Expert Advice?

noo2usa

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All right. I need some clear expert advice. My 120 has been up since december. I have been fighting ich since I put a sick naso in it. Fish were removed and copper treated for a week. (All doing well ) Tank has been fishless for a little over 2 weeks. How much longer should I wait?

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You're supposed to wait two full life cycles of the parasite. I think it's 8 weeks? But I'm no ich expert. In my opinion you should have just added a UV sterilizer to the system (only leave it on when the fish have ich, otherwise OFF) and let it ride. It's extremely stressful to fish to be removed to what are often smaller systems and treated with chemicals. I'm not trying to jump on you at all! I hope it isn't taken that way.

Unless they're like SUPER eaten up, I just leave them in there, add vitamins (like Selcon, which is vitamins or fatty acids or something) and garlic to their food along with the UV and it clears up quickly. BUT I've only had ich twice in 16 years of reefing...and I don't use a quarentine. I think keeping them in an established system is really good for them.

I don't mean to turn your thread into a "quarentine or not" thread.

SO I think it's like 6-8 weeks.
 
Mel, first off he said "Expert" that should have excluded you!!! Any ways, yes I have read several university studies showing the life cycle is ~8 weeks. I have fought ICK 3 times in the past 2 years. It sucks!!!
 
I tried that the first time and lost 5 out of 7 fish. That naso was apparently really sick. They were moved to a 75 for quarentine and they seem to be happy and healthy. As for UV sterilizer I got it running 12 hours a day for right now. I also ran a round of kick ich through the tank. I just don't want to take any more chances. I've already lost several fish to this crap. I almost sold everything when the second outbreak hit. All that said, I don't want to cause any undo stress to my fish.

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So you've only got 2 fish left? If your fish are happy and healthy over in the 75, leave them there for a couple of months.

Try a chromis or clown or something like that in the main tank in ONE month and see how it goes.
 
Well. Were I messed up is I lost those 5 got the tank looking good again and replenished with some new fish(one being a kole tang) A couple of weeks passed and all of a sudden it looked awful. It didn't survive the next 24 hours. I went into panic mode and removed the other fish immediately. I don't think I waited long enough before restocking.

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People have reported even after 12 week fishless some strains of ich maybe present and re-infect. Personally I wont have a tank without neon gobies and skunk shrimp. Between the two all my fish get cleaned including wrasses chromis sometimes even clowns. I believe this all helps prevent outbreaks.

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People have reported even after 12 week fishless some strains of ich maybe present and re-infect. Personally I wont have a tank without neon gobies and skunk shrimp. Between the two all my fish get cleaned including wrasses chromis sometimes even clowns. I believe this all helps prevent outbreaks.

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Have you had good luck with neon gobies?
 
Yea so far. I recently added another one couple weeks ago. They hide a lot but jump on my fish if they swim near. Sometimes u can see it annoys the clowns lol. Normally they live on opposite sides of the tank and I thought they was aware of eachother since at feeding time they've come within a foot of eachother but then after feeding they go back to their hangouts. Today though they clearly saw eachother and immediately started fluttering about rubbing on eachother then one goes back to cave other follows they hang for a bit then one runs off to his spot and is folllowed. Like they was showing eachother their houses. Last I saw they was hanging out like a pair. My oldest one I've had probly 6 months. Been great both immediately took to frozen/flake. Only problem was my old sixline harassed the first one. Sixline is gone now lol. They both also started cleaning fish like next day after getting them.

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Only fish I have that I haven't seen them clean is chromis and diamond goby. But the skunk shrimp cleans them. I had a chromis get injured badly one day I believe my midnight aquascaping that resulted in a rock collapse caused it. The nxt day and for weeks after the chromis was constantly going to skunk shrimp to get all the dead skin cleaned. It was bad I thought it was gona die for sure you could see red meat. But he pulled through haven't seen them get cleaned in a while but all this has gotten me to feel those cleaners are very important to all my fishes health. Not to mention I've seen ich on my fish but not since i started adding cleaners 6-8 months ago and it never got out of control and all fish fat and healthy today

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I have a skunk shrimp already in the tank.How many neon gobies should I add and when?

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Really can add them at any time. I've read they do better in pairs or groups but mine did just fine by himself and at $30 each at LFS 2 is enough for me lol

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I love neon gobies! But let's be honest, I love almost all gobies. I wouldn't say that I've seen them clean fish all that well though.

There's a big debate about ich, from what I remember. The question is: are you ever able to truly get rid of it or is it present in the tank at all times? This deals with whether the ich microorganism is an obligate parasite or whether it can stay dormant someplace in the tank and survive. I am on the side of: ich is present in your tank at all times and you will basically never get rid of it completely. If you start your tank with clean water, use fake rocks, and new sand you might never have ich BUT the second you add rocks that have been near fish or fish themselves, I believe you're dosing your tank with all sorts of microorganisms.

Now PLENTY of these microorganisms are good for your tank...otherwise you wouldn't "cycle" and you'd always have ammonia, right? But some, like the ich parasite can cause a problem. I believe they cause an issue when their numbers get too high and they can overwhelm a fish. I also firmly believe that certain species of fish are MORE sensitive to ich than others e.g. blue/hippo tangs, powder blue/brown/achilles tangs. In my humble opinion, these fish should only be kept by people who have large established reef tanks with plenty of live rock who feed them very nutritious foods (including garlic and vitamins daily) and who have a backup UV sterilizer to use ONLY when the ich spots are visible on fish. Obviously I'm not directing this at our post-starter because he doesn't have these fish and he does have a UV...just making a general statement.

Some people believe that if they leave their tanks "fishless" for a while they can somehow kill off the ich parasites and their system will be ich-less. These people are unknowingly jumping into the camp of "ich is only an obligate parasite and unable to survive without fish as part of its lifecycle."

As I siad, I tend to believe that the ich parasites ARE ABLE to survive in the tank somewhere for long periods of time without causing big problems for fish. I do not know if the parasites are encysting and surviving in the sand/rocks or whether small numbers of them are surviving in the gills...but I bet it's living in there somewhere.

I'd have to do some research on this topic to really be able to post with any scientific backing BUT this is the amount of knowledge I have accumulated in the 16 years I've been reefing and a scientist...take it for what it's worth.
 
Oh I thought of something else: The reason I think you see less ich when you keep the system fishless for long periods of time is because they ich have somewhat "gone to ground". So they aren't free-floating in the water column (actively looking for a fish to attach to) anymore. That's why I am such a fan of the back up UV. It kills the parasites in the water column before they can attach to fish and dramatically decreases the number of ich parasites available to attach to fish.
 
I realize that since I haven't actually done scientific research on this topic I am not truly an expert BUT...

Rob, how's that for an expert opinion?
 
This is the kind of info I was hoping for. The copper and hope it doesn't kill them stresses me out more thanks the fish.:D. The tank has been fishless for 2 and a half weeks. I dosed kick ich for the 13 day cycle and rally for 5 days. Running uv 12 hours a day since fish removal. I'm dying a lil inside without my fish in the aquarium. Am I just impatient? I have my 2 oscillarus clowns a bullet goby a lawnmower blenny a scissor tail goby and a yellow tang. That are in a 75 at a friends house. Should I wait or can I bring them home were they are belong?

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I would continue to wait since you've got them out of the tank anyway. Please don't use what I said as a justification for putting them back early!

I do think that copper and other treatments stress out the fish more than it's worth but I've never used that stuff admittedly, so I'm more of a naturalist.

Why are you running it 12h per day? As soon as you saw one ich spot you should have kicked it on 24-7. Then when it died down, you turn it off because you'll kill the beneficial bacteria in your system as well as the ich parasite and eventually your corals will seriously suffer and you're tank might even cycle again.

I'd let them stay where they are for now. It's only been a couple of week. You might try adding one clown or chromis something like that (NOT a damsel) and seeing how it goes BUT since you've got it fishless, I'd probably wait at least 4 more weeks before I tried that.

It'll go by faster than you think.
 

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