ICH present in reef tank- what should I do?

[ca1ore]

Make sure you read up on ich management versus eradication. For a small tank with a single fish, the answer seems clear to me, but ultimately it’s your call. Unfortunately with ich management, it relies on certain things that you cannot control.... mainly the specific strain of ich you are dealing with. You may also find that the cost of management exceeds QT.

 

[HuduVudu]

skipping fallow and qt doesn’t work

This is simply not true. There are many including myself who don't bother with this intrusive controlled thinking that have perfectly healthy fish.

If this is your way then kewl, but to say that it is the only way is myopic.

 

[ca1ore]

This is simply not true. There are many including myself who don't bother with this intrusive controlled thinking that have perfectly healthy fish.

If this is your way then kewl, but to say that it is the only way is myopic.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you ..... !

There is a reason that management versus eradication has 'raged' for years .... there is no definitive right answer and there are proponents on both sides. I find it prudent to QT all fish (not just for disease either), but I also employ ich management in my large system. On the continuum of diseases, ich is actually quite mild.

 

[brandon429]

My statement mentions work threads, which validates at-home reefs not doing quarantine.

we believe you have the setup

the disease forum linked does not show non qt non fallow patterned work. it shows in fact a lot of noncompliance and disease help for fallow skipped tanks


*be sure and start this work thread below, we want to track it, anyone who says qt and fallow isn't the best science we have going:


"How to run your new tank without fallow and quarantine, post here for guidance live time, we track your tank out to eight months"

post that test thread in the new reefs forum, and in the fish disease forum.


I would like to see Paul, you Hudu, or literally anyone, make that thread and run your method in it because the patterns would be good science.



*the fallow and qt do have hundreds of pages of outcomes to inspect, that's a pattern. and they did work threads to arrive at the patterns

offering these comparisons isnt meant to slight any technique, bob ross could paint trees with a smear of mud and they'd look real. im only dealing in post patters we see and don't see regarding fish disease. until a work thread is made to wrangle in and test all the variations new tankers bring to disease control, we simply dont have better preps for the masses other than qt and fallow.


we are killing thousands of fish though by not having a reliable means on either side.

Fish - in instant cycles are not the enemy, its disease. handling instant ammonia control is the easy part.

 

[HuduVudu]

Ok @brandon429 starting the thread now. This is going to be the death of me, because I will be attacked mercilessly, or ignored completely ... FOR SCIENCE!!!

 

[HuduVudu]

@brandon429 Ok done:

How to run your new tank without fallow and quarantine, post here for guidance live time, we track your tank out to eight months

So as a part of another post it was suggested that I set up a post for the 'alternate' methods. Gonna tag in @Paul B because he follows this path also and his experience is different from mine. How I 'manage' ... read ignore fish disease. My experience. I will put this out there because I...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

well done. I know several pros that practice that method and if you make patterns you create a solid niche for reefing. Atoll would agree to the method, Paul, even though I have no right to speak for them specifically their post history is about maximizing the tank for suppression of disease naturally and fat feeding of hq fare. well done.

 

[Jay Williams]

20 gallon tank with one fish ..... no brainer .... treat it in a QT and keep the tank fish free for three months. I have ich in my tank, but it’s 450 gallons and has 125 fish (which I couldn’t catch even if I wanted to .... and I don’t), so I manage it.

How do you manage it?

 

[Marc2952]

I went fallow 3 times but after adding corals i got ich again, im not gonna QT my corals, fish and inverts in separate tanks its not worth the stress so i went the ich management route and for the last couple of months everything has done well.

 

[Jay Williams]

I went fallow 3 times but after adding corals i got ich again, im not gonna QT my corals, fish and inverts in separate tanks its not worth the stress so i went the ich management route and for the last couple of months everything has done well.

Yeah I’ve got a lot of soft corals and don’t plan on risking the corals with QT, what’s you’re management route/strategy?

 

[jda]

IMO, the best way to manage it is to get a super diverse tank with real ocean live rock and give it some time to populate everywhere with microfauna. Sometimes you have to do this every half a decade or so. If tomont falls off of my fish, it will be greeted by a bunch of hungry organisms in the sand and on the rocks and become a meal. This is not eradication, but I have long since decided that keeping it out is a fools errand for me (and most).

I also isolate fish in a tank with live rock and sand until they are eating well and not skittish. This does require another tank like QT, but it is to make sure that the fish are healthy and well adjusted.

I would never do this because it is not responsible, but if I dropped a ich riddled PBT or Hippo into my display, it is not likely that any other fish would get the ich... and if they did, maybe one spot for one cycle and then everything would be good. I know this because this is what happens in the isolation tanks with other fish in there.

This used to be what people did before BRS, YouTube and whatever convinced people that pests are bad and to start with dry/dead rock and go BB. Old advice was to just wait six months or a year to get a tricky fish and that was because your tank was ready to devour some parasites. Now, people set up a sterile petri dish and spend 10x the cost that they saved on dry rock to treat disease and hair algae than if they would have just bought some real live rock. ...all for what? For some pests that most people never get and that can be taken care of in a day or two before the rock goes into the display? ...always has been ridiculous to me.

 

[Marc2952]

Yeah I’ve got a lot of soft corals and don’t plan on risking the corals with QT, what’s you’re management route/strategy?

I feed my fish 3 times a day only frozen foods and always add a drop of selcon, and vitachem, fat fish are happy fish. I keep my parameters as stable as i can ( my sps appreciate it) but i do truly believe that newer tanks have a harder time managing ich then older tanks.

 

[Jay Williams]

IMO, the best way to manage it is to get a super diverse tank with real ocean live rock and give it some time to populate everywhere with microfauna. Sometimes you have to do this every half a decade or so. If tomont falls off of my fish, it will be greeted by a bunch of hungry organisms in the sand and on the rocks and become a meal. This is not eradication, but I have long since decided that keeping it out is a fools errand for me (and most).

I also isolate fish in a tank with live rock and sand until they are eating well and not skittish. This does require another tank like QT, but it is to make sure that the fish are healthy and well adjusted.

I would never do this because it is not responsible, but if I dropped a ich riddled PBT or Hippo into my display, it is not likely that any other fish would get the ich... and if they did, maybe one spot for one cycle and then everything would be good. I know this because this is what happens in the isolation tanks with other fish in there.

This used to be what people did before BRS, YouTube and whatever convinced people that pests are bad and to start with dry/dead rock and go BB. Old advice was to just wait six months or a year to get a tricky fish and that was because your tank was ready to devour some parasites. Now, people set up a sterile petri dish and spend 10x the cost that they saved on dry rock to treat disease and hair algae than if they would have just bought some real live rock. ...all for what? For some pests that most people never get and that can be taken care of in a day or two before the rock goes into the display? ...always has been ridiculous to me.

Thanks for the in depth explanation!

 

[Jay Williams]

I feed my fish 3 times a day only frozen foods and always add a drop of selcon, and vitachem, fat fish are happy fish. I keep my parameters as stable as i can ( my sps appreciate it) but i do truly believe that newer tanks have a harder time managing ich then older tanks.

Tanks been running about 3 1/2 months with no signs of ich. Initial ich signs started only last Friday and so far the small white specs have come and gone almost each day and the fish still eat and behave normally. Strange

 

[HuduVudu]

I also isolate fish in a tank with live rock and sand until they are eating well and not skittish. This does require another tank like QT, but it is to make sure that the fish are healthy and well adjusted.

Some use their sumps or refugems for this. All the benefit of the diversity of the main tank minus the pecking order.

 

[Jay Williams]

Some use their sumps or refugems for this. All the benefit of the diversity of the main tank minus the pecking order.

Thank you!