Ich and QT question hypo-salinity etc

[Mad Marine]

I have a Red Sea Reefer 350 established 7 December 2016.

Stock:
1 Flame Angel
1 Golden Pyramid Butterfly
Pair of Wild caught Percula Clowns
1 Mag Anemone
2 Bubble-tip Anemone
1 Clear Shrimp
1 Fire Shrimp
2 Urchin
1 Snails
Sps, Lps frags

Parameters:
Triton method
S.G. 1.024
Temp 78
dKH 8.5
Calcium 450
Nitrate trace
Phosphate 0.05

I have Ich in the system. The fish feed well and look happy but it's an eye sore and I don't like seeing them in this condition. I have invested in a 55 Litre cube QT. I will be moving soon and would like to quarantine the fish and leave the reef tank fallow for at least 30 days during the move, in order to kill off the life cycle of Ich. I will use the hypo-salinity method in the QT system. I have a three questions.

1) Should the fish be given a fresh water bath before going into QT?
2) Can I use live rock in QT to cycle and keep water chemistry safe or is it best just to have no live rock and use 'live' filter media taken from my sump which will go into the external canister filter for QT use?
3) Does hypo-salinity kill the bacteria on the rock and will the rock carry/harbor the parasite?

Kind regards,

MM

 

[Khazmodain]

How bad is the infection? You'll want to leave the display follow for longer than 30 days. Over the last several years it seems like the fallow period for ich has been suggest to be 60, then 70, then 76, and now some people are even saying 90. But 30 is definitely too short.

Regarding your other questions:

1) Should the fish be given a fresh water bath before going into QT?

This seems like more trouble/stress than it's worth unless the ich is extremely bad (fish near death's door).

2) Can I use live rock in QT to cycle and keep water chemistry safe or is it best just to have no live rock and use 'live' filter media taken from my sump which will go into the external canister filter for QT use?

I'd not use anything from your infected system. If your tank were clean to begin with I'd suggest you keep a sponge in your sump to use to seed a QT tank. However, I'd recommend you get a clean air driven sponge filter and use some bottled bacteria to seed the tank (microbacter 7, bio spira, etc). Just use some PVC joints and pipes to create some hiding places but otherwise keep the system bare.

3) Does hypo-salinity kill the bacteria on the rock and will the rock carry/harbor the parasite?

From what I've heard it won't completely kill the bacteria but it slows down the activity of the bacteria dramatically. I always have challenges with NO3 when I run QT tanks in hypo (also doesn't help that skimmers don't work well in hypo). So keep an eye on it and do large WCs as necessary.

Other bits of advice for hypo:
Make sure you use a refractometer (don't trust a swing arm for hypo).
Calibrate the refractometer with RO.
You can drop the salinity very fast but raising it should be done over several days.
Hold the salinity at hypo levels for at least two weeks (four weeks is preferred).

Other thought to consider:
You're confident the spots are ich and not flukes? Hypo should work for both but prazipro would treat flukes and could be dosed in your display. If you aren't sure and have prazi on hand I would consider treating your DT before taking the fish out and see if anything happens after 24 hours. If spots are largely cleared you'll know it was flukes and you can avoid removal of fish and a lengthy fallow period. If spots remain then proceed as planned with hypo and lengthy fallow.

Good luck!

 

[Mad Marine]

Thanks for all the valuable information Khaz!

Happy reefing.

MM