Is your tank going fallow? Better go loooong!

[hvacman250]

I'm only typing this to potentially save other people some headache. I'm actually too ****ed to do a full write-up, but maybe I will do one soon.

I went fallow on a 220 for 8.5 weeks. No fish, no shrimp, only corals. Never fed any food, never cross contaminated, temp at 80*; I did it by the book.

Existing fish and new fish experienced the following by the book:

4 tank transfer, followed by 4 weeks of Cupramine at 0.50, 3 rounds of PraziPro, 3 30 min-1 hour Formalin dips, 10 days of Paraguard, 1 round of Furan 2. Before transferring fish to display, I did another Formalin dip followed by a 30 minute Prazi dip for the hell of it. NO fish in the 8.5 weeks in QT EVER showed an Ich spot. EVER.

Within 2 days, at least 3 fish have Ich. Today looks worse than yesterday. If NO fish showed Ich after my QT protocol, it HAD to be remaining in the display.

8.5 weeks down the f'ing toilet. I had 4 QT tanks in the floor for 8.5 weeks. Medication and water changes cost a pretty penny. 8.5 weeks of tripping over tanks, constantly monitoring, etc. Sorry to be rude, but I'm ****ed at this disease and what is known about it.

What am I going to do? Nothing! Well, I WILL NOT be pulling this tank down again and going fallow. I have a 25W UV coming Tuesday and am in the process of building an Ozone reactor. That will have to do until futher notice. I will not go thru fallow again anytime soon, and if I did, how long do I go? 10 weeks, 12 weeks, 6 months???

NOTE: I am not telling you not to QT or go fallow WHATSOEVER. I still plan to QT everything coming in. If I have Ich, so be it. At least I dont have velvet, Brook, flukes, etc. My main goal is to warn you about the percentages with the fallowness. No offense to the authors of those percentages, but its hard to believe I had a 99.7% chance of being Ich free and the 0.03 won. I think there is alot of info to be discovered about this disease that we don't know.

 

[holdyourlight]

(Unfortunately) i agree with everything you said 100%

been there, done that

 

[sandwi54]

Unfortunately, 0.3% is a high probability. If someone could win the mega million lottery with the winning probability of 1 out of 176,000,000 (or 0.000000000568%), then I don't see how 0.3% is "unlikely."

I'm sorry and I know it's tough and frustrating. If I were you, I would just hypo the DT.

 

[b0bab0ey]

I gotta chime in to say I've recently experienced something weird with Ich too. I just got back from a 3-week European vacation. A friend of mine was topping off the water but sometime during my time away the automatic feeder failed on my DT. I'm guessing my fish went about a week without food. My PB Tang's color was pale and I was shocked to see a few spots of Ich on her. Obviously she was stressed and her immune system lowered. All the other fish appeared fine. I religiously QT all my fish for 9 weeks, and I have a separate QT for corals/inverts and they get 9 weeks as well. Hell, to be honest, sometimes they get 10-11 weeks because I forget to put them in the DT. I am a Nazi about always washing my hands in-between tanks. My wife claims I am OCD about it.

So, all my fish are in QT now (and in copper). I have gone thru it in my mind again and again, but I can't figure out what I did wrong. My friend says he only topped off the water in my DT with gallon water jugs, nothing more. He didn't once put his hands in my tank.

 

[data_loss]

I religiously QT all my fish for 9 weeks, and I have a separate QT for corals/inverts and they get 9 weeks as well.

I'm currently studying as much as I can about quarantine and fish treatment. I'd be interested to hear what kind of QT procedure do you follow in the 9 weeks? Thanks

 

[hvacman250]

Unfortunately, 0.3% is a high probability. If someone could win the mega million lottery with the winning probability of 1 out of 176,000,000 (or 0.000000000568%), then I don't see how 0.3% is "unlikely."

I'm sorry and I know it's tough and frustrating. If I were you, I would just hypo the DT.

Come on now! If I werent fuming mad right now about the ordeal, I'd be splitting my sides laughing.

Sure, a 1/3 of a percent is good odds of winning the lottery, but its supposed to be a failsafe with Ich. Supposedly Ich follows a 3 weeks life cycle, and 9 weeks is triple long to cover any freak things. If I was the only one to encounter the 0.3% it would be understandable. But...person after person after person is encountering the same odds as me. SOMETHING is going on.

I have dozens of corals and a very healthy, huge H. Mag. I cannot hypo the DT.

What is frustrating is all my unknowns:

What do Ich feed on?
Why do they have to have a fish host, and not a snail, crab, shrimp, anemone?
When is the 100% sure mark? 10 weeks? 15, 20, never?

I don't want Ich. I don't want my fish to suffer from tireless itching/scrathcing? Do I stress them out by removing them, putting them into a smaller than normal QT? How long, only to reintroduce them and get it again? I'm going to try Ozone and UV and see how I can manage the disease. Not eradicate like I want, but manage until further notice.

THIS SUCKS!

 

[hvacman250]

I gotta chime in to say I've recently experienced something weird with Ich too. I just got back from a 3-week European vacation. A friend of mine was topping off the water but sometime during my time away the automatic feeder failed on my DT. I'm guessing my fish went about a week without food. My PB Tang's color was pale and I was shocked to see a few spots of Ich on her. Obviously she was stressed and her immune system lowered. All the other fish appeared fine. I religiously QT all my fish for 9 weeks, and I have a separate QT for corals/inverts and they get 9 weeks as well. Hell, to be honest, sometimes they get 10-11 weeks because I forget to put them in the DT. I am a Nazi about always washing my hands in-between tanks. My wife claims I am OCD about it.

So, all my fish are in QT now (and in copper). I have gone thru it in my mind again and again, but I can't figure out what I did wrong. My friend says he only topped off the water in my DT with gallon water jugs, nothing more. He didn't once put his hands in my tank.

How long do you plan to go fallow?

I'm currently studying as much as I can about quarantine and fish treatment. I'd be interested to hear what kind of QT procedure do you follow in the 9 weeks? Thanks

It was in my original post.

"4 tank transfer, followed by 4 weeks of Cupramine at 0.50, 3 rounds of PraziPro, 3 30 min-1 hour Formalin dips, 10 days of Paraguard, 1 round of Furan 2. Before transferring fish to display, I did another Formalin dip followed by a 30 minute Prazi dip for the hell of it. NO fish in the 8.5 weeks in QT EVER showed an Ich spot. EVER."

Tank transfer is supposed to be a proven Ich treatment alone in itself. 2 weeks of Cupramine is supposed to cure Ich at a level of 0.35; I went 4 weeks at 0.50.
Prazi shoudl clear up any flukes or worms.
Formalin should get Velvet/Brook (cant remeber which,; copper gets the other)
ParaGuard is probably snake oil, but WTH, right?
Furan 2 for +/- bacterial infections.

I covered ALL the bases. Never once saw any problem with any fish the wjhole QT time. And yes, I'm the nuts who sits and stares for hours trying to find the smallest problem.

 

[b0bab0ey]

I'm currently studying as much as I can about quarantine and fish treatment. I'd be interested to hear what kind of QT procedure do you follow in the 9 weeks? Thanks

Well, currently for fish I QT in a 29 gal bare-bottom tank. I run an AC 50 HOB filter with a sponge seeded for 4 weeks in my DT (behind the rocks). I also run an AC 402 powerhead in the tank for additional circulation and with another sponge filter attached to it. But this sponge isn't seeded, I clean it regularly as it catches floating crap. When I get a fish in I ensure it's eating and then treat prophylactically with copper for 4 weeks. After that it gets 3 or 4 rounds of PraziPro. After that I just continue to observe until I hit the 9 week mark. Sometime between the 9-10 week mark I add the fish to my DT, but only if it looks perfect and is eating aggressively. Obviously, I change up my QT procedure as needed. For example, if the fish has Flukes I treat with Prazi first, copper later. Stuff like that.

For corals/inverts I have a small 20 gal that has LR & T-5 lighting. This tank remains fishless at all times. I leave all inverts in this tank for a minimum of 9 weeks. Even snails. Although it's more like 10-11 weeks before I get around to transferring my corals/inverts to the DT. All corals get dipped twice with CoralRx. Once before going into QT, again before going into DT.

I forgot to mention that it's literally been 6 months before anything was added to my DT before this Ich outbreak. That includes snails, hermits, etc. I did lose a CB Butterfly & Royal Gramma to Ich in QT about a month or so before this happened, but you can ask my wife. I would refuse to put my hand in my DT after messing with the QT until after I showered and even then, I would usually wait until the next day. I mean, I don't know how much more cautious (and paranoid) I can possibly be.

 

[b0bab0ey]

How long do you plan to go fallow?

Well, I'm actually moving at the end of April so I plan on going fallow until after the move. That will be 90+ days.

What really ****es me off is I know tons of people who never QT. They go to their fav LFS, buy whatever, throw it right in. No problems. Me, I can't even avoid Ich by following all the rules & being all paranoid about it. Watching my every move. Double and triple checking everything I do.

It's really starting to suck all the fun out of the hobby for me. I'm start to doubt everything I've learned in the past 30+ years in this hobby. I know it sounds silly but I'm almost starting to feel like I'm cursed or something. I don't mind following the rules, playing by the rules. But you should be able to avoid these kinds of problems if you're willing to be patient and QT everything. I'm very, very frustrated right now. At least it looks like I got back early enough and should be able to save all my fish.

 

[hvacman250]

I'm currently studying as much as I can about quarantine and fish treatment. I'd be interested to hear what kind of QT procedure do you follow in the 9 weeks? Thanks

I actually answered your question, but I will break it down even further for people doing future searchs.

Day 1 Prazi
2 prazi
3 prazi
4 tank transfer (redose w/ Prazi) Fish get 30 min-1 hr Formalin bath between transfer
5 prazi
6 prazi
7 tank transfer. Fish get 30 min-1 hr Formalin bath between transfer.

At this point we have done 1 dose of PraziPro for 6 days and 2 Formalin baths.

Day 8 nothing
9 nothing
10 tank transfer. Fish get 30 min-1 hr Formalin bath between transfer.
11 nothing
12 nothing
13 Final tank transfer. Fish get 30 min-1 hr Formalin bath between transfer.

At this point we have done 4 Formalin baths and 1 Prazi.

Day 14 start ramping up Cupramine. I calculate the total drops to get my water volume to at least 0.40, and add some in the AM, some PM over 3-4 days.
15 add Cupramine
16 Cupramine
17 Cupramine should be at 0.35-0.50 ppm.
18-46 (28 days) Keep monitoring Cupramine. Every few days I change 5 gallons of water and replace with 0.50 ppm Cupramine water (16 drops/5 gallons) Also, day 40-46 I do a Prazi treatment.

Day 47 Do a 50% water change and add carbon.
48 Remove carbon and add ParaGuard.
Day 49-until ??? Keep dosing ParaGuard, do no meds and observe, your choice.

I stopped at 60 days (8.5 weeks) When it was time for the big move, I put them in a 5 gallon bucket and added Prazi/airstone. Let them sit for 30 minutes. Remove alot of water and start the drip to acclimate. During acclimation, I added Formalin and dripped them until the bucket was full (about 45 miutes-1 hour)
Catch fish in a clear Dip-n-pour, drain all water, and release fish into display.

I have put 17 fish thru this QT practice and lost 1. It was a 1" Yasha goby who is a notoriously bad QT'er anyway. Even it made it 2 weeks; probably starved.

 

[hvacman250]

Well, currently for fish I QT in a 29 gal bare-bottom tank. I run an AC 50 HOB filter with a sponge seeded for 4 weeks in my DT (behind the rocks). I also run an AC 402 powerhead in the tank for additional circulation and with another sponge filter attached to it. But this sponge isn't seeded, I clean it regularly as it catches floating crap. When I get a fish in I ensure it's eating and then treat prophylactically with copper for 4 weeks. After that it gets 3 or 4 rounds of PraziPro. After that I just continue to observe until I hit the 9 week mark. Sometime between the 9-10 week mark I add the fish to my DT, but only if it looks perfect and is eating aggressively. Obviously, I change up my QT procedure as needed. For example, if the fish has Flukes I treat with Prazi first, copper later. Stuff like that.

For corals/inverts I have a small 20 gal that has LR & T-5 lighting. This tank remains fishless at all times. I leave all inverts in this tank for a minimum of 9 weeks. Even snails. Although it's more like 10-11 weeks before I get around to transferring my corals/inverts to the DT. All corals get dipped twice with CoralRx. Once before going into QT, again before going into DT.

I forgot to mention that it's literally been 6 months before anything was added to my DT before this Ich outbreak. That includes snails, hermits, etc. I did lose a CB Butterfly & Royal Gramma to Ich in QT about a month or so before this happened, but you can ask my wife. I would refuse to put my hand in my DT after messing with the QT until after I showered and even then, I would usually wait until the next day. I mean, I don't know how much more cautious (and paranoid) I can possibly be.

We might be long lost brothers:beer:

I QT in a 29 gallon also. HOB filter, seeded MJ/sponge combo in sump, PVC fittings, cheap CFL light.
Coral/invert QT is a 20L w/ 150W MH light.

I'm so paranoid a couple times during fallow I vacuumed the sand bed. In fear of accidently re-using the tubing, I threw it away.

After tank transfers, everything got bleached and soaked in hot water. Then rinsed in cold, bleach water, then rinsed with tap water. Towel dried, then hair dryer dryed on high heat. The few times I vacuumed the sand bed, I washed then bleached my hands. Yes I put diluted bleach water on my arms to keep from possibly cross contaminating.

And I still got Ich:angryfire:

 

[geaux xman]

what all fish do you have?

also, not that i think it has anything to do with your formalin dip, but i am wondering how do you it? what type of formalin(Formalin MS, Kordon foramalin, etc) and how much?

 

[lhm nole]

I have tried going fallow several times and it has never worked even experimented with it at a freinds stor and it also did not work only 2 methods has worked for me coppersafe and hypo I have never tried the transfer method.

Glad I dont have to deal with it anymore no longer plan to add to my dt and when everything goes will go back to freshwater, less time and money imo

 

[ironman187]

The ich does live UNDER the mucous layer on the fish, so dips of any kind are pretty much useless against it. All that added stress to the fish between all the transfers, and the dips, does nothing to help their immune response to the ich, and little to no good at killing it.

 

[hvacman250]

The ich does live UNDER the mucous layer on the fish, so dips of any kind are pretty much useless against it. All that added stress to the fish between all the transfers, and the dips, does nothing to help their immune response to the ich, and little to no good at killing it.

Formalin dips are NOT for Ich, they are for Velvet/Brook.
Tank transfer eradicates the disease by leaving encysted tomonts in the previous tank. Trophonts stay on the body 3-7 days, so 4 three day transfers SHOULD kill it, according to the stickies. Read the sticky if dont understand the principle.
Copper isnt stressful to the fish? Its a poison, you know? I also WANT to stress the fish a little bit so it might bring out the Ich symptoms. As I said in my first post, I NEVER saw any Ich symptoms, so it had to come from the fallow tank, not the fish.

 

[hvacman250]

what all fish do you have?

also, not that i think it has anything to do with your formalin dip, but i am wondering how do you it? what type of formalin(Formalin MS, Kordon foramalin, etc) and how much?

I could not find 37% Formalin, so I am using Kordon Rid-Ich Plus fo the Formalin in it. To equal the 37% in true Formalin, I am using 3.2 ml/gallon RIP as a bath in well aerated water.

As for fish, I had a little bit of everything, mainly small fish. 2 clowns, 2 tangs, blenny, 4-5 wrasses, goby, 2 cardinals, hawkfish, etc

 

[b0bab0ey]

There was a theory back in the day that certain strains of crypto could enter a kind of "hibernation mode" if they were unable to find a host. Only to be triggered to come out of hibernation once a fish was present. Whether it was a subspecies or an entirely new species I don't know. Perhaps we are experiencing evolution in action. But supposedly that has all been disproven.

I don't know what to think anymore. I know the most logical conclusion is I screwed up somehow and introduced crypto into my tank. But I keep running it through my mind and I can't see how it's even remotely possible. Unless the 1/10 of 1% got me. I wish I had that kind of luck when playing the powerball.

 

[holdyourlight]

i think i am your guys' long lost third brother :beer::beer:

i have been thru just about everything discussed here and most of them multiple times

i am using Chloroquine now

it worked but i overdosed on accident and killed some fish

 

[sandwi54]

I feel you guys pain too! I'm currently treating in my DT for ich, after I "accidentally" got ich into it from a QT. I first did hypo but it didn't work this time and ended up losing my large 9" male naso to secondary bacterial infection. I was frustrated and mentally broken down, took 4 days to ramp the SG to 1.020, and just coppered the whole tank. I didn't even care about the rocks anymore. This ich really sucks!!

 

[b0bab0ey]

I feel you guys pain too! I'm currently treating in my DT for ich, after I "accidentally" got ich into it from a QT. I first did hypo but it didn't work this time and ended up losing my large 9" male naso to secondary bacterial infection. I was frustrated and mentally broken down, took 4 days to ramp the SG to 1.020, and just coppered the whole tank. I didn't even care about the rocks anymore. This ich really sucks!!

Personally, I've always liked the fish over the inverts/corals. And ironically it's my inverts/corals that always seem to do great. If it wasn't for my wife liking the corals so much my next tank would be a 6 foot 180 gal FO (or similar) with an u/g filter and dead coral skeletons. Go back 20-30 years when things were easier. Then I could just copper the whole tank if I got Ich or something.