ICH - Fallow period - Calcium Reactor... CO2 - No oxygen - problem?

Dukereefnz · Jul 19, 2023

Hi - Day 40 something.. man this is hard work keeping 3 QT tanks running with 17 fish.
Counting down the days before adding them back to the DT.

THEN I had a thought.... I was reading why Fallow periods fail and it is low / no oxygen areas where ICH sits.
Anaerobic areas ich tomonts can basically hibernate - Calcium reactor?
And then I was looking at my calcium reactor and it has 2 x chambers with CO2 pumped in to it with NO oxygen.

What is the approach I should take with this... do I need to take it off line and clean it out?

bluemon · Jul 19, 2023

While I'd say it's highly unlikely since the pH is pretty low, I'd say, why not?

Calcium rector will appreciate a nice clean start from all that calcium build up which means less prone to failures in the future, and there is honestly no better time than now when half your livestock is not directly in the tank

vetteguy53081 · Jul 19, 2023

Dukereefnz said:
Hi - Day 40 something.. man this is hard work keeping 3 QT tanks running with 17 fish.
Counting down the days before adding them back to the DT.

THEN I had a thought.... I was reading why Fallow periods fail and it is low / no oxygen areas where ICH sits.
Anaerobic areas ich tomonts can basically hibernate - Calcium reactor?
And then I was looking at my calcium reactor and it has 2 x chambers with CO2 pumped in to it with NO oxygen.

What is the approach I should take with this... do I need to take it off line and clean it out?

generally these as mentioned may be a retreat for tomonts, they need a host for survival and without a host- they die off. A UV sterilizer may prove valuable when it comes to display tanks often addressing the free floating organisms before they can establish a lifecycle

Dukereefnz · Jul 19, 2023

Good points - thanks.
I will give the CA and good clean and replace the media.

I have a good UV unit, ICH only showed up when the unit was 10 months old.
My thoughts are that as the UV became less effective the ICH took off... ICH may have been in my tank for some time and only became a problem when the UV bulb started to age,

MnFish1 · Jul 19, 2023

Dukereefnz said:
Hi - Day 40 something.. man this is hard work keeping 3 QT tanks running with 17 fish.
Counting down the days before adding them back to the DT.

THEN I had a thought.... I was reading why Fallow periods fail and it is low / no oxygen areas where ICH sits.
Anaerobic areas ich tomonts can basically hibernate - Calcium reactor?
And then I was looking at my calcium reactor and it has 2 x chambers with CO2 pumped in to it with NO oxygen.

What is the approach I should take with this... do I need to take it off line and clean it out?

No. 1. It's unclear whether the anaerobic thing happens except in a laboratory. 2. The chemistry of the water in a CO2 reactor is incompatible with life. 3. The experiments on anaerobic Ich - most certainly did not occur in water with an alkalinity of 30, a pH of 6 something and an extremely high CO2 concentration.

PS there is oxygen in a Calcium reactor.