Fallow period for cryptocaryon irritans (ich)
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dentnshell
New member
I know you posted this a long time ago but I had the same question. To answer this you look at the ich cycle. First we assume you are putting the fish in a QT that does not contain ich (more importantly in the cyst cycle.) During the cycle the parasite leaves the fish and is exposed to copper and is killed "Before" the cyst cycle.
Therefore a situation where the ich is encysted for 72 days is not an issue in a copper QT situation, because we killed the ich prior to the cyst stage. The time frame we are concerned about is the amount of time it takes the parasite to leave the host skin / mucous membranes. This takes roughly 28 days.
I believe that copper only kills the ich parasite while it is in the free floating stage. So your question "is" valid if the ich parasite was already present in your tank before adding copper or you are treating a fish only tank directly in the tank. Because the ich could have already encysted and be present in the bottom of the tank for up to 72 days before "hatching" and becoming exposed to copper.
Experts please tell me if I am off on my thinking as I had the same question as andyrm66, but my research has brought me to the conclusion above.
appellativo
New member
dentnshell, THANK YOU for FINALLY answering the question!
It makes sense to me but what do I know...
It makes sense to me but what do I know...
Mark
Premium Member
Copper kills the cryptocaryon and most inverts, as it is a lethal toxin to them. The fallow method eradicates crypto by breaking the lifecycle. Without fish hosts, the crypto cannot complete the lifecycle. Therefore, these are different modes of attack. To eliminate via the fallow method, we have to ensure every cyst has hatched and failed to find a host, hence the 10 weeks. Copper nukes the cysts and other phases, hence less treatment time. If we could treat reef tanks with copper, we wouldn't need 10 weeks. But copper is essentially toxic to all inverts, including your corals. Not a viable option.
dentnshell
New member
dentnshell, THANK YOU for FINALLY answering the question!
It makes sense to me but what do I know...
You are welcome. I struggled with the same thing. I always understood the fallow period. I understood that copper had to take place in a QT. I always struggled with 4 weeks copper if ICH were dormant for 72 days. Then it (my wife) hit me.
When we actually follow the cycle with how it all goes down. It makes sense. Reading these forums I am constantly amazed at the people that don't want to know the WHY. They simply take information at face value and go with it. There are many days I wish I could be that way. But I have to know why. Glad I could help.
mattsilvester
Team RC
So I have a bit of a dilemma. On the 12th of August, my tank will be fallow for 65 days. 9 weeks (63 days) gives 99.7% probability of success. I am going on vacation and would like to get my fish back in the main tank before I go. There are far less chances of anything going wrong with them in the main tank, with the support of LR / skimmer / chiller etc. - and they can graze of the reef etc. and its easier for the house-sitter to feed them.... etc. etc. etc.
Would you all agree that its less risky to cut the fallow period short by 9 days, than it is to let them in a holding tank (filter isn't great, no one to do water changes and monitor it)?
appellativo
New member
Stick them in the main tank and have the sitter feed them live blackworms! (LOL. I just got done reading Paul B's Geezer thread)
How long is your vacation?
In the holding tank, how long can it go between water changes? I might let those two facts dictate whether or not to transfer into the main tank early.
If you can leave real simple instructions for a water change (have the water premade in a tub and make it easy as possible), even, it may be better to leave them in the holding tank. wouldn't it suck to stick them all in the display, and something to happen, only to come back to a completely crashed tank? are you doing something to keep the tank 'fed' (ie bacteria fed via feeding foods or ammonia to the display) so that there won't be any spikes when you reintroduce the fish?
How long is your vacation?
In the holding tank, how long can it go between water changes? I might let those two facts dictate whether or not to transfer into the main tank early.
If you can leave real simple instructions for a water change (have the water premade in a tub and make it easy as possible), even, it may be better to leave them in the holding tank. wouldn't it suck to stick them all in the display, and something to happen, only to come back to a completely crashed tank? are you doing something to keep the tank 'fed' (ie bacteria fed via feeding foods or ammonia to the display) so that there won't be any spikes when you reintroduce the fish?
mattsilvester
Team RC
Vacation is a week.
How long the holding tank can go is hard to say ..... I like to do 50% every 3 days .... I'm using ammo blocker, so the readings when tested are not right. Just "feel" like 3 days is pushing it.
The display - well I've been "tweaking" that. Last week I murdered a large area of star polyps, so the die off from that is sure to have "fed" the bacteria. I also feed the anemone a slightly-smaller-than-thumb sized piece of fish 1-2 times per week. I plan on stepping up the "feeding" two weeks before reintroducing the fish, to allow the bacteria to build up. Maybe a cube of brine shrimp every other day, or something. There'd enough crabs and critters scurrying around to clean it up. This is why I ask now - since its about 2 weeks away, so its about time to star feeding.
Generally however, if I come back from vacation and find that ich has survived - I think I would be suicidal. Literally. But having said that, I have not finished stocking corals in my tank and quarantining corals is not something I plan on doing, and there is always shrimps and snails and so on needing to be topped up - so 99.7% is probably as good as I can expect, in the long term?
appellativo
New member
well if you are planning on introducing anything that ich cysts like to attach to, there will always be chances (probabilities, really) that you will re-introduce ich back into you system, so go ahead and just put the fish back in now.
think about it. any LFS system that houses corals (which are attached to rocks) with fish, has ich. Ich drops off fish after about seven days and attaches to any available rock or substrate to reproduce. You buy that coral without quarantining (I like to use tank transfer method), and you ARE putting ich right back into your system. If it was me and I was going through all the trouble and heartache (wait a minute, I AM DOING THIS, right now, just as you are!), I would want to not do it in vain. So I would encourage you to do tank transfer method (the only non-medicine physical way to ensure you are not going to put ich in your tank) on every wet rock, coral, substrate, that you plan on putting in your tank.
Or you could do like Paul B does, and just do whatever, and feed your tank the best live whole foods (live blackworms are what he uses) and not worry about ich because your fish are so dang healthy that they never are susceptible to an outbreak of ich (that you gave a ride into your tank without taking any precautions).
On the vacation thing, since you have come this far, I would leave detailed instructions for your fish sitter to do a mid-week water change (who has experience with fish and (or at least can be trusted to follow instructions to the letter with no shortcuts or steps left out), and I would also make him or her take daily photos or video (short clip will do) of the hospital tank as well as report parameters such as temp, salinity and readout of the seachem ammonia badge (easy for fishsitters to look at and see ammonia level) to you so that you can monitor their well-being. I'd also get one of those pill boxes and portion out the daily feeding, and HIDE any fish food so they don't overfeed. Trust no-one! Everybody thinks they know better than you (LOL)!
If I lived near you, I'd do it for you
think about it. any LFS system that houses corals (which are attached to rocks) with fish, has ich. Ich drops off fish after about seven days and attaches to any available rock or substrate to reproduce. You buy that coral without quarantining (I like to use tank transfer method), and you ARE putting ich right back into your system. If it was me and I was going through all the trouble and heartache (wait a minute, I AM DOING THIS, right now, just as you are!), I would want to not do it in vain. So I would encourage you to do tank transfer method (the only non-medicine physical way to ensure you are not going to put ich in your tank) on every wet rock, coral, substrate, that you plan on putting in your tank.
Or you could do like Paul B does, and just do whatever, and feed your tank the best live whole foods (live blackworms are what he uses) and not worry about ich because your fish are so dang healthy that they never are susceptible to an outbreak of ich (that you gave a ride into your tank without taking any precautions).
On the vacation thing, since you have come this far, I would leave detailed instructions for your fish sitter to do a mid-week water change (who has experience with fish and (or at least can be trusted to follow instructions to the letter with no shortcuts or steps left out), and I would also make him or her take daily photos or video (short clip will do) of the hospital tank as well as report parameters such as temp, salinity and readout of the seachem ammonia badge (easy for fishsitters to look at and see ammonia level) to you so that you can monitor their well-being. I'd also get one of those pill boxes and portion out the daily feeding, and HIDE any fish food so they don't overfeed. Trust no-one! Everybody thinks they know better than you (LOL)!
If I lived near you, I'd do it for you
appellativo
New member
by the way the ammonia badge only reads out FREE ammonia so it won't tell you what's in there that's blocked (ie that's not hurting fish). So the fish-sitter sees yellow means no ammonia. Nitrite test is easy enough to do.
mattsilvester
Team RC
well if you are planning on introducing anything that ich cysts like to attach to, there will always be chances (probabilities, really) that you will re-introduce ich back into you system, so go ahead and just put the fish back in now.
think about it. any LFS system that houses corals (which are attached to rocks) with fish, has ich. Ich drops off fish after about seven days and attaches to any available rock or substrate to reproduce. You buy that coral without quarantining (I like to use tank transfer method), and you ARE putting ich right back into your system. If it was me and I was going through all the trouble and heartache (wait a minute, I AM DOING THIS, right now, just as you are!), I would want to not do it in vain. So I would encourage you to do tank transfer method (the only non-medicine physical way to ensure you are not going to put ich in your tank) on every wet rock, coral, substrate, that you plan on putting in your tank.
Or you could do like Paul B does, and just do whatever, and feed your tank the best live whole foods (live blackworms are what he uses) and not worry about ich because your fish are so dang healthy that they never are susceptible to an outbreak of ich (that you gave a ride into your tank without taking any precautions).
On the vacation thing, since you have come this far, I would leave detailed instructions for your fish sitter to do a mid-week water change (who has experience with fish and (or at least can be trusted to follow instructions to the letter with no shortcuts or steps left out), and I would also make him or her take daily photos or video (short clip will do) of the hospital tank as well as report parameters such as temp, salinity and readout of the seachem ammonia badge (easy for fishsitters to look at and see ammonia level) to you so that you can monitor their well-being. I'd also get one of those pill boxes and portion out the daily feeding, and HIDE any fish food so they don't overfeed. Trust no-one! Everybody thinks they know better than you (LOL)!
If I lived near you, I'd do it for you
Interesting about the tank transfer method for corals. There is no bio-load as such so filtration is not a worry, but what about lighting and temperature control? How will an SPS frag fare for two weeks without decent lighting?
Giving the house sitter a crash course of fish husbandry - well in the first instance I wouldn't ask her to do that, and secondly she'd probably mess it up and do more hard than good anyway. I'll think it over - but I guess worst case / best compromise would be to feed well in the week before going and do a decent water change just before going, then don't feed them for the week I am away and have water ready to do water change as soon as I get back.
appellativo
New member
Well that's one option. I can't imagine very happy fish going for one week without eating. What kind of fish in what size hospital tank?
You could feed sparing. I have a ten gallon hospital tank with NO biological or other filtration. There's two baby ocellaris, a neon goby, a chromis and a royal gramma and a tail spot blenny. I feed them three times a day (frozen blender mush, flake with zoecon and nori) and by the end of three days, there is still no ammonia (and then its time to do a tank transfer!). FWIW.
I'd invest in a little but appropriate light to keep your qt'ed coral happy. Because I would hate to see you kill yourself if you put ich in your tank again
You could feed sparing. I have a ten gallon hospital tank with NO biological or other filtration. There's two baby ocellaris, a neon goby, a chromis and a royal gramma and a tail spot blenny. I feed them three times a day (frozen blender mush, flake with zoecon and nori) and by the end of three days, there is still no ammonia (and then its time to do a tank transfer!). FWIW.
I'd invest in a little but appropriate light to keep your qt'ed coral happy. Because I would hate to see you kill yourself if you put ich in your tank again
seahorsedreams
New member
What would the tank transfer method be for corals?
appellativo
New member
Same as for fish, except add appropriate lighting. I dont need to write it all here cuz i would be doing you an injustice if i were not 100% thorough. Just google or use the pest/hitchhiker section of this forum to look for 'tank transfer method. '
appellativo
New member
Oooo on second thought.....
Ich on fish stays about 7 days and ich on substrate stays avg of 28 days to 3 months. So probably just keeping them in a qt for that duration is smarter. Glad we caught that little detail!!
Ich on fish stays about 7 days and ich on substrate stays avg of 28 days to 3 months. So probably just keeping them in a qt for that duration is smarter. Glad we caught that little detail!!
appellativo
New member
Or, you/we could relax a little like Paul B and just feed our fish live blackworms. Im going to try a little of both
mattsilvester
Team RC
haha - I was just thinking the same thing. After all the goal in TT is to NOT transfer any hard surface..... and since the corals are attached to hard surfaces, then......
appellativo
New member
So glad we caught that. I wanna buy some hermit crabs and i need to Qt them longer instead of tting them. I would have made a mistake if they hadnt asked me that question!!
mattsilvester
Team RC
Really - just how many people actually Q-tine corals and critters.
Obviously, there is a risk of transferring ich if you don't, but if you take the time to study the system the coral is in, and if there are no fish in it (or maybe one or two hard and healthy fish), then is it not safe to assume that ich is not running rampant in that system, and to that end there is a low likelihood of transferring in on the coral?
For me, it just seems unrealistic to q-tine crabs and snails for 3 months, let alone corals especially corals such as sps that will need decent lighting - and decent light with small volumes of water = temperature issues and bleaching.
I am not saying we should or should not q-tine corals etc. - just asking is it really that much of a risk if we exercise some caution and purchase from systems which we are confident are "clean".
Obviously, there is a risk of transferring ich if you don't, but if you take the time to study the system the coral is in, and if there are no fish in it (or maybe one or two hard and healthy fish), then is it not safe to assume that ich is not running rampant in that system, and to that end there is a low likelihood of transferring in on the coral?
For me, it just seems unrealistic to q-tine crabs and snails for 3 months, let alone corals especially corals such as sps that will need decent lighting - and decent light with small volumes of water = temperature issues and bleaching.
I am not saying we should or should not q-tine corals etc. - just asking is it really that much of a risk if we exercise some caution and purchase from systems which we are confident are "clean".
appellativo
New member
I think you're right in one respect, we really shouldn't be so uptight and paranoid.
But for those of us who have had a bad ich outbreak, its so fresh in our minds and it sucks so bad that we tend to get a little paranoid.
It all boils down to doing what is right for you and makes you be able to sleep at night
But for those of us who have had a bad ich outbreak, its so fresh in our minds and it sucks so bad that we tend to get a little paranoid.
It all boils down to doing what is right for you and makes you be able to sleep at night
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