Long-term Ich Management

[Mattewell]

Well count me as a Paul B follower. I'm not saying don't use copper if you want to, but my personal experiences tell me that proper feeding and health of the fish are the best. Almost all of my fish have come in with ich and all of them have beaten it back and are looking fat and happy. When a fish is introduced to the tank that has ich, the rest of my fish never show signs of having re-contracted it. I just have not really cared that my fish have ich because it's never been something I couldn't overcome. I don't feed live black worms like Paul does (not saying it isn't an excellent food source, just never tried it). I have had success feeding just frozen Mysis shrimp and the occasional nori clip for them. I never feed flakes or pellets. I do make a point to feed them every evening though, and I feel that the predictable supply of food helps them.

Find a method that works for you and stick with it. There are many ways to attack this problem.

 

[Paul B]

Where I may be in disagreement is advocating that folks who are New to the Hobby can manage a tank in a manner similar to one who has been doing that for decades.

Steve, I never advocate anything and try to stay away from Noob threads. I just post what I do and what works for me. I would never tell anyone to do what I do or add a reverse UG filter (even though I don't know why everyone doesnt use one, but I am happy about that as I like having the oldest tank on here) :lmao:
I rarely give advice as I know I am perceived by many as a nut job. A bald nut job with a UG filter. I know how my methods are ridiculed but you and I know that at one time, they were the only methods.
There are quite a few things I do that I don't even mention because I would lose the little credibility I have.:debi:
I do know that the majority of fish that go into my tank live out their life without ever getting any type of disease, they spawn and grow old. If they get to large I give them to a public aquarium. I have never gone on a disease thread to say one of my fish has ich or anything else except pop eye and I did that to show how to cure it in 10 seconds. I would not tell anyone to do that but if you ask, I will tell you how to do it.
Some of my fish are 20 years old and still spawning. My mandarins are spawning, when I had blue stripe pipefish, they were spawning, my threadfin cardinals are spawning as are my clown gobies as I posted the eggs a few times. My watchman gobies always spawned for 12 years.
I would say my copperband butterfly is spawning but I don't think I could get away with that.
My tank is said to be an anomely. It is called hard to duplicate because I feed worms and run a UG filter. If that is so hard, than I may be doing something wrong as I spend very little on the tank and it hardly takes any time. I don't need dosers, test kits, quarantine tanks, hospital tanks medications or a lot of things that people use so I think my tank is simpler than most tanks here as I am a simple guy who runs a very natural "healthy" tank. :dance:
I am told numerous times that my tank is a time bomb and ich will soon crash it. It better hurry because I am getting old and so is the tank. But if it does crash from ich, it has had one heck of a run. You think?

 

[snorvich]

Actually Paul, I do some of the things that you do (not the under gravel filter though) and like you am a big believer in nutrition. My only heartburn is when people (I am not talking about you here) post in the New to the Hobby Forum advocating methods that will not provide a good experience for inexperienced folks in the long run. I have multiple fish that spawn in my two primary aquaria, do not have ich, but do not attribute that to nutrition but rather to a careful quarantine protocol.

 

[Paul B]

Steve, thats because you are a very good aquarist and you know what you are doing.
Your fish probably would not get ich even if you threw in an ich infected fish but I know you won't do that on purpose. Quarantining is one way to go, all I advocate, if you will, is while you are quarantining, get your fish into the best shape they can be in.
I don't think too many people will disagree with that. :bum:

 

[DSPs]

So, my curiosity is aroused. You work for a fish store, presumably for the four years you have been reefing. Does the fish store advocate your position?

To be honest a couple do and a couple Co workers don't, the thing is we can't just leave a fish alone at the store because are hands are always in the tanks catching fish, cleaning or grabbing coral for someone so leaving the fish alone and keeping our hands of the tank isn't an option there unfortunately, But ya some coworkers agree with my method and do the same in there home tanks and some agree other methods, And I have been reefing for 4 years but have kept FOWLR tanks alot longer just to be clear

 

[HumbleFish]

There are quite a few things I do that I don't even mention because I would lose the little credibility I have.:debi:

Paul, you'll always be King of the Old Salts! :bounce1:

 

[Paul B]

Thank you, and I am getting all wrinkled from the salt to prove it. :facepalm:

 

[agnes66666]

i just finished copper treatment in my DT - i was adding cupramine to DT for last 4 weeks , i was keeping 0.4 coper level at all time. I was doing every second day WC as was worried about ammonia spike . I keep live rock and sand in DT. yesterday I did 20% wc, and then I added carbon Matrix and Purigen. my ammonia is 0. coper 0. nitrate 0. ph 8.3. everything seems to be good, the only bad things is that cupramine bleached my rock, and cyanobacteria spreading everywere- i had small cyanobacteria problem on one of my rock , but it stayed there and did not spread it for over a year - untill copper treatment began.