Well as that may indeed be the case, I went ahead and got the fish based on the fact that he was in QT for a month from a fellow reefer. Treated. And was eating. AND, I have a low fish load in my tank -- so I pulled the trigger. But by all means please share as that's why I, and many others are on this forum .. to learn and hear from others who are more versed in this hobby. I am ALL for learning learning learning about anything anything anything. :nerd:
You're 100% correct, my previous post was not very helpful, I should elaborate! You'll have to pardon my haste, as I was taking a quick break at work when I posted up.
So first, ich is a parasite, and it exists in 4 stages:
- In the Tomont stage, the parasite creates a membrane in order to reproduce. This can be on anything. Sand, rock, a frag plug, a coral. Most sources say this can take anywhere from 3-28 days.
- In the Theront stage, those little ich babies have hatched, and they are looking to find them some fish. They are free swimming, and most sources say their life span is usually 24-48 hours.
- Trophont stage is when your little Ich is all grown up. It's on your fish, it's eating, and its visible. This is the only stage in which ich is visible, which most sources say lasts from 3-7 days. Then it drops off and becomes....
- A free swimming Trophont. It's lived it's life to the fullest (it’s still alive,) it's eaten well, and now it knows it needs to find a place to turn back into a Tomont in order to reproduce and keep making your life a living H-E-double hockey sticks. This searching stage can take up to 18 hours, most sources say.
Using a sterilizer, increasing your temperature, feeding garlic and selcon, these are all myths. They will not kill ich. Some people say that it "goes away" after they do these things, look at the life cycle stages of ich, it's only visible in the Trophont stage.
Prazi will not get rid of ich. Copper will. Ich is not exactly a bad thing. It resides in I would venture to say 99% of hobbyists tanks (I made up that statistic.) Some say you can actually never get rid of ich, you're fish just tolerate it, and it always exists. I personally think it's possible to get rid of it from a tank, but in order to make this happen, you have to QT everything. That means EVERYTHING. All frags have to be kept separate before entering your system for 5 weeks. Cheato, somewhere else for 5 weeks. Water, sand? Somewhere else for 5 weeks, WITHOUT fish, btw, in these "somewhere else for five weeks places." And a fish, well, a fish should be treated and QT'd for 5-8 weeks before entering your system.
Albeit, above is my opinion on how you should handle ich, I don't think it's realistic that every hobbyist will actually follow that stringent routine (even I don't, I don't have the space.) When it comes to fish, I have them QT'd by a local vendor, so I know a fish is as healthy as it can be before it hits my tank. And I also know that my local vendor does a meticulous inspection, 4 week copper treatment, and prazi to boot. They also do not add a fish into the same tank while they are QT'ing mine, or that would reset the QT clock all over again.
Hope that information helped!
