I have been battling the nightmare of Ich for a while now. To bring everyone up to speed, I pulled all fish from the DT and quarantined them for 8 weeks + 2 weeks supervision, leaving the DT fallow for the same amount of time. I dosed Cupramine and after the 10 weeks of qt with no signs of ich, placed the fish back into the DT.
Within 10 days of having the fish in the DT, I saw the first signs of ich on my Emperor Angel. Needless to say, I was livid, and not wanting to go through the taking down of the tank and QT again, decided to do one of two things: 1) Fight nature as much as I could OR 2) Let the Ich win, hence, running its course, wiping out all of my fish and forcing me to wait 10 more weeks on a fallow tank before adding new fish.
I decided to track all of this beginning the week of August 12, 2012. Below you will see a chart of this progress.
Starting the week of 8/12, I began a two-times-per-day feeding of Mysis enriched in Garlic and Seachem KanaPlex. All fish were eating at this point. Over the next three weeks, I monitored fish and found that a few were getting worse while others appeared to be doing better. My first loss came at week 9/2 with the Majestic. After losing the Majestic, I decided to fight the Ich with the next level of defense and added a UV sterilizer (added week 9/9 and also went back to one-time-per-day feedings). Within a week of adding this I noticed the biggest turnaround in fish health, but still lost two more fish the following weeks. [One thing to note is that both the Clown and the Emperor who I lost after the UV had been battling heavy Ich for some few weeks.] I assume (but not sure), their defense systems were just way too far gone even after the UV was added.
By week 9/30, I noticed no Ich on my fish (this included the gravel-dwelling gobies). Knowing that Ich hangs out in the gravel, I was shocked to see these fish showing no signs. As of today, week 11/11/12, I have now gone 7 WEEKS with NO SIGNS of ICH!
I can't say for sure what the science of this all is and I am not trying to prove that my methods worked versus other methods"¦
My MAIN QUESTION OUT OF THIS IS"¦If we know Ich has a life-cycle that can take up to 10 weeks before it is out of a system and that Ich needs a host at one point in the life-cycle to continue the repopulation/survival of the parasite, then if I go another three weeks with no signs of Ich on my fish, (or even if I go another eight weeks with no sign)"¦is Ich gone from my tank?
Within 10 days of having the fish in the DT, I saw the first signs of ich on my Emperor Angel. Needless to say, I was livid, and not wanting to go through the taking down of the tank and QT again, decided to do one of two things: 1) Fight nature as much as I could OR 2) Let the Ich win, hence, running its course, wiping out all of my fish and forcing me to wait 10 more weeks on a fallow tank before adding new fish.
I decided to track all of this beginning the week of August 12, 2012. Below you will see a chart of this progress.
Starting the week of 8/12, I began a two-times-per-day feeding of Mysis enriched in Garlic and Seachem KanaPlex. All fish were eating at this point. Over the next three weeks, I monitored fish and found that a few were getting worse while others appeared to be doing better. My first loss came at week 9/2 with the Majestic. After losing the Majestic, I decided to fight the Ich with the next level of defense and added a UV sterilizer (added week 9/9 and also went back to one-time-per-day feedings). Within a week of adding this I noticed the biggest turnaround in fish health, but still lost two more fish the following weeks. [One thing to note is that both the Clown and the Emperor who I lost after the UV had been battling heavy Ich for some few weeks.] I assume (but not sure), their defense systems were just way too far gone even after the UV was added.
By week 9/30, I noticed no Ich on my fish (this included the gravel-dwelling gobies). Knowing that Ich hangs out in the gravel, I was shocked to see these fish showing no signs. As of today, week 11/11/12, I have now gone 7 WEEKS with NO SIGNS of ICH!
I can't say for sure what the science of this all is and I am not trying to prove that my methods worked versus other methods"¦
My MAIN QUESTION OUT OF THIS IS"¦If we know Ich has a life-cycle that can take up to 10 weeks before it is out of a system and that Ich needs a host at one point in the life-cycle to continue the repopulation/survival of the parasite, then if I go another three weeks with no signs of Ich on my fish, (or even if I go another eight weeks with no sign)"¦is Ich gone from my tank?
