fishless will ich die on its own?

hawk1

New member
I got a bad case of ich in my display. All the fish have been removed. If I leave the tank fishless, will it die out on its own. I have alot of corals, and inverts, cleaner shrimp. I dont want to have to tear it all down and start all over. Will my rocks and sand be ok if I leave it fishless? :sad1:
 
I got a bad case of ich in my display. All the fish have been removed. If I leave the tank fishless, will it die out on its own. I have alot of corals, and inverts, cleaner shrimp. I dont want to have to tear it all down and start all over. Will my rocks and sand be ok if I leave it fishless? :sad1:

Yes. Recommended fallow period (fishless) is 72 days.
 
Ich need a host to continue its lifecycle. If you leave your DT fishless for 72 days, ich should vanish. Unless, there is some super strain that I didn't read about it.
 
Yes. Recommended fallow period (fishless) is 72 days.

How researched is this length of days? I read that public aquariums will go for 6 weeks. Does anyone know if there were multiple experiments resulting in this number of maximum days? Were the tests controlled to the point of separating strains?

The reason I ask is because for some, who have started with dry rock and bacteria in a bottle, it would be faster to tear down, bleach, dry, and start over with new sand. Or new rock (if money were less of an issue).

Also, when my lfs gets a fish that I am waiting for, I need to jump on it or I might end up waiting for a long time. There are fish that I have been waiting for more than 14 months. I know I could quarantine for longer but I don't feel comfortable quarantining some species for more than a month.
 
Life in a bottle will start the "process" but will not bring back LIFE to the aquarium. Even after several months the rocks and sand are rather barren, when compared to an ocean reef that's been growing for years (millennia).
I will quote another RC member: With reef tanks shortcuts don't exist. Rush it, and that will be a shortcut to some serious problems
Good luck
 
The fallow period of 72 days is from marine biology literature. The quarantine process should be a minimum of 5 weeks, ideally including tank transfer and two doses of prazi.
 
How researched is this length of days? I read that public aquariums will go for 6 weeks. Does anyone know if there were multiple experiments resulting in this number of maximum days? Were the tests controlled to the point of separating strains?

The reason I ask is because for some, who have started with dry rock and bacteria in a bottle, it would be faster to tear down, bleach, dry, and start over with new sand. Or new rock (if money were less of an issue).

Also, when my lfs gets a fish that I am waiting for, I need to jump on it or I might end up waiting for a long time. There are fish that I have been waiting for more than 14 months. I know I could quarantine for longer but I don't feel comfortable quarantining some species for more than a month.

Don't confuse fallow period with quarantine period.
 
I got a bad case of ich in my display. All the fish have been removed. If I leave the tank fishless, will it die out on its own. I have alot of corals, and inverts, cleaner shrimp. I dont want to have to tear it all down and start all over. Will my rocks and sand be ok if I leave it fishless? :sad1:

Do you still have the fish? Are the fish in quarantine? Are you treating them for Ick -TTM recommended or hypo or cupramine.
 
Life in a bottle will start the "process" but will not bring back LIFE to the aquarium. Even after several months the rocks and sand are rather barren, when compared to an ocean reef that's been growing for years (millennia).
I will quote another RC member: With reef tanks shortcuts don’t exist. Rush it, and that will be a shortcut to some serious problems
Good luck

I believe this too but I find that live rock that was once in the ocean becomes depleted of life after some time in an aquarium. The diversity dies off because there isn't a diversity of food (this is just a guess on why it dies off).
 
Don't confuse fallow period with quarantine period.

What I meant was that I am trying to run my tank fallow for the 72 days. If I got a call from my lfs tomorrow that they got a fish that I've been waiting for then I would have to jump on the purchase right away. I would then do the TTM which would take 12 days and then I would quarantine and treat with prazi for another few weeks. What will I do for the remainder of the 72 days assuming I just started the fallow period recently? My concern is of keeping some species in a bare tank with pvc for too long. I guess there is no easy answer. I was just hoping that the 72 days was more of a one off occurrence and that 6 weeks fallow was adequate.
 
What I meant was that I am trying to run my tank fallow for the 72 days. If I got a call from my lfs tomorrow that they got a fish that I've been waiting for then I would have to jump on the purchase right away. I would then do the TTM which would take 12 days and then I would quarantine and treat with prazi for another few weeks. What will I do for the remainder of the 72 days assuming I just started the fallow period recently? My concern is of keeping some species in a bare tank with pvc for too long. I guess there is no easy answer. I was just hoping that the 72 days was more of a one off occurrence and that 6 weeks fallow was adequate.

You can always roll the dice. I wouldn't.
 
You can always roll the dice. I wouldn't.

Just out of curiosity, is there literature on how the test for the presence of Ich was performed? Most likely the tester took water samples and/or sand samples and look under a microscope for the Ich right? Maybe we can also test our tanks in the same manner?
 
Personally If I had waited months for a fish I would leave them in the QT until the DT was ready.

Fish with Ich cannot be treated in the DT
 
Just out of curiosity, is there literature on how the test for the presence of Ich was performed? Most likely the tester took water samples and/or sand samples and look under a microscope for the Ich right? Maybe we can also test our tanks in the same manner?

Sure. You can use Google Scholar and do the same research I did. If it were easily doable, all of us would do so.
 
Correct me if I am wrong, but you could treat Ick in the DT using the hypo method, assuming there would not be anything in the DT that would be adversely affected by the low SG?
 
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