Qt hospital question

[cvanchuck]

Currently have a massive ich outbreak. All fish are eating so I'm feeding them vitamin soaked mysis seaweed and spread the frequencies of feeding out. My tank is a reef tank so testing the tank obviously is not an option. Here are my fish that I currently have.

3 green chromis
Yellow Tang
Blue hippo Tang
Flame fin Tang
Flame Angel
Malanarus wrasse
2 oce clowns

Also have some snails, hermits, and a cleaner shrimp.

My understanding is that I have to get the fish out of the tank for 80 days for the ich cycle to die off.

Here are my questions

1 can ich survive on the snails, hermits, shrimp, coral, or anemone?

2 am thinking about putting all of my fish in a 55 gallon tank with some PVC elbows and rock to treat with copper. Will I have issues with that much bio load? Also have a ten gallon qt tank that I have set up as well.

3 if I keep the fish out of my reef for 3 months, would that be enough time to not have a repeat.

I'm fairly new and doing a lot of research on this but I know with this, time is crucial. So thanks in advance for your response and advice!

 

[EmdeReef]

Currently have a massive ich outbreak. All fish are eating so I'm feeding them vitamin soaked mysis seaweed and spread the frequencies of feeding out. My tank is a reef tank so testing the tank obviously is not an option. Here are my fish that I currently have.

3 green chromis
Yellow Tang
Blue hippo Tang
Flame fin Tang
Flame Angel
Malanarus wrasse
2 oce clowns

Also have some snails, hermits, and a cleaner shrimp.

My understanding is that I have to get the fish out of the tank for 80 days for the ich cycle to die off.

Here are my questions

1 can ich survive on the snails, hermits, shrimp, coral, or anemone?

2 am thinking about putting all of my fish in a 55 gallon tank with some PVC elbows and rock to treat with copper. Will I have issues with that much bio load? Also have a ten gallon qt tank that I have set up as well.

3 if I keep the fish out of my reef for 3 months, would that be enough time to not have a repeat.

I'm fairly new and doing a lot of research on this but I know with this, time is crucial. So thanks in advance for your response and advice!

Sorry about your troubles!

1) not after 76 days or likely less, encysted could be found on snail shells but not anemones for example.

2) Get bacteria in a bottle and add to jumpstart the cycle. Seachem ammonia badge is often a good tool to help if there’s an emergency. Make sure to have decent flow in the tank to ensure oxygen. You could also keep some of your fish in a 10g if you start seeing issues but for the most part 55g should be ok for 10 fish.

3) in most cases it should be enough. There are some very rare incidents of ich survival due to anoxic areas in the tank but I think the vast majority of reinfections are likely due to improper treatment - sub-therapeutic copper etc. having a Hanna copper checker can really help maintaining the dose.

Good luck and don’t hesitate to ask questions here!

 

[cvanchuck]

Sorry about your troubles!

1) not after 76 days or likely less, encysted could be found on snail shells but not anemones for example.

2) Get bacteria in a bottle and add to jumpstart the cycle. Seachem ammonia badge is often a good tool to help if there’s an emergency. Make sure to have decent flow in the tank to ensure oxygen. You could also keep some of your fish in a 10g if you start seeing issues but for the most part 55g should be ok for 10 fish.

3) in most cases it should be enough. There are some very rare incidents of ich survival due to anoxic areas in the tank but I think the vast majority of reinfections are likely due to improper treatment - sub-therapeutic copper etc. having a Hanna copper checker can really help maintaining the dose.

Good luck and don’t hesitate to ask questions here!

Some of my readings say that ich is always present in a reef tank. Is this true? And if so, are there any treatments I can do to the entire system without harming coral or inverts?

 

[EmdeReef]

Some of my readings say that ich is always present in a reef tank. Is this true? And if so, are there any treatments I can do to the entire system without harming coral or inverts?

Ich is a parasite and has its lifecycle. It requires a fish to survive and complete its cycle. Unlike some Other pests we deal with it can’t survive forever without feeding on fish.

Lots of people like to believe it’s always there as it’s not the easiest problem to deal with.

Unfortunately, there’s no proven method to eradicate it in a reef tank without killing corals and other inverts. It’s possible to manage Ich. See below for more.

Ich eradication vs. Ich management

Ich eradication vs. Ich management The purpose of this article is to discuss the pros & cons of ich eradication and ich management, and present the best methods for implementing each. Ich eradication - Simply put, this method means doing everything possible to keep ich out of your tank. That...

www.reef2reef.com

There’s some early positive experience dosing 3% hydrogen peroxide every 12hrs to the tank starting at about 1ml per 10gal, it can be safely increased. It takes a while to work and may not in fact eradicate but help control the problem. I’ve been working on that as a solution on a large tank with mixed results. @Humblefish has more experience

 

[artieg1]

So, I would recommend reading (and re-reading) the sticky posts on ich and QT protocols. To answer one question, no, ich is not "always" present in reef tanks. Life cannot create itself. It has to be put there. There are ways to greatly reduce, if not eliminate, the risk of ich being introduced. That is the goal.