ich prevantitive measures enough?

[ali1]

I know quarantining fish is necessary to prevent ich outbreaks, but how about corals and inverts? How can we quarantine these guys to prevent any eggs on the frag or on a snail shell from destroying your tank? It just seems like we should focus more on a reefsafe cure than all these prevenantive measures.

Even if we did quarantine corals and inverts to eliminate that one risk of hatching tomonts, how do we know if its gone from the tank after 6 weeks. Do we throw in a cheap fish and inspect or do we assume we got the easy strain and all are gone?

 

[zeebies]

Best advice I can give is to run a small, fishless reef and keep inverts in there for 72 days. I set up an extra 10 gallon just for this purpose. By 72 days you have a 99.8% + chance of any ich dying out because of no fish host.

Tomonts can encyst on snail shells, frag plugs, etc. and hitch a ride into your tank, but if you can wait out the 72 days, you're probably good to go. As good as we can reasonably get...

Quarantining inverts is good for another reason. I spent weeks picking nudis off zoas, dipping, picking... Finally they were clear, 72 days was up, and I've had no problem in the DT with any pests.

It may be a long time before we have any reef safe cure-all, so preventative measures and time is the best we can do.

 

[Spar]

Best advice I can give is to run a small, fishless reef and keep inverts in there for 72 days. I set up an extra 10 gallon just for this purpose. By 72 days you have a 99.8% + chance of any ich dying out because of no fish host.

Tomonts can encyst on snail shells, frag plugs, etc. and hitch a ride into your tank, but if you can wait out the 72 days, you're probably good to go. As good as we can reasonably get...

Quarantining inverts is good for another reason. I spent weeks picking nudis off zoas, dipping, picking... Finally they were clear, 72 days was up, and I've had no problem in the DT with any pests.

It may be a long time before we have any reef safe cure-all, so preventative measures and time is the best we can do.

+1 - excellent points

i had a 10g up for years and just upgraded it to a 20g (tall)

 

[CHSUB]

just QT your fish is good!!! i would bet properly QT your fish is about 99.799%successful, if you want .001% more, qt inverts and corals for 72 days fishless!

 

[lespaul339]

just QT your fish is good!!! i would bet properly QT your fish is about 99.799%successful, if you want .001% more, qt inverts and corals for 72 days fishless!

I used to think that way too"¦
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23842138#post23842138

 

[snorvich]

I used to think that way too…
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23842138#post23842138

Critters that contain water such as hermits or snails may transmit the infectious stage of the cryptocaryon irritans life cycle. These, especially, would ideally spend a week by themselves before introduction into a display tank. However it is desirable to never add water from another system to your tank.