"ICH FREE TANK" Quest Begins

Hey, IMO a good thread is a thread that will be useful to someone searching for the related info down the road, even yrs later.

A funny side note for me - I've been participating in this thread from near the beginning, often going back and forth with Triggerfish who started the thread. A few months ago I was meeting a local reef club friend at a LFS, and ended up bumping into triggerfish in person for the first time. Funny exp, meeting someone you have been talking with for a year online, suddenly the screenname becomes a real person :)
Trigger, if your reading this, hey, how are you?

My update, nothing has changed. No new fish without screening. I did add a chevron tang, but only after a 7 wk full hypo treatment and 12 wk total screening time. It went in around january and not a spot or hint of ICK has been seen throughout my system. Also any corals, rock snails, anything.. That I add, now lives in a fishless frag tank for at lest 6 wks before going into the main system.

Ick free since shortly after the start of this thread :)

ICK free since
 
I gave up on hypo-salinity and just used a regular quarantine period for my new fish. I found that a fish is either going to make it or not, and that adding more stress to it didn't increase my averages of success. I usually QT'd 2 to 4 fish at a time for two months. If there was a problem I'd wait longer. Some died, some lived, but I never had one cause illness in my display tank using this method.
Anthias are tough fish to begin with (tough to acclimate), so for me, I would just QT them by themselves and hope that a couple make it.
Good Luck
 
Can you elaborate a little on what's going on with your fish?

What kind of QT set up? What exactly are you doing for treatment? How are you measuring SG and what level is it at?




FWIW, you might be better off starting a new thread for this, you might get more input since this thread is soooo old (a lot of people might not be reading new posts).
 
Bumping an old thread....

It's been 3 years without a single spot. I still have the CBB, chevron, true perc pair, maroon perc pair, and I have added a blue spot jawfish.
 
Been off the board for awhile.. over a year.. still have tank but lost some interest in the hobby after a severe outbreak in June 08 when i added a powder blue tang.
powder blue and yellow tang near death.. actually i almost didn't do anything until my koran started getting overtaken as well. i couldnt believe i was going through this yet again.

i weighed my options taking into account my energy level and decided not to remove fish as i just didnt have it in me to go this route again so took out corals and blasted tank with cupramine. didnt even test it..just dosed based on manuf recommendations.
what a job it did to wipe out the parasite population very quickly.. all fish made it through fine.

the downside was i lost all my corals in quarantine..what a heartbreak. as a result, i lost interest and the tank has sufferred as a consequence. fish are doing great but that's about it.

i just cleaned everything over a span of 9 hours..it took over a year just to get in the mood to do this..lmfao

In regards to being 'ich free' i'm not totally sure yet.. you're all aware of ich and powder blues, he may show a spot or two from time to time.. these fish were recently stressed when i cleaned the tank couple day ago..it was a mess so the rock was taken out, glass cleaned, sump totally cleaned out and sand removed, temp fell to 73 for few hours.. see if anything shows up due to stress issues.
current livestock:
powder blue tang
yellow tang
koran angel
pair percs
firefish
yellow wrasse
pair yellow tailed damsels

i'll slowly be adding some corals soon..see how they react in a tank that was copper blasted about 8 months ago..
 
Hang in there Triggerfish. I was ich free for 4 years and kept powder blue, yellow tangs. I have recently torn my tank down and sold it and the fish because I had mejano anemones that had taken over, and they were bad. There was no other way. I had lots of sps coral too. I have friends keeping my corals for me. Seems like the mejanos came in on a member's rock and I didn't know I should qt live rock. So if it's not one thing it's another in this hobby. Starting over, had to kill rock and now cooking it. I also did consider leaving the hobby. Good luck.
 
Welcome back and Sorry about the losses.

What do you have for substrate/rock? Are you testing for copper levels? If so, where are they at?

LMK if you want a few free durable frags, I'm not far away.

j
 
what's up mate... i'm not all that concerned with any residual copper concentrations at this point. i've got so much to do at this point to try and get the tank back a bit.
first and foremost my NO3 levels are reading way up there.. the AP kit has got to be whacked as it reads end of scale at 160.

thx for the offer..looking locally for some xenia and a plain ole BTA. tough losing so many corals over this time. what a disaster.
 
UPDATE Ich remains

The recent stress i put on the tank 1.5 weeks ago has confirmed the existence of the parasite still within the tank.
the powder blue tang has been displaying a few spots more than he has over the past 10 months since the last copper treatment. This fish rarely has any visible indication of infestation over that period.
I haven't added anything to this tank in over 6 months maybe longer.

This does appear to prove that even a fish as susceptible to infestation as the powder blue can live without issue with the parasite present as long as infestation is low and fish is healthy without stressors.

still no corals in tank so i began the cupramine treatment again in the DT.
12ml dosage
i was just getting ready to start stocking corals again...crap.
 
if you medicate with copper, you can no longer add corals to this tank in the future. it is better that you remove all your fish and treat them in a qt , NOT in dt.
 
Just gave the 2nd dose of 12ml.
1 spot on tang fin and 1 on angel fin
yellow tang looks fine.

365100_2385.jpg
 
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Just finished reading. Thanks!

I have been battling ich in my tank for about two months with various fish losses. After going through your ordeal, would you recommend taking all fish out into qt and letting the display go fallow or try to monitor and pull out fish as needed (280 reef tank that will be hard to get fish out of). Thanks Trigger.

Mike
 
Hey Mike,
I'll try to give you the best responses i can come up with based on what i've experienced over the past few years.

Few options:

1) Remove all fish and fallow tank for 12 weeks. treat fish with copper during this time and monitor for any additional signs of infection. ensure you have not seen any visible sign for at least 4 weeks prior to putting back into display. You must understand if you go with this option..everything you ever put into the tank again must be quarantined

2) this other option is the much easier one but comes with limitations. leave fish in system that can combat the parasite on their own without causing them noticeable stress. if you must pull a fish due to major parasite infestation, you cannot put back in unless the tank has been treated.. treat the fish and find it a new home. Depending on how virulent the strain you may be dealing with is, you could be really limited to what you can add to the system.
if over time you can decrease the c.irritan population by limiting hosts and possibly running a UV, you can attempt to once again add fish slowly.

3) There is one other option but controversial. This is the one i ultimately decided to do as i just didn't have it in me to go through the 1st option all over again when i had my 2nd bought with the parasite last year. my tank wasn't overly stocked with corals so i didnt think it would be much of a problem.. but i didnt plan well enough for this and had a disaster in my qt where i moved all inverts.
Remove all inverts and dose with cupramine for 3 weeks. monitor fish for an additional 4 weeks while running heavy carbon to remove the Cu. Test water with the Cu kit and once readings show no copper then slowly add a few inverts back in.
Some say the copper will leach from rock and substrate for like ever.. can never use tank again for reef..others say... once the Cu is removed from the water and kit shows no reading, you're good to go, what's leached has leached. I tend to favor this later belief.. i was about to find out after 10 months but again had to dose tank last week. i've got a large carbon filter and will be adding inverts pretty quickly once i'm done here.

I've had 2 tangs and an angel thriving in my tank with the parasite present,,rarely showing visible signs of the parasite. only after stressing them out during a reaquascaping, did my powder blue display more evident signs of the parasite being present after 10 months.

lmk if you have any further inquiries.. good luck.
 
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Thanks trigger. I actually started option 2. I have a group of survivors from the first attack that seem to be pretty resiliant. I have pulled one of the two tangs(the smaller one---easier to catch and not as "tough" as the bigger). Still waiting on my rhomboid wrasses (they have been hiding for the past 24 hours). I have some fish in QT and anyone that seems to be having issues will join in qt (two tanks-55 and 40). Gonna wait at least one month before trying to introduce any of the QT gang back to main display. If problem persists, I will go with option 1. Not looking forward to option 1 as reef is setup and growing and I would have to tear it down to get all the fish out. Thanks for your help and I will keep updating this post with my progress.
 
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