Ich killed all our fish

Aortiz1986 · Jun 22, 2024

We had a mass ich killin breakout, which ended up killing all our fish. We treated it with the hyper safe copper and also did a API general cure treatment. We bought a uv light and put it in the tank and were about to do a 50% water change and then we’re going to treat it with Ich X. Am i missing anything because we have no fish to see of this works

vetteguy53081 · Jun 22, 2024

Aortiz1986 said:
We had a mass ich killin breakout, which ended up killing all our fish. We treated it with the hyper safe copper and also did a API general cure treatment. We bought a uv light and put it in the tank and were about to do a 50% water change and then we’re going to treat it with Ich X. Am i missing anything because we have no fish to see of this works

Sorry to hear and ichX despite its claims is a waste of money as with most claimed reef safe treatments. When you say hypersafe copper, what copper product did you use and how did you verify treatment level?
With the copper, did you add General cure along with it?
UV is a great device but will not erase copper that is already within the tank but rather address what is free floating moving forward

Mwatts12 · Jun 22, 2024

did you buy one of the drop in UV Lights on Amazon?

Also, I would have done none of that. Just upped the feeding throughout the day. Let the fish eat like crazy.

I would argue it’s a guarantee

Jekyl · Jun 22, 2024

This is what is usually recommended here to ensure nothing remains of the illness.

45 Day Fallow periods

I've been doing some research into the "76 day fallow period". I never heard of that prior to coming to Reef2Reef this past summer. I had always used 32 days as the maximum time for a tomont to remain viable under tropical conditions, and then I would round up to 45 days to help ensure that...

www.reef2reef.com

dank.reefer · Jun 22, 2024

I had the ich outbreak early on in my display. It came along with a coral purchase I believe. I treated the fish in a separate medicated QT tank and let the display go fallow for 90days. Supposedly 77 days is all that is needed to let all parasites run their lifecycle with the exeption of I think uronema. I figure if I can go 77 days 90 days just for good measure shouldn't be that much more painful. If you have no fish left just go fallow for a few months till it runs it's course. With no fish to live on the ich will die out. Once the fallow is over it is a good idea to set up a quarantine tank for anything coming in. I buy my fish from an aquaintance who does medicated QT. Then I hold any other new livestock for 90 days in a QT tank before puting it in the display since fish parasites can come in on corals or cleanup crew as well.

It can be a challenge holding out that long in between new additions but I have found that it also has helped to keep other pests out of the display as well. I have caught both aiptaisia and zoa spiders in my QT before adding livestock to my DT. I am still aiptaisia and spider free in the display. It also gives you and opportunity to figure out your coral placement before adding to the display(lighting / flow preference). Every 3 months or so I will do a coral buying frenzy hitting up the LFS, local reefers, and maybe even an online vendor or 2. I do all of the buying for a week or 2 then stop for 3 months. If anything new goes into the QT the 90 days restarts for everthing in there.