Fallow periods: Going Fishless

[reefpatrique]

Is there a fallow period for worms? I saw some what appeared to be roundworms from my tang's belly. I'm wondering if going fallow while I treat the DT inhabitants in HT can get rid of that parasite.

 

[cadroved67]

Do i need to completely reset my fallow period if i made a mistake from tanking my dieased hand from the qt with a little water on it into the dt? It was velvet. It’s been 10 weeks since i have gone fishless and 4 weeks since the mistake.

 

[Highgrade]

Do i need to completely reset my fallow period if i made a mistake from tanking my dieased hand from the qt with a little water on it into the dt? It was velvet. It’s been 10 weeks since i have gone fishless and 4 weeks since the mistake.

Personally I wouldn't chance it. IMO I would start over.

 

[Highgrade]

Is there a fallow period for worms? I saw some what appeared to be roundworms from my tang's belly. I'm wondering if going fallow while I treat the DT inhabitants in HT can get rid of that parasite.

Tough to say since the worms lifespan may vary without a host.

 

[vkpatel238]

Probably a very basic question. I've put my 2 remaining fish after an ich wipe scenario into a seperate QT (applying Humblefish's advise on treating them), and have now started the fallow period. I have a bunch of inverts (snails, starfish and shrimp) in the tank and about 20 or so frags of coral (still a newbie!). The question i have is do i need to adding food to the tank during the fallow period for the inverts and coral? I was planning on adding some reefroids a couple of times a week.

 

[Fowler freak]

Continue to feed and do water changes accordingly if you want the remaining livestock/corals to live.

 

[Angel_V_the_reefer]

Longer is always better when going fallow. It's always possible an untested strain of ich exists that can take longer than 72 days for all the theronts to be released from encysted tomonts.

I recently attended a lecture by Tony Vargas (author of "The Coral Reef Aquarium") where he advocated letting a newly setup tank cycle without fish for at least 90-120 days without light; 180 days is even better. His argument had nothing to do with fish diseases, but to let the microfauna on the LR propagate without being eaten by the fish. Doing this alleviates some of "the uglies" many new SW aquariums experience (diatoms, GHA, dinos, cyanobacteria, etc.) The theory is that microfauna present in sufficient numbers inside your aquarium will deal with these problems for you, keeping them out of sight.

So, what does this mean for you if going fallow to starve out a fish disease in your DT? Take the opportunity to add more pods/microfauna to your tank, or stock more CUC if needed. You can even add more corals/inverts during the fallow period, so long as you restart the 76 day clock to compensate for any tomonts which they might be carrying. Turn a negative into something positive and fun!

This is an awesome write up and my first time to go LR on a nano.

As i have read, it is best to let the LR sir in the DT , let the micro fauna populate without disturbance and allow fish disease to eradicate itself by allowing 76 days correct ?

I’m big on fish QT and I definitely don’t want the fish to die as soon as they go in thanks !

 

[brandon429]

yes that's the general go

but there are these details too: big tanks are almost never done being stocked. you never really max out space; there's always a reason to keep buying more wet stuff and adding it into the tank. wet/anything from a pet store is a potential disease vector undoing all this hard work in fallow time you're considering.

along with careful fallow and quarantine, you need to be passing every new wet addition to your tank/be it a snail/ a frag etc / through 76+ day fallow just the same. it does not good to run it on a display then violate all the effort by adding directly in a reefcleaners clean up crew packet. that's the same thing as you never taking time to fallow.

 

[Angel_V_the_reefer]

yes that's the general go

but there are these details too: big tanks are almost never done being stocked. you never really max out space; there's always a reason to keep buying more wet stuff and adding it into the tank. wet/anything from a pet store is a potential disease vector undoing all this hard work in fallow time you're considering.

along with careful fallow and quarantine, you need to be passing every new wet addition to your tank/be it a snail/ a frag etc / through 76+ day fallow just the same. it does not good to run it on a display then violate all the effort by adding directly in a reefcleaners clean up crew packet. that's the same thing as you never taking time to fallow.

Ahh yes, this makes sense.

i Definitely see the upside of following a QT regimen for inverts/ corals.

I’m going to need to look around for how to approach this method appropriately, as I definitely don’t want any pests in my tank.

im curious as to how I would be able to qt coral without have a fish in there, or let’s say even testing, It would be a PITA to test for two tanks

 

[Bronx19]

I understand that copper cannot kill uronema internally, however I have a QT tank that is fishless, that may or may not have uronema in it. Will dosing copper kill any uromena in the tank?

 

[Big G]

Option 1: Best to drain and sterilize the tank and equipment with bleach.

Option 2: Treating the tank with a high dose of metroplex for 14 days should disrupt the parasites life cycle of reproduction.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I understand that copper cannot kill uronema internally, however I have a QT tank that is fishless, that may or may not have uronema in it. Will dosing copper kill any uromena in the tank?

Chloroquine works better than copper at controlling Uronema. However, you need to understand that Uronema is not an obligate parasite - it normally lives free in aquariums feeding on bacteria. Nobody knows how/why this protozoan becomes an inter cellular fish parasite, but it almost always is isolated to recently shipped fish of certain species.
Jay

 

[Bronx19]

Option 1: Best to drain and sterilize the tank and equipment with bleach.

Option 2: Treating the tank with a high dose of metroplex for 14 days should disrupt the parasites life cycle of reproduction.

Chloroquine works better than copper at controlling Uronema. However, you need to understand that Uronema is not an obligate parasite - it normally lives free in aquariums feeding on bacteria. Nobody knows how/why this protozoan becomes an inter cellular fish parasite, but it almost always is isolated to recently shipped fish of certain species.
Jay

Thanks for that. This QT tank has been fallow now for 90 days and I was hoping to use it again, but I cant say if its infected or not. I was hoping to not have wasted that fallow time and have to go through a cycle again. Looks like I have to drain it.