Ich outbreak in newer DT, should I hypo?

[ThRoewer]

Why would anybody boil a live rock from a reef tank? That's not a good idea for a whole host of reasons.

I'm not talking about natural live rock, and for sure not rocks with inverts on them.

This is about rocks and sand used in quarantine tanks!

The rocks I use for QT and which I sterilize by boiling are Real Reef manmade rocks. Sand is clean natural coral gravel.
The most life on them after use are algae, bacteria and possibly also some pathogens and parasites (the latter are the reason for the boiling).

Those are perfectly safe to sterilize by boiling.

 

[kmbyrnes]

ok just an update here - I got another tank to do the TTM method and I think I'm going to go through all this during the weekend. Now my next question is sanitizing my DT.

1. I plan to siphon out all the sand and boil it as you said (still not sure how long to boil, I'll definitely have to do multiple rounds). I'll also dumb a bunch of clorox/bleach in to sanitize everything. How much would you recommend for ~180 gallons of water?

This is why I said do not boil...
Anything from a DT could contain compounds you would not want to release by boiling.
QT is of course a different situation.

 

[houstonreefer20]

Sorry I'm confused. The sterilization that I need to do needs to be done on my DT, not quarantine tank. What's the best way to sterilize the rocks and sand? Dump bleach in the DT and let the bleach do the sanitization of the rocks? Or something else?

 

[kmbyrnes]

We are not trying to confuse you and I'm sorry if we have.

You can rid your DT of ich either by going fallow for 72+ days or restarting.
If you want to run 15 gallons of bleach ( 10%) through your system and then let everything dry completely, that would work. You will still have to drain the tank, remove the rock and sand to let them dry.

I would use a smaller container, like a Brute, to bleach the rocks, rinse them well and then let them air dry for a couple of weeks.
Getting them completely dry all the way to the center will take time.

I guess you could do the same to the sand, but I would just buy new and rinse it well, your call.
Sand will take a LONG time to dry completely unless you can spread it out in a thin layer.

The rest of the equipment can be washed in a 10% bleach solution and air dried for at least 48 hours.

from the excellent thread on TTM:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=23791024&postcount=3

"¢o Cleaned/Dried Equipment rule: You must clean and dry all equipment between transfers
"¢o Drying: Research has confirmed that simply allowing the equipment to dry AND stay remain completely dry for just 24 hours will kill any remaining Ich life-cycle stages. This means that you must allow time first for (a) all little remaining spots of water to evaporate and then (b) the equipment to then stay that way for 24 hours; this means you really should allow for no less than 48 hours total of drying to ensure this happens


"¢o Consider putting a small fan over the drying tank and equipment to speed up the drying process.
"¢o It is NOT a requirement (per research) to also clean with bleach or other disinfectants, unless you are paranoid (not a bad thing to be when dealing with Ich though). Drying is enough.
"¢o Cleaning/disinfecting: Simply rinsing with tap water and letting dry is all that is necessary; however, as stated above you may also prefer to take additional precautions to ensure Ich cysts are all dead in between transfers, and many people prefer to take this additional step. A bleach solution is the most commonly recommended disinfectant for assisting in killing Ich cysts. You can use as little as a 10% bleach-to-water solution to be successful.