ICH/ICK Quarantine Advice

[FishFingas]

Firstly, just to mention that this is my first post on R2R, so hi everyone and thanks for all the valuable information & advice I have been reading on here over the last few months!

I will summarise my problem here and then can explain full background later if requested, rather than submit a very lengthy post:

I setup my first reef tank in October 2018, so about 3 months in. 365 ltrs D-D Reef pro 1200 (300 ltrs water).

I have clean up crew, 4 fish + a few corals in there at the moment.

Fish:
2 x Ocellaris clowns
1 x 6 line Wrasse

These 3 went in after cycling the tank, I followed Red sea Reef mature program, more details on that can be provided later.

Added 1 x Small yellow tang late December (so a good few weeks / month on) and also added in a cleaner shrimp.

JFI, Corals are all doing great, good growth, coloration etc.

All water params have been good, regular testing, regular maintenance, small twice weekly water changes, good equipment etc. Can go into more details if required.

With the steep learning curve of going reef / marine I did not setup a quarantine tank at the start. Knowing what I know now, seems silly, but you learn a lot and very quickly in 3 months!

Anyway, to the problem. The yellow tang brought in Ich into the DT he got a couple of fin nips from one of the Ocellaris clowns asserting hierarchy in the tank etc and the stress of the tank move he started to show signs of ICH over next couple of days.

Apart from the signs if ich (white spots), all fish including tang eating well, behaving normally, swimming about quite happily. Never any signs of rapid gill movement or sluggishness etc.

Anyway Ich *symptoms* went away for couple of days, came back (as expected) and then my wrasse started showing signs of it.

I kept water params good, fed garlic with food and some amino acids to help boost immune systems. Fish recovered but then tang started showing signs of bacterial infection following ich. Again kept water params good and kept a close eye on tang and that now seems to have cleared up too.

Following signs of all this, I took the plunge last weekend, purchased and setup a quarantine / hospital tank, used a Fluval Sea Evo 52l (around 13g), no skimmer and a in tank media tray upgrade kit.

Got bio spounge, some plastic bio balls in my DT sump gathering bacteria at the moment.

Now I know that if I want to be fully rid of ich parasite in the DT, I have to remove all fish and leave fallow for around 60 days.

Plan was that the QT tank would be just used to QT one fish at a time as I introduce new fish very slowly into DT tank. So from reading threads on here, lots of recommendations to go 10 - 20 gals, so 13 seemed sensible.

Now although fish are all now looking healthy, im aware that the parasite is in the DT and any future stress to fish could cause ich to take hold again.

My first question is, with fish still being quite small, do you think I could get away with putting all 4 in the QT tank for 2 months, treating with Cupramine whilst leaving the display fallow..Is my QT tank too small for this or do you think I can I make it work?

QT is bare bottom with some fake rock things stacked on top of each other for hiding, heater and tiny powerhead. As I will be medicating, no skimmer, carbon, phosphate removers or anything like that.. Just Bio foam and plastic bio balls.

Have added a Seachem Ammonia alert to the tank so can be instantly alerted to any ammonia spikes.. Would be looking to do 2 x weekly water changes.

For catching the fish in display tank, I have purchased a fish trap, so would aim to catch fish over maybe a 1 week period and introduce them into QT, then start treatment.

Any thoughts / ideas / advice would be much appreciated. Reading various forums there seems to be mixed views on whether to try and eradicate ich or just deal with the fact the parasite is in the tank and let it be.

From now on I will be quarantining anything that goes into the display, fish corals etc. With regards to corals and copper, after any cupramine treatment (for fish), carbon will be run, tank will be stripped, cleaned, all bio media thrown away, ornaments taken out, tank air dried, refilled with fresh water, new bio media + foam from DT tank etc.. I believe copper should not be absorbed in the tank itself (glass, plastic, silicone etc) or at least not enough to be a problem, so hoping this will be OK.. Maybe thats another question.

Trying to QT and treat all 4 fish at once seems risky but if it can be done then moving forward I have peace of mind that the parasite should be gone! I don't want to for example add another 3 fish over the next year, Ich comes back and now I have to treat 7 fish as that would be even harder!

Many thanks in advance

James

 

[FishFingas]

JFI Photo of QT tank.

 

[Frtdrmrose7]

The 13G would be on the small side for all four fish but as long as you watch ammonia and keep your eyes open for aggression you could make it work. I would use Copper Power and Hanna Checker because of the wrasse. Also you should shoot for a 76 day fallow period to ensure you outrun the life cycle. Lastly I wouldn’t use the fake rock as it may absorb copper and could cause levels be harder to maintain. Overall welcome to R2R and good luck.

 

[ngoodermuth]

First off, hello and welcome! It’s admirable that you are trying so hard to keep your fish healthy. A couple of observations:

The tank is very small... 13 gallons would be tight for the yellow tang alone. Not to mention 3 other fish. And to be rid of ich you would actually need to let your display fallow for 76 days, not 60, which is a long time in very tight quarters.

The good news, as long as there are no FISH in the display, you don’t need to treat it with copper and risk the tank absorbing it. Just no new additions (unless you are willing to restart the 76 day clock) and NO fish.

After that, just continue to QT new additions. For the 4 fish you need to QT now... them being small you could likely be ok with a 20g long and lots of hiding spots. A little bigger wouldn’t hurt, but anything over 40g would be overkill IMO. Of course make sure to grab an ammonia alert badge, extra air-stone, and keep fresh mixed water at the ready (can’t use prime and such with copper, will kill all your fish instantly)

Good luck!

 

[FishFingas]

The 13G would be on the small side for all four fish but as long as you watch ammonia and keep your eyes open for aggression you could make it work. I would use Copper Power and Hanna Checker because of the wrasse. Also you should shoot for a 76 day fallow period to ensure you outrun the life cycle. Lastly I wouldn’t use the fake rock as it may absorb copper and could cause levels be harder to maintain. Overall welcome to R2R and good luck.

Many thanks for your reply, you picked up on something very important that I had completely overlooked, which is the Wrasse sensitivity to copper. I did some further reading up on this last night and seems to be lots of cases where 6 lines haven't made it through copper treatment or only just made it through with a pretty horrible experience. Almost seems cruel to even attempt it with all the fish currently looking in good health in the display tank.

RE: Copper Power, this doesn't appear to be readily available in the UK. In the UK we are pretty limited on treatments compared to the US. One alternative would be Paraguard but not sure of the effectiveness of this? Any experience?

Im really torn as what to do at the moment. My DT is all nicely balanced, fish appear healthy and seemingly recovered well from the symptoms of ICH, Even when the Tang and Wrasse had ICH, it did not appear to affect them like many describe, they seemed full of life, eating well as usual etc. If the fish were really sick or showing symptoms again I would defo hospitalise and treat but they are not at the moment.

One thing I forgot to mention in previous post, what I thought may have been a bacterial infection on the Tang (red blotches) following the ICH may have actually been diet related instead. I do feed a good mix of food, mysis, brine (with additives), Ocean Nutrition 1 and 2 and seaweed. I add 1 drop of garlic and 1 drop of omega to each live feed. Not long before the red blotches, I had stopped feeding seaweed for a bit (odd reason as I noticed something in the seaweed causes my Deltec skimmer to under skim for a while). I read up that blotches on tang could be 1) post ich infection, 2) poor water quality, 3) fighting, 4) too much live food vs veg / seaweed. So I immediately cut down food and fed more seaweed. Following that blotches cleared right up. No signs of aggression in the tank, all fish get on well, water quality was good 0 Nitrite, 0-1 Nitrate, 0 Phosphate, 8.5 Alk, 400 calc, 0 Ammonia, 34ppt salinity.

It's a bit of a tough decision. Part of me wants to quarantine and treat the fish now to prevent a possible future outbreak, other part of me doesnt want to put my fish through any unnecessary stress when they are seeming happy in the DT. Especially after reading about what copper can do to a 6 line

 

[FishFingas]

First off, hello and welcome! It’s admirable that you are trying so hard to keep your fish healthy. A couple of observations:

The tank is very small... 13 gallons would be tight for the yellow tang alone. Not to mention 3 other fish. And to be rid of ich you would actually need to let your display fallow for 76 days, not 60, which is a long time in very tight quarters.

The good news, as long as there are no FISH in the display, you don’t need to treat it with copper and risk the tank absorbing it. Just no new additions (unless you are willing to restart the 76 day clock) and NO fish.

After that, just continue to QT new additions. For the 4 fish you need to QT now... them being small you could likely be ok with a 20g long and lots of hiding spots. A little bigger wouldn’t hurt, but anything over 40g would be overkill IMO. Of course make sure to grab an ammonia alert badge, extra air-stone, and keep fresh mixed water at the ready (can’t use prime and such with copper, will kill all your fish instantly)

Good luck!

Hey, many thanks for your pointers. Yes agreed on 13g being tight to QT all 4 fish. The tank was purchased for primary use of QT 1 fish at a time before introduction to the display or single fish treatment tank, so its perfect size for that, quick to setup, less water changes etc etc. This is a somewhat a one off problem that im trying to overcome and my fault for not QTing from the start. Before reading more about the stresses of copper treatment was putting feelers out there as to whether I could make a one of Qt for the 4 fish work without buying any more kit. Over last few months spent a small fortune on trying to provide the best kit and water conditions for fish and corals in the DT and just spent a heap more on the 13g quarantine setup. Im taking over the house and the garage with all this kit haha! The other benefit of the 13g is that its small enough to fit in my home office so I can keep a close eye on things during the day.

76 vs 60 days noted, not sure why I wrote 60, will defo re-read up on the details of the process to ensure I do it right if I decide to go down the treatment route.

Yep added a Ammonia Alert badge to the QT and a small powerhead directed at the surface to agitate the water.

I don't use prime or anything like that. I make and mix my own RODI water ensuring 0 TDS and mix my own salt too. I wouldnt be treating anything else at the time or using any other chemical based additives, just pure biological and mechanical filtration in the QT.

Thanks again

James