’ve started, it is fact that there’s no 1 way to run an aquarium, but there are those who have strong conviction to their way is the only way. There’s too many success stories that contradict the masses that seem to be on here.
I think you should find your statement a little revealing since "those" companies also package and sell the "cures" recommended on these forums. It causes me pause when you realize the truth in the statement you made as I know it to be true in the aquarium industry.
That's for sure.
I don't know what that means. Do you mean there are stories of fallow periods not working? I suspect reported failures are due to user error. Life cycle of ich is well understood.
Not sure I understand all of the nuances of your post, but I do not recommend aquarium medications that I don’t have solid references for. I refuse to recommend any chemical if the ingredients aren’t fully listed.
Yes, a lot of fallow periods not working. Yea we know. They fall off then look for a new host, if they don’t they die off. User error or not you’re going months with nothing in the tank, and to go that long and it not work regardless of circumstance sucks.
I am sure every situation is different. My fish were fat and healthy. 2 that died I had since I started the hobby a year and a half ago. I have a 220 gallon tank with 6 fish in it. No over crowding, no fighting everyone doing great. I run two big uv’s and a ton of automation with daily water changes. I feed way better than most folks, twice a day and a mix of all frozen, brine shrimp, mysis shrimp, rods food, frozen copepods,squid and various frozen veggie foods for tangs. Everything mixed in jar with fish amino acids, garlic and selcon. nori strips daily. Powder brown showed first spot and yellow eyed kole tang shortly after. Yellow tang was last to show anything. Everything I read was as long as they are eating good they will be fine. They ate very well. kole tang would get more and more every so many days until it finally overwhelmed her. Bicolor went down very quickly in just a few days of showing it. Powder and clowns were next looking like death warmed over. I have no doubt if I left them all in to fend for themselves they would all have died. I regretted every post I ever read of all the people saying to leave them be and they will build immunity. I call bs all the way, I think some get lucky and are just a ticking time bomb when first power outage happens or some other event. Only survivors are yellow tang and powder brown and that was only because jay took the time to coach me through treatment. I am sure older tanks may have something magical that helps them do better (at least that’s what I keep reading) but my 4 month tank was no match for them.
Everyone’s story is definitely different, but you can only attest to what you go through and that shapes your reality. Good luck
IMHO - it would depend on the types of coral you have and what temperature you keep your tank at. for example - if you normally kept your tank at 78-79, gradually (over a week) increasing the temperature to 81 will probably not do anything to the coral - and you should be able to decrease your fallow time. If you keep your temperature at 75, I'm not sure a change to 81 would be that great. Its my understanding though, that raising temperature during a fallow period may help shorten it. However, its my recollection that the 76 day recommendation comes from tanks that were around 78 degrees - so I do not think there's any reason to think you could shorten it with a temp of 78-79 degrees. The more interesting question (to me) is - if you leave it lower - do you need to have a fallow period longer than 76 days. (??? @Jay Hemdal )
There is simply no good data regarding time/temperature for Cryptocayon tomont viability. The original 76 days came from a single sample at room temperature in a Cedric (no bacteria) culture. Even the original authors said it wasn’t valid in real world applications. 45 days at 81 degrees appears to work fine. 78-79 degrees would logically then fall between those two extremes, but where is purely a guess. Also remember this is just for ich, other diseases won’t have the same clearing time.
Have you considered this might be flukes? These often cause more scratching than ich does, and copper won’t control them.
If you cannot fully trust that 45 day fallow works, then do the 72 day fallow. What’s worse is getting ich after 45 days and and wondering if ich came on the fish, or never left in the first place.
Don't lose sight of the fact that I'm just presenting the 45 day time frame as an option, and that it MUST be done at higher than normal temperatures - 81F or even higher. If you have corals that won't tolerate that, go with a longer option.
