How long before I can add fish

[cristhiam]

Well my tank was wiped out by ick, one survivor not sure if he's going to make it but it's a damsel, how long before the ich dies if the damsel is gone? just lots of corals left

 

[White Tiger]

It will take 1 month for all the ick in your tank to die off.

 

[SAT]

Sometimes a month is too short... 6 weeks provides a safer margin. If the fish doesn't die (or isn't removed), all bets are off.

 

[cristhiam]

Do you guys think the damsel can survive this? he is about 1.5" and I saw couple spots. but he still eats and acting normal, do you think the ick will attach him like it did to the rest of fish? I think there is no way I can get it out.

 

[SAT]

Damsels can be incredibly tough. If the disease already killed the other fish and the damsel only has a few spots, my bet is he will pull through.

A fish with a strong enough immune system won't give the parasites any place to reproduce, so they will die out. However, there is no way to predict if that will happen. Some fish (notably tangs) can host a small parasite population for a long time.

 

[cristhiam]

Well the damsel is clean no spots, I'm going to wait 6 weeks before attempting put fish in, I might get the fish from liveaquaria this time, I'm done with tangs, after adding a kole and a PBT everything went down hill.

 

[danorth]

In a personal experience I had a tank get velvet, all died but a puffer, then even got a new tank, cycled, finally added the puffer, then some new fish. Velvet again! I called it a trojan fish. It didn't die from it, but it must have carried it. Another theory (off topic) is that a puffer can carry parasites in it that are spread when it puffs out opening 'things' in its body and releasing them...

 

[mikersx02]

i had a yellow tang get black ich- pulled him out- treated him in QT. While in QT- I ran a steralizer on the tank. After a week in QT- I put him back in. This was probably 8 weeks ago? He is doing great- no problems in the tank whatso ever. The steralizer is still churning 24/7. I am going to put it on a timer in another 3 months.

 

[cristhiam]

are you talking UV? I'm considering one.

 

[Steven Pro]

I would remove the last damsel to a quarantine tank, treat it, and then wait a month to 6 weeks before adding any fish to the display. And then, only add fish that have been put through quarantine too.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-10/sp/feature/index.php

 

[greg10]

I agree, you need to get the damsel out of your display

 

[cristhiam]

I tried, I was going to take it back to LFS, It's almost impossible to get him out I'll try the bottle with food in it, and I don't want to take the tank apart, I will be stressing my clams and corals $$$, I guess I'll see what it looks like in about 6 weeks and I'll be setting up a 10 gallon quarantine tank. I think after this I'm buying all my fish from liveaquaria and that's it just add more corals later.

 

[greg10]

the problem is that the 6 week waiting period assumes no fish in the tank for the ich parasite to feed off of. try one of the fish traps, like the ones offered at marine depot to catch it.

 

[cristhiam]

I'm going fishing !!