ICH killed most of my fish

[flobup]

so I only had about 4 fish in my DT, one of them got ich I didn't pay enough attention and they all got it, 3 died, one flame angel left.... got him in QT right now..... how long should I want before adding anymore fish to ensure the tank is safe?

learned the hard lesson of not QT'ing new fish ):

 

[DarkSky]

72 days.

It's a hard lesson that everyone learns at some point. The important thing is you don't give up and you're making efforts to prevent it from happening again in the future.

Good luck!

 

[flobup]

yep deff a lesson learned.... also how big and what kind of filtration does a QT need? I only have a 5 gallon bucket with a light on it right now.... going to get a small tank tomorrow, sould I add free saltwater and sand to it?

 

[Mjrenz]

This may help https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/my-current-qt-process.483371/

 

[Idaho Mojo]

How fast did this happen? Can you post pictures of infected/dead fish? It's possible that it was/is brooklynella

 

[flobup]

I cannot because they are in the trash lol, but I can show you my angel in my QT just one second. and it happened prob within 1 weeks. I got a new trigger fish and he was like scratching the rocks and I just thought it wass cute and not a sign of disease out of ignorance and then my ebi angel died first, then my gobby and anthias (but they looked mauled to death, not like the others that were scratching. I think the trigger killed them at night)

 

[Idaho Mojo]

If it was within a week (and not from bullying) then I would suspect brook. Ich usually does not or would not kill that fast.
Check out the fish disease forum on here. I have found this to be especially helpful.

https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?threads/285708/

 

[flobup]

Flame ange

 

[flobup]

The damsel looks way worse. White spots everywhere. still trying to get him out. Will my crabs and shrimp be affected also ?

 

[flobup]

He’s just laying at the bottom of my QT. is he a goner ?

 

[Idaho Mojo]

He’s just laying at the bottom of my QT. is he a goner ?

This may be a better topic for the fish disease forum. It's probably too late in the evening but theres some good folks over there.
@4FordFamily and #reefsquad have helped me a couple times.
You will most likely have to quarantine and treat all fish and allow your DT to run fallow for at least 6 weeks.

Getting pictures will help to accurately diagnose and treat the problem

To me it sounds like brook, and it is very fast acting. I lost half my fish in less than 1 week after introducing a clown without quarantine proceedures.

 

[Idaho Mojo]

The damsel looks way worse. White spots everywhere. still trying to get him out. Will my crabs and shrimp be affected also ?

Crabs and shrimp will be unaffected, but there is a fairly high possibility that the ich or brook or whatever parasite it is, can and will encyst on shells of crabs, shrimp, snails, rocks, glass, plastics, etc and will continue their life cycle and reproduction as long as there are fish in the system.

 

[flobup]

Well the flame has jsut died in my QT so I assume the damsel will be dead shortly. how long should I wait to add more fish?

 

[Idaho Mojo]

Well the flame has jsut died in my QT so I assume the damsel will be dead shortly. how long should I wait to add more fish?

76 days is the standard minimum fallow (fishless) period for parasite eradication.

 

[Idaho Mojo]

Do some research and reading on quarantine proceedures before you go adding new fish.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

Sorry for your losses. It really sucks to lose fish due to something that's preventable.

In addition to reading up on various fish diseases and quarantine procedures, here's a couple of other tips that might be useful to you. One is to have various fish medications on-hand before your next purchase, since at least brookynella, amyloodinium (marine velvet) and various bacterial infections can kill fish far more quickly than you can obtain medications. Another tip is to get a bottle of live bacteria, some dead rock (that's sterile!) and set your QT up well ahead of time. You can cycle this tank just as you would a reef tank, and for many fish diseases, a hyposalinity ride will prevent the fish's death. The bacteria in the cycled tank will survive a hyposalinity treatment protocol, and having some ability to cycle ammonia not only reduces stress on the fish, but also stress on the aquarist - having to change 100% of a tank's water every 3 days to control ammonia build-up can be a lot of work.

You can also use this tank in conjunction with a tank-transfer protocol for marine parasites like cryptocaryon (ich) and amyloodinium. You simply bring the fish home, setup a 5 gallon bucket with an airstone, a heater, a piece of PVC or plastic aquarium plant to give the fish a place to hide, place the fish in the bucket, and start the TT process. When you've done 3 transfers, you can put the fish in the already-cycled QT tank for observation for a couple of weeks before you put it in your display. Obviously, the 5 gallon bucket approach is for small fish, but you can scale it up with larger rubbermaid containers from the home store for larger fish.

Personally, I find emptying the buckets/plastic containers and sterilizing them between tank transfers to be far more convenient and less work than doing the same thing with glass tanks. The only drawback is that you can't see the fish from the side, but if you're doing TT prophylacticly and then adding it to a cycled QT tank for observation, you get a chance to observe them for a week or two to be absolutely sure you won't be contaminating your display.

 

[EmdeReef]

If you saw spots on fish I would assume you are dealing with velvet

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/velvet-amyloodinium-ocellatum.217570/

It’s unlikely for ich to kill so fast. As stated above, you have to treat all the fish and run your display fallow or sterilize before adding more fish.