Where did my Ich come from?

[cancun]

Hmmm. Another omg my ich is back thread.

Makes ya wonder why most ppl have ich come back after qt, copper, etc. I know why!

LOL....why don't you enlighten us?

 

[tehmadreefer]

LOL....why don't you enlighten us?

well to put it bluntly, it’s BS.

All marine fish have/carry ich throughout their life. No amount of qt,copper, fallow periods get rid of it. It will almost always pop up during times of stress regardless of those protocols and even exasperates the problem due to such sterile conditions. The fishes immune system isn’t able to fight off diseases or parasites like they should.

It isn’t the ich itself that kills fish, but the ich gets the blame, That’s a fact jack! ;Nurse

 

[cancun]

well to put it bluntly, it’s crap.

All marine fish have/carry ich throughout their life. No amount of qt,copper, fallow periods get rid of it. It will almost always pop up during times of stress regardless of those protocols and even exasperates the problem due to such sterile conditions. The fishes immune system isn’t able to fight off diseases or parasites like they should.

It isn’t the ich itself that kills fish, but the ich gets the blame, That’s a fact jack! ;Nurse

I love your explanation. I have always thought along those lines myself. I am sure many disagree......but you do have to wonder.

 

[Fowler freak]

I

Wow.....I am sorry to hear of your troubles! I know this hobby can both be rewarding, and extremely frustrating at the same time! I am following along....by the way how are your fish doing today? What kind of Angels, Tangs, and Wrasses do you have?

lost 4 fish due to this mess
Two gorgeous angels a flame hawk I had forever and a male leopard wrasse. Still hurting over my angels they were 2 prized fish and no the way prices are post COVID I’m not getting them again anytime soon
5 angels
3 dwarf angels
5 wrasses
4 tangs
1 Marine betta
1 Clown
2 hawk fish
2 butterflies
Total nightmare Sadly 2 of the 4 fish that died were my absolute favorite and were SO healthy I never would’ve thought those would pass. Just proves once again you have to be on your toes all of the time 24/7 with every piece of livestock no matter what.

 

[Fowler freak]

well to put it bluntly, it’s crap.

All marine fish have/carry ich throughout their life. No amount of qt,copper, fallow periods get rid of it. It will almost always pop up during times of stress regardless of those protocols and even exasperates the problem due to such sterile conditions. The fishes immune system isn’t able to fight off diseases or parasites like they should.

It isn’t the ich itself that kills fish, but the ich gets the blame, That’s a fact jack! ;Nurse

I don’t disagree at this point but there sure are very many respected reefers here that would strongly disagree. I just don’t know anymore. All I know is what you said by minimizing stress to help reduce the outbreaks. I’m feeding heavy to minimize aggression, soaking food in vitachem and selcon, and weekly WC’s. Been successful so far fingers crossed.

 

[cancun]

I

lost 4 fish due to this mess
Two gorgeous angels a flame hawk I had forever and a male leopard wrasse. Still hurting over my angels they were 2 prized fish and no the way prices are post COVID I’m not getting them again anytime soon
5 angels
3 dwarf angels
5 wrasses
4 tangs
1 Marine betta
1 Clown
2 hawk fish
2 butterflies
Total nightmare Sadly 2 of the 4 fish that died were my absolute favorite and were SO healthy I never would’ve thought those would pass. Just proves once again you have to be on your toes all of the time 24/7 with every piece of livestock no matter what.

Oh man! That's rough!!!!! I totally get it, a couple of months ago I lost a changing Emporer Angel and a beautiful Potters Angel I had for a long time. They were my favorite fish, healthy and eating and then down hill. My 6 Leopard Wrasses, China Wrasse, and Earmuff Wrasse made it, along with my tough as nails purple tang.

I am trying to replace my Emporer right now and my potters but you are right about the COVID pricing. Yikes!

 

[nornicle]

Ich is a parasite not all fish have it.

33 days is not long enough to kill tormonts - 60 days minimum and some strains up to 75.

simplest answer would be that tormonts became active after your copper was done or your copper was not strong enough.

Tank transfer method seems to be the best approach to fully eradicating ich and you can do it in 13 days.

 

[Fowler freak]

I’m so

Oh man! That's rough!!!!! I totally get it, a couple of months ago I lost a changing Emporer Angel and a beautiful Potters Angel I had for a long time. They were my favorite fish, healthy and eating and then down hill. My 6 Leopard Wrasses, China Wrasse, and Earmuff Wrasse made it, along with my tough as nails purple tang.

I am trying to replace my Emporer right now and my potters but you are right about the COVID pricing. Yikes!

Im sorry for your losses I sincerely feel your pain it’s such a downer for many reasons. For whatever reason,I like you, have had purple tangs that are shotgun proof it’s weird but I have some advice that might help. I’ve been looking on CL for established fish that people have had in their tank for many months/years and it’s been pretty good thus far. I mean I just expect they have ich which I know is in my tank already plus their already eating pellets/flakes/frozen, no brainer as long as the seller is honest. I just put them in an acclimation box for a while to try and curb aggression to minimize stress which I’ve learned the hard way is the culprit of mass outbreaks. Found a potters,yellow bellied blue tang, starry blenny, and a mandarin goby. Prices way less than a lfs and like I said their adjusted to aquarium life. Check it out regularly tho I mean daily. I nabbed the potters 44 mins after it was posted (eating pellets) and for sure it would’ve been sold within a few hours if I wasn’t totally addicted to this hobby potters mandarin and starry $130

 

[Fowler freak]

Ya

Ich is a parasite not all fish have it.

33 days is not long enough to kill tormonts - 60 days minimum and some strains up to 75.

simplest answer would be that tormonts became active after your copper was done or your copper was not strong enough.

Tank transfer method seems to be the best approach to fully eradicating ich and you can do it in 13 days.

I did 32 days if I remember correctly plus my levels were 2.0-2.2 (Hanna) the entire time, no joke. I even dosed the water coming in while doing WC’s. It was a daunting task I mean daunting. I gave it 110 percent treating them better than myself during this ordeal. I guess I failed which is hard to swallow especially after trying to irradiate ich twice. By the way I never ramped levels down before the transfer for the reason you mentioned above. I dunno it’ll bother me until I’m six feet under........I wanted a powder blue so bad but won’t chance it knowing ich exists in the display. 1st world problems “No Powder blue tang in my 260” Booooooooo life sucks lol

 

[nornicle]

Ya

I did 32 days if I remember correctly plus my levels were 2.0-2.2 (Hanna) the entire time, no joke. I even dosed the water coming in while doing WC’s. It was a daunting task I mean daunting. I gave it 110 percent treating them better than myself during this ordeal. I guess I failed which is hard to swallow especially after trying to irradiate ich twice. By the way I never ramped levels down before the transfer for the reason you mentioned above. I dunno it’ll bother me until I’m six feet under........I wanted a powder blue so bad but won’t chance it knowing ich exists in the display. 1st world problems “No Powder blue tang in my 260” Booooooooo life sucks lol

I feel your pain i’ve shut two tanks down because of ich and velvet i don’t believe in ‘having it’ around in a tank with tangs in it.

my latest tank i’ve outsourced quarantining to someone else, who is an expert and motivated and capable. I’ve had enough of trying to perfectly measure copper without killing fish

 

[Fowler freak]

How big were/are those two tanks and what was in there?

 

[nornicle]

How big were/are those two tanks and what was in there?

One was a 180 gallon fowlr with angels and butterflies

One was was a 150 gallon fowlr with angels and butterflies

problem is butterflies are hard to condition and easy carriers of disease, and my QT protocol was not good enough...

and in hind sight these tanks were too small

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Nuked my aquarium and I mean nuked it! Coppered all of my fish for 33 days at 2.0 (Hanna)
After 3 days post QT I saw my blond naso darting around and breathing heavy. It came and went which immediately put me on alert. I thought maybe it was a reaction to the copper as some tangs will react in weird ways post treatment but alas I saw a small amount of ich on him that would disappear after a few days and show up somewhere else. My Tomini has a few spots too but again it wasn’t an outbreak just a few spots. I am not going to try to eradicate ich for this is my second unsuccessful attempt and I went above and beyond and I mean textbook. I will just do my best to manage and Will not over stock the tank while keeping tangs to a minimum. The reason for the post is to hear about people’s thoughts in regards to Algaebarns copepods possibly containing ich. If I could do it all over again I would’nt have “seeded” the tank with algaebarns copepods to eliminate that possibility because there is NOTHING else I could think of to have contaminated my display with ich, nothing. I called them and they said there aren’t any fish in their facility but that’s according to someone on the phone in a different state. I looked on their website and there aren’t any pictures/videos to prove anything either. I’m not saying that that’s where it came from 100 percent but I just can’t figure it out. I dried my rock then soaked it in RO for 5-7 days. Took out all my sand and bought new dry sand. Ran my empty tank with tap water for a week. Had it professionally buffed out to get rid of old scratches after I drained the tap water. I’m at a loss and the only thing I can think of is one of two things. Either the ich was able to survive in Copperpower at 2.0 for 33 days or there was ich in one of the 3 jars of Algaebarns copepods. I’m leaning towards the copepods and wish I never would’ve purchased them at this point. Would love to hear your thoughts my reef2reef family.

Hi,

Just one thing that you might want to do in the future - after a 30 day copper treatment, change the water/use cuprisorb, to remove the copper and then leave the fish in the QT with no copper for at least an additional 14 days. That way, if the QT wasn't 100% successful, the fish will show it in your QT, not your DT.

I doubt that the copepod culture would be a source for ich, but I bet you could isolate non-obligate protozoan parasites from the culture water, like Uronema. These are usually present in all aquaria, so adding the copepods wouldn't increase your risk.

Jay

 

[Paul B]

I also doubt that Algae Barn brought in ich, but if you quarantine, (I don't) you will always have the possibility if ich and everything else crashing your system as IMO anyway, you completely destroyed those fishes immune system which is why they died. Healthy, non drugged and non quarantined fish have absolutely no problem with ich as they live with it constantly in the sea. But that is for another thread.

Good luck whatever you do in the future and I am sorry you are going through all this.

 

[awwinterfall]

Tank need to be fallow 72plus days

 

[Dabcrusher]

Please don’t call out companies unless you are 100% certain it was the cause.

Wow I didn’t realize so many members had major stock in Algaebarn. My bad guys I said “Possibly” in the title and asked for opinions sheeeeesh relax. Ok let me break this down a bit More so maybe it makes more sense as I “possibly” didn’t articulate myself well last time
My first attempt irradicating Ich I ran the tank fallow for 85+ days with fish in 3 separate aquariums (far from my display)for there were over 24 fish many and them large so a daunting task to say the least. CopperPowered them all for over 30 days at 2.0 and observed after the treatment until fallow for 85+ days was completed. I put the fish back in and several months later ich came back. I did not introduce anything into the tank not even a rock/invert. This approach did not work for me and I followed every instruction from well respected members here. My second attempt which was given the okay from Again,we’ll respected members here, was once again unsuccessful. “If it dries it dies” right? Can anyone dispute that? I dried everything and afterwards I soaked it in RO water for 7 days .The tank was empty and then I ran tap to rid of anything in there. New dry sand, dried my live rock then soaked in RO for a week. All fish were copper powered for 33days at 2.0. No cross contamination the QT was in the garage far away from display and all inverts were in a separate qt tank #2 (78 days fallow) opposite side of my house far from my display and fish QT.
The only thing I can point at is the copepods I purchased from algaebarn and/or resistant ich to copperpower at 2.0. Thanks for your replies and appreciate the ones who displayed a little bit of empathy through text after reading the absolute hell I’ve gone thru with my 265 full of angels, tangs, and wrasses.

algaebarn dont even have fish and copepods can carry ick i can assure you it didnt come from there

 

[Dabcrusher]

that was supposed to say cant carry ick

 

[TheShrimpNibbler]

Ya

I did 32 days if I remember correctly plus my levels were 2.0-2.2 (Hanna) the entire time, no joke. I even dosed the water coming in while doing WC’s. It was a daunting task I mean daunting. I gave it 110 percent treating them better than myself during this ordeal. I guess I failed which is hard to swallow especially after trying to irradiate ich twice. By the way I never ramped levels down before the transfer for the reason you mentioned above. I dunno it’ll bother me until I’m six feet under........I wanted a powder blue so bad but won’t chance it knowing ich exists in the display. 1st world problems “No Powder blue tang in my 260” Booooooooo life sucks lol

If you returned your fish to the display tank after the 32 days of copper, then the ich in your display simply never died. It can take up to 76 days of leaving a tank fallow for ich to die off completely. I’m sorry, but it sounds like the quarantine was not the problem, but the fallow period was.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I am sorry but the notion that "all fish have ich" and no amount of treatment or QT can eliminate it is patently false. As it seems often the case these days..just because you believe something doesn't mean that it is indeed fact. Can you completely eliminate ich from your system? Yes, you absolutely can.

Can you also try to eliminate it and accidentally re-introduce it to your tank? Yes, It is sooo easy to do.

Not completing the fallow period, not sterilizing gear between tanks, not QTing inverts, rocks, macro-algae.. the list is long.

I totally get it if you don't want to take the steps to keep this from your tank, healthy fish can and do fight it off successfully. But if that is your approach, don't rationalize it with misinformation. It is a disservice to the hobby.

 

[Tamberav]

I am sorry but the notion that "all fish have ich" and no amount of treatment or QT can eliminate it is patently false. As it seems often the case these days..just because you believe something doesn't mean that it is indeed fact. Can you completely eliminate ich from your system? Yes, you absolutely can.

Can you also try to eliminate it and accidentally re-introduce it to your tank? Yes, It is sooo easy to do.

Not completing the fallow period, not sterilizing gear between tanks, not QTing inverts, rocks, macro-algae.. the list is long.

I totally get it if you don't want to take the steps to keep this from your tank, healthy fish can and do fight it off successfully. But if that is your approach, don't rationalize it with misinformation. It is a disservice to the hobby.

Have to agree here. I didn't get why someone posted ich is always present no matter what treatment and then offered no evidence.