should i be worried
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dacianb
Active Member
If there is a single piece of sps coral in the tank and that piece is decently happy, water parameters are great for fishes. Next is to build the rock structure in a way that every fish to have his own hiding spot and to not fight for a single cave in the tank. This mean lot of LR - forget about fancy modern tank designs with a minimalistic rockscape. Next, reduce the competition and maximize compatibility by adding fishes as different as possible which not use same feeding niche - if there is a fish chasing continuously other fish in tank that mean stress and can be ich. (my yellow tang hates any other yellow fish and will chase him to death, so I will not add any yellow fish - and such small details important to reduce stress level ) Adding 2 angels in a tank, or 2 pairs of clown - they may not fight or even chase each other, but will be in a continuous stress and competition. Feeding - as important as any other parameters above - feed each fish according to his natural feeding behaviours and as variable possible - there are tons of flakes, pellets, frozen and live food available. Buy small boxes of as many you can and alternate. I never used only one type of food, whatever fish I kept. For tangs only I have 6 bags of different dried algaes types and are used as supplements only. Anytime I go to a fish shop I buy a new small box of food (other than what I have
) - probably there is no artificial food to provide every nutrient, vitamin and mineral a fish needs. You have different fishes, different metabolisms and requirements, so by alternating as much possible actually increase the chance of offering all that is needed. This is my philosophy of keeping fishes - 5 years in sw and more than 10 in freshwater (dwarf cichlids) and still works.
clownfish chris
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If there is a single piece of sps coral in the tank and that piece is decently happy, water parameters are great for fishes. Next is to build the rock structure in a way that every fish to have his own hiding spot and to not fight for a single cave in the tank. This mean lot of LR - forget about fancy modern tank designs with a minimalistic rockscape. Next, reduce the competition and maximize compatibility by adding fishes as different as possible which not use same feeding niche - if there is a fish chasing continuously other fish in tank that mean stress and can be ich. (my yellow tang hates any other yellow fish and will chase him to death, so I will not add any yellow fish - and such small details important to reduce stress level ) Adding 2 angels in a tank, or 2 pairs of clown - they may not fight or even chase each other, but will be in a continuous stress and competition. Feeding - as important as any other parameters above - feed each fish according to his natural feeding behaviours and as variable possible - there are tons of flakes, pellets, frozen and live food available. Buy small boxes of as many you can and alternate. I never used only one type of food, whatever fish I kept. For tangs only I have 6 bags of different dried algaes types and are used as supplements only. Anytime I go to a fish shop I buy a new small box of food (other than what I have
This is my philosophy of keeping fishes - 5 years in sw and more than 10 in freshwater (dwarf cichlids) and still works.
Exactly.
My original point however is that most new to the hobby people are not able to achieve this stability and regime yet. It is better to QT and prevent as much as possible while you are still learning.
dacianb
Active Member
Agree, but most of new tank threads or stories around start with "I cycled my tank, added the cuc...." - at this point already ich can be there. Probably most of people do not quarantine snails (which are not affected by ich, but can have the "eggs" in water inside their shells), also not quarantine corals (corals never have ich, isnt it??) - and all carefully quarantined fishes to die days after adding a coral.
I don't plan to change anyone's mind, but acclimatization boxes are much better then quarantine, as fishes are less stressed due to new environment (still I dont use them and rely on rockscape and tons of hiding places).
This weekend I added the last fish for my new tank - everything looks great for the moment. From now one, just have to keep them happy and add tons of corals
- another tank build without quarantine 
, but dripping all corals.
omykiss001
Active Member
I think it's all about risk management and what you are willing to accept and or manage long term and how much money or time you are willing to see wither and die in front of you. Pests don't include just ich. There are other much more devastating parasites that are difficult to next to impossible to manage (won't say impossible as biology has to much variance). There are folks who have had excellent success managing disease through health of their animals and or parasite management using diatom filters and UV sterilizers. If it works for you and you know and accept the risks if there were to be a failure in your methods then there is nothing wrong with that.
My personal story had ich ride in on a coral. Further that I had nasty polyclad flatworms the kind that eat Euphyllias survive coral dip and devastate my torch and minor infection to my hammers they were partially closed up until I eradicated the flatworms. I also think this came in on my elegance coral as the initial egg and that one was toast. I'm Pretty sure it was an egg as when they were re-dipped after discovery of the worms they came right off in the dip. I really did not enjoy the extra time to clear the corals of the pest in my DT nor watching $120 coral die and possibly another $60 torch (its doing better but not what it was so jury is still out if it recovers fully) I got off lucky as this was relatively easy to eradicate as none of these corals had encrusted or glued down so removal to treat was easy.
Given all of the above I hope my fallow period will eradicate ich and if I get the long lived or super resistant variety I may move to a management strategy for it as I don't think some of my fish can handle another round of copper treatment or the stress of recapture and removal to a QT or TTM tank plus additional fallow period (a risk I understand and am planning to deal with possibly giving diatom filtration and UV a go). Given this I still plan to QT and TTM or treat any new fish coming in and I'll be setting up a true QT for any coral or invert where I can dip/treat several times over a 1-2 month QT. This is where my failures are occurring on corals and inverts. What I really don't want is velvet, brook, redbugs, monti eating nudibranchs, etc. in my main display. If the ich comes back I may also hold off on adding any new fish for quite some time in the hopes this particular strain of ich will die out, but I really don't want to introduce a new one and restart the cycle if I can help it. So I think it's worth the cost of a tank large enough to hold new corals and inverts. I'll set it up with either T5, a halide, or a black box LED that gets good results a small amount of live rock and maybe a small skimmer. Compared to the eventual cost of my livestock and corals this is not that big an investment IMO, and worst case it's a good holding tank if I get an evil fish that is bad for the rest of the community while I re-home it. Even with all this there is still a chance a pest or disease will get by, but my risk is much lower overall.
I don't think there is a right or wrong just what you are willing to lose if the dice come up snake eyes
dacianb
Active Member
Great post... If I can settle a fully functional tank as quarantine, I would do it. But space / budget reasons made me to go on single tank approach. My tank is decent size and equipped, but others have sumps larger than my tank.I think it's all about risk management and what you are willing to accept and or manage long term and how much money or time you are willing to see wither and die in front of you. Pests don't include just ich. There are other much more devastating parasites that are difficult to next to impossible to manage (won't say impossible as biology has to much variance). There are folks who have had excellent success managing disease through health of their animals and or parasite management using diatom filters and UV sterilizers. If it works for you and you know and accept the risks if there were to be a failure in your methods then there is nothing wrong with that.
My personal story had ich ride in on a coral. Further that I had nasty polyclad flatworms the kind that eat Euphyllias survive coral dip and devastate my torch and minor infection to my hammers they were partially closed up until I eradicated the flatworms. I also think this came in on my elegance coral as the initial egg and that one was toast. I'm Pretty sure it was an egg as when they were re-dipped after discovery of the worms they came right off in the dip. I really did not enjoy the extra time to clear the corals of the pest in my DT nor watching $120 coral die and possibly another $60 torch (its doing better but not what it was so jury is still out if it recovers fully) I got off lucky as this was relatively easy to eradicate as none of these corals had encrusted or glued down so removal to treat was easy.
Given all of the above I hope my fallow period will eradicate ich and if I get the long lived or super resistant variety I may move to a management strategy for it as I don't think some of my fish can handle another round of copper treatment or the stress of recapture and removal to a QT or TTM tank plus additional fallow period (a risk I understand and am planning to deal with possibly giving diatom filtration and UV a go). Given this I still plan to QT and TTM or treat any new fish coming in and I'll be setting up a true QT for any coral or invert where I can dip/treat several times over a 1-2 month QT. This is where my failures are occurring on corals and inverts. What I really don't want is velvet, brook, redbugs, monti eating nudibranchs, etc. in my main display. If the ich comes back I may also hold off on adding any new fish for quite some time in the hopes this particular strain of ich will die out, but I really don't want to introduce a new one and restart the cycle if I can help it. So I think it's worth the cost of a tank large enough to hold new corals and inverts. I'll set it up with either T5, a halide, or a black box LED that gets good results a small amount of live rock and maybe a small skimmer. Compared to the eventual cost of my livestock and corals this is not that big an investment IMO, and worst case it's a good holding tank if I get an evil fish that is bad for the rest of the community while I re-home it. Even with all this there is still a chance a pest or disease will get by, but my risk is much lower overall.
I don't think there is a right or wrong just what you are willing to lose if the dice come up snake eyes
I had all kind of coral bugs and still I am afraid about them and I am using also "different" way to drip, but dont want to open a new pandora box here. For the moment my approach works - risky? maybe, as everything in this hobby. Changing the direction of a pump and some corals may go in bad direction.... in the end everything is at a certain level of risk. But this is the fun part and results are what is important
+1 to @omykiss001's post - couldn't have said it any better.
omykiss001
Active Member
Awesome! Good to hear from a fellow flyroder. Not many folks get it's the scientific name of the rainbow trout. My love of finned critters goes beyond my little slice of the ocean. Still chase them in Oregon when I have time, which is so rare these days.
omykiss001
Active Member
Totally understand my system is 180 gallons not huge but large enough that once stocked I would weep to watch expensive corals and fish die, and would have a hard time convincing the spouse to let me spend all that money over again. [emoji26]
GreatWhiteTang
Active Member
12 years 0 quarantine, never lost a fish to ich, have taken in dozens of ich ridden tangs and got them to full health .. Lost 3 fish .. A bar goby, wrasse, and clown .. All jumped out lol I definitely agree qt is good practice, but imo more stressful and harmful to the fish, I like to promote the fishes immune system in health rather than pump it full of treatments. I dip all coral though and definitely not trying to talk anybody out of qt
