10 weeks fallow, tank ready for fish?

[mattix]

I just past 10 weeks w/o any fish in my tank. It was a long wait, and I deffinatly do not want to go through that again. I would be devistated if my fish started showing signs of itch after a week in the tank.

I have a purple firefish thats been a 10g qt for a month waiting to go in. Although not the most interesting fish to watch swim, I wanted to let the most peacefull fish have the tank to himself before letting the slightly more aggressive fish join the tank.

So I read allot of itch threads, and the answers are everywhere. Most say to fallow 4-12 weeks. Anyone had success at fallowing their tank and how long did ur tank go w/o fish?

 

[HumbleFish]

72 days has sort of become the "standard" for going fallow with ich.

I would detail how you treated the fish for ich in this thread (and how you QT'd the firefish); so the regulars can help you be sure it was done correctly.

 

[hvacman250]

I just finished with 11 weeks, 5 days of fallow! Your tank is ready...but your fish may not be depending on how you treated them.

My fish were ready. I put my fish thru the ringer with meds, but I wouldn't advise others to do the same. I'm paranoid.

 

[mattix]

Nice! tomorrow will be the 72 day so I will get him in before the weekend. For the firefish I treated him with prazipro for the first two weeks and just looking out for signs of itch. Also I was using freshly made ro/di saltwater, because of the tank was fallowing. Next fish will be either a blenny or clowns and will be using the main tank water.

Well the disaster started when my midas blenny jumped out of the tank in the middle of the night (before I had it completely screened). He found the only 2"x4" section that wasn't covered. My tank was fully stocked except for the midas blenny so I ended up getting another midas blenny and I'm still not sure if it was marine itch or velvit, but he died shortly after in the main tank, then the next morning my flame angel was completely covered in white specs....... So I took them all out and tried the hyposalinity treatment and was uncessfull. They all sadly died shortly after, besides for a blue/green chromis that lasted a few weeks but looked terrible, somewhat purpleish. One of my lfs offered to take him and treated him with copper. If I were to do it again I would probably go with the copper treatment

 

[Spar]

the problem a lot of people make after going fallow in their DT is:
(1) having QT'ed the fish improperly, even though intentions were great. many people still trust Hypo, for instance, only to find out that Hypo has so many flaws (resistant strains of Ich, difficult execuction, etc); and many people are off on their understanding of what is necessary with copper - e.g. .5ppm @ 4 weeks, and don't account for drops right after a water change, etc. Likewise with Tank Transfer Method, regardless of being the most fool proof method, often we see people saying in posts that they let "just one extra" day go by (4 days instead of 3) and are hoping that it OK... it is however not ok.

(2) not QT'ing non-fish in the future. snails, live rock, urchins, shrimp, recently used equipment, hermits, macro algae, etc, etc, all WILL carry in Ich to the DT if a Tomite (Ich cyst life cycle stage) happened to be hardened on the surface of any of those things. if you truly "not want to go through that again" then you will have to have a very dedicated regime of housing anything new separately in a fallow tank for 72+ days before moving them over to the DT.

The good part is that you are past the hard part, which is the awful 10+ week fallow period of the DT!

 

[Spar]

Nice! tomorrow will be the 72 day so I will get him in before the weekend. For the firefish I treated him with prazipro for the first two weeks and just looking out for signs of itch. Also I was using freshly made ro/di saltwater, because of the tank was fallowing. Next fish will be either a blenny or clowns and will be using the main tank water.

PraziPro will really only help with Flukes; which is necessary so good job on using it. Ich, however, is likely to still be on the fish; the fish just grew some resistance to not allow a bombardment to take place. if you add him back to the DT now, you will just reintroduce it. Do yourself a huge favor and read up on Tank Transfer Method in the stickies. This is a 12-day procedure to get rid of Ich. Up to you on if you observe longer after... 4-8 weeks additional is recommended, but you are in a better shape than currently if you at least do the 12-days.

 

[mattix]

yeah that 10 weeks was painfull. I ended up rescaping around week 7 to keep myself entertained. I'll read up on the tank transfer method, do you use that even though you don't see any itch? The firefish I bought a month ago doesn't show any signs of itch. Even though he might have it, I think since he's the first fish in the tank and won't wipe out my whole family of fish I'll take a chance. Then on the second fish I'll take allot more precations. I'll read up on it though, before the firefish moves to the big tank.

 

[Spar]

You really should read up on Ich, starting with these posts:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2159738
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1992196

Even if you don't "see signs", the fish most likely are still carrying ich, just in smaller numbers and likely in the gills rather than under the skin. healthy fish just aren't as negatively impacted and ward off the mass numbers of parasites that attack less healthy fish (ones you see the salt sprinkles on).

Not sure I'm following what you mean by "since he's the first fish in the tank..."; either he has Ich or he doesn't have Ich, and if the latter is true (which likely is) then all subsequent fish will come down with Ich as well.

The links above explain it 100x better than I can. But what it comes down to is you need to determine your tolerance level to going through another 10 week fallow period in your DT. If you just "don't want to go through it again", then you can take more chances; but if you "can't go through it again", then you need to take the proper steps and adequately QT your fish to get rid of Ich completely, not just a guessing game based on looking for signs.