Can a missing dead fish prolong ich fallow?

Alotls · Sep 27, 2023

Can’t seem to find a thread for this so I decided to make one.

I tore my 125g tank apart to move everyone into a hospital WT tank

However during the whole thing I caught all fish but 1, a royal gramma named pookie. In the chaos of taking out all the rock and grabbing them I think she went into said rock that I took out and put on towels. So she probably suffocated sadly. However I put all the rock back in and THEN realized that I didn’t catch pookie. So I’m wondering if she’s dead in the tank somewhere wedged in my 120 pounds of live rock is that going to pro long my fallow? ( still have a hope that she just is alive somehow some way and pops out for food in a few days

) and yes I looked all around the tank for jumper

Alotls · Sep 27, 2023

@Jay Hemdal @Humblefish you guys may know

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal · Sep 27, 2023

Alotls said:
Can’t seem to find a thread for this so I decided to make one.

I tore my 125g tank apart to move everyone into a hospital WT tank

However during the whole thing I caught all fish but 1, a royal gramma named pookie. In the chaos of taking out all the rock and grabbing them I think she went into said rock that I took out and put on towels. So she probably suffocated sadly. However I put all the rock back in and THEN realized that I didn’t catch pookie. So I’m wondering if she’s dead in the tank somewhere wedged in my 120 pounds of live rock is that going to pro long my fallow? ( still have a hope that she just is alive somehow some way and pops out for food in a few days ) and yes I looked all around the tank for jumper

Aww... pookie

Jay Hemdal · Sep 28, 2023

Alotls said:
Can’t seem to find a thread for this so I decided to make one.

I tore my 125g tank apart to move everyone into a hospital WT tank

However during the whole thing I caught all fish but 1, a royal gramma named pookie. In the chaos of taking out all the rock and grabbing them I think she went into said rock that I took out and put on towels. So she probably suffocated sadly. However I put all the rock back in and THEN realized that I didn’t catch pookie. So I’m wondering if she’s dead in the tank somewhere wedged in my 120 pounds of live rock is that going to pro long my fallow? ( still have a hope that she just is alive somehow some way and pops out for food in a few days ) and yes I looked all around the tank for jumper

Sorry to hear. If Pookie died, then it really won't extend the fallow period, but if it is still alive, the tank is not in a true fallow state.

Jay

Alotls · Sep 28, 2023

Jay Hemdal said:
Sorry to hear. If Pookie died, then it really won't extend the fallow period, but if it is still alive, the tank is not in a true fallow state.

Jay

okay thank you. The ich only likes live fish and not recently passed.

Sad but my fault, had a whole checklist and everything and she was just no where to be seen in the whole year down except in the beginning.

Best case is it isn’t fallow yet and she’s in there somewhere just waiting and hiding but it’s so very doubtful. Thank you for your time

brandon429 · Sep 28, 2023

they degrade in about a week or less to nothing in most reef tanks.

Alotls · Sep 28, 2023

brandon429 said:
they degrade in about a week or less to nothing in most reef tanks.

Good to know, thought it’d be longer tbh. I’m gonna grab some cleanup crew and throw them in since it’s in the fallow period

brandon429 · Sep 28, 2023

that breaks your fallow protocol:

Biosecurity

A short introduction to aquarium biosecurity

www.reef2reef.com

during fallow, never add anything that hasn't passed through fallowing itself outside the tank. same goes for after fallowing.

even if your system is too new to degrade a fish quickly/not enough grazers it's not going to be impactful to ammonia or anything/it's a nonfactor in your original question about ich as well.

Sharkbait19 · Sep 28, 2023

Just make sure that you start the fallow clock after the last addition, otherwise you could theoretically introduce new disease into the system.
As for the gramma, how long was it out of the water for?

Alotls · Sep 28, 2023

**** what am I missing here.

Thought inverts were QT without fish for 76 days

Can’t I technically qt them in display while that’s fallow for the 76

brandon429 said:
that breaks your fallow protocol

brandon429 · Sep 28, 2023

if what you're adding meets the order of ops that article references for biosecurity, then you can add them. if you have cuc stock that has been fallowed elsewhere, and you're adding them to your fallowing tank, that does not restart your fallow timeclock.

if you went to the pet store and bought a cuc, and put them in your fallowing tank, that does restart the clock.

Alotls · Sep 28, 2023

Sharkbait19 said:
Just make sure that you start the fallow clock after the last addition, otherwise you could theoretically introduce new disease into the system.
As for the gramma, how long was it out of the water for?

Okay yes that’s what I was thinking, I’m not starting the fallow clock until a week just to make sure pookie is gone gone. And I don’t know from rocks out to catching all the fish was probably 40 minutes?

Alotls · Sep 28, 2023

Okay that’s fine, the clock hasn’t started yet, I just moved them last night and with a chance of pookie being in there I’m not starting my calendar till next week so the new snails will be in there before fallow start clock

brandon429 said:
if what you're adding meets the order of ops that article references for biosecurity, then you can add them. if you have cuc stock that has been fallowed elsewhere, and you're adding them to your fallowing tank, that does not restart your fallow timeclock.

if you went to the pet store and bought a cuc, and put them in your fallowing tank, that does restart the clock.,

r2odie · Oct 8, 2023

does this mean the CUC, in my case, 3 tuxedo urchins, 1 exlarge black long spine urchin and snails and crabs can remain in my tank (400 gallon) for the fallow 76 days? I do still have 2 fish to catch so haven’t started clock yet.

Alotls · Oct 8, 2023

r2odie said:
does this mean the CUC, in my case, 3 tuxedo urchins, 1 exlarge black long spine urchin and snails and crabs can remain in my tank (400 gallon) for the fallow 76 days? I do still have 2 fish to catch so haven’t started clock yet.

correct, inverts as you mentioned can stay in display tank!