Does ich grow on LR??

[sruiz]

I just bought 120lbs of LR from a lady yesterday. Lets just say her aquarium was not the cleanest I've ever seen. I the reason I'm worried is I just did a change from 30 to 55 and my fish had signs of ich on it. And when I saw the rock I noticed it had little white spots all over some of the pieces. What could this be??

 

[ReefNutPA]

I don't think the white specks you see are ich on the rock, however, yes... IMO the LR could be harboring encapsulated ich cysts if the lady you purchased the rock from had ich problems in her tank.

Tom

 

[sruiz]

thanks for the info.

 

[Fast Fred]

There are different theorys on Ich. I'm sure some folks will disagree with this, but here's the theory that I subscribe to;

Ick is present in a dormant stage all marine aquariums that are not chemically treated for said disease. When fish get stressed, their immune system is comprimised. This allows the ich to rear it's ugly head. Therefore, the key to keeping ich in check is to keep the fish from getting stressed. It also seems that when one fish in a tank developes an outbreak, it is easier to spred to other fish that may have borderline immune systems.

As far as treatment goes, there are few that are reef safe. Feeding the fish garlic, which is high in antioxidents and vitamine C IMO,seems to be the safest and most widely used among reef keepers.

As far as other treatments, some of them are actually more deadly than the ich itself.

Like I said, this is just my opinion, from my experience.

 

[sruiz]

Fast Fred,
should I put some fresh garlic cloves in my tank??

 

[sruiz]

when I had my 30 gallon tank I used to see little worms that looked like rice a little. Ever since I put the new rock in, I have noticed many little worms some that look like earthworms and others that have many little legs. I went picking thru and dumped them out. I think I read that some could be good, but I personally don't like them. Is there anything I could do to get rid of them.

 

[Fast Fred]

First off, Garlic can be done two different ways that I know of. First, is the Garlic liquid that is sold in the LFS. You add a couple drops to the food and let it soak before feeding it to the fish.

Second, you could get some fresh garlic and mince it and mix it with the food, again let it soak a little while before feeding.

As far as the critters in your tank, look here to ID them and then decide how best to get rid of them, if you don't like them. Keep in mind that many of those unsitely critters are good for your tank in some way or another.

http://melevsreef.com/id/

 

[bertoni]

There isn't any evidence that garlic really works. It's certainly theoretically possible for ich to be present at low levels in a tank, and then cause problems when the animals undergo some sort of stress. How common that is, I don't know.

If the tank had ich present, I would quarantine the live rock for 6-8 weeks without fish. That'll starve out the ich parasites.

 

[kraze3]

The chances that what you saw on the rock is ich, is slim. Ich is only visible during the stage in its life cycle where it attaches to the fish. You may have seen little critters or maybe even tiny air bubbles but its very unlikely that it is ich. To be on the safe side I would QT the rock at Bertoni said. If there are no fish in your tank the LR an still be added and just leave the tank fishless for the 6-8 weeks.