ich + quarantine = ?

[Young Frankenstein]

Ok quarantine for 6 weeks, and kill all ich. But everyone here says if the watter temperature changes more than 2 degrees or the fish are stressed out ich comes back. Is this posible ? kill all ich and after 6 weeks your fish can still get ich without the parasite being present?

 

[yakfishin]

The ich parasite needs to be present in one form or another for another outbreak to occur. I think what happens in the example you gave above is that a fish is kept in quarantine for 6 weeks and the ich parasite is present, but because the fish is not stressed it never shows any physical symptoms of the parasite. Along comes something that stresses the fish out, and now the fishes immune system doesn't handle the parasite as well, and a full blown case of ich occurs. This what I believe from the information I have gathered, but someone else may know better. I think that is the reason some people not only QT, but run copper or hypo on their QT tank as well- wether or not the fish actually shows any symptoms of ich.

 

[greenbean36191]

No it's not possible for ich to come back if the parasite isn't present. However, simply putting a fish into QT for 6 weeks doesn't do anything to the parasite on the fish. You have to treat with copper or hyposalinity to kill the parasite on all of the fish (even those that don't look affected) and leave the main tank fishless for that time.

Edit: too slow.

 

[Young Frankenstein]

Crabs, coral invertebrates in general from what I have read cant make it in hypo,or copper how do you treat those ? ps is that a rel picture of you greenbean?

 

[yakfishin]

I always think of quarantine as the process of holding a new fish, to watch for signs of illness or parasites, before adding to the main display. If you have a fish with ich, and it is in the main display tank, your best bet is to remove all the fish and place them in QT (or what I call hospital tanks if they already have a disease or other problem). Your inverts and corals can be kept in the main display without treatment, they don't act as a host for ich. If you keep your main display totally fishless for 6 weeks, the ich parasite will not have a host to complete it's life cycle and will die out. In the meantime, you will need to run a treatment to kill the ich on the fish that are placed in QT. A lot to go through, but this is the only way of making sure your fish don't have another outbreak weeks later. Also, make sure you QT any new fish for 4-6 weeks before adding to your display tank. It's easier treating one fish that is not already in the main tank than it is to remove all the fish in your main tank and then have to treat them all.

 

[Shagsbeard]

To "treat" crabs, corals, and other invertabrates is simple. Keep them in a fish free environment for 4-6 weeks and the ich will have died without a host. You can do this in the display. Without a fish to feed on, ich dies pretty quickly. What you're waiting the 4-6 weeks for is for all the cysts (eggs basically) to develop into the parasite form and die off from lack of host. It's called going "fallow".

 

[returnofsid]

While you're in a fishless state in your display tank, you can be doing a hypo treatment for fish in your QT tank. IMO this is the best procedure for making sure you rid your entire system of Ich. IMO, it's better to go 6-8 weeks from the last visible sign of Ich. Ich isn't something fish get because they're stressed. That's a nasty idea that's been floating around for years. Ich is NOT present in all tanks. It can be gotten rid of totally. If you go with Hypo, make sure you use a refractometer as you want to make sure you STAY at 1.009. Anything above that may not kill Ich.