How Much Longer To Fallow My Tank?

[Tnops]

Hello, my tank caught both ich and velvet a couple of months back. Here is the timeline:

-October 12:
Day 1 of official fallow (at 79F), meaning no contamination or fish

-Fast forward 31 days (November 12)
I decided to get chaeto and a conch form a LFS which is also when I discovered that 45 day follows at 81 degrees exist

Now, it has been 22 days at 81 degrees or 53 days in total with no fish but however new invert/algae introduced in between. When will it safe to add back the fish?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hello, my tank caught both ich and velvet a couple of months back. Here is the timeline:

-October 12:
Day 1 of official fallow (at 79F), meaning no contamination or fish

-Fast forward 31 days (November 12)
I decided to get chaeto and a conch form a LFS which is also when I discovered that 45 day follows at 81 degrees exist

Now, it has been 22 days at 81 degrees or 53 days in total with no fish but however new invert/algae introduced in between. When will it safe to add back the fish?

Chaeto is pretty good at being a vector for disease transmission. If the tank it came from had fish in it, I would opt for a 45 day minimum from the day you added it. Remember, the 45 day idea is to 100%, it has some increased risk associated with it, More risky though, are errors in fallow periods, or not properly quarantining new fish after the fallow period - that is the primary ways that parasitic diseases get started up again in a fallow tank.

jay