Ok to leave Mandarin in tank while fallow.

[byrdman81]

Okay so i know fallow means fishless. But somehow i guess with the introduction of my mandarin a couple weeks ago my hippo tang seems to have ich. The hippo was qt for 4 weeks and was given cupramine for 14 days at .050. I added the mandy two weeks ago trying to net the thing and put him into a clear container of my dt water after acclimation and introduced him into my tank. That has been the only thing added to the tank so im guessing it came from that. Only my tang has ich not the firefish. So im going to get firefish and tang out and treat with cupramine again and leave tank without fish for 8 weeks. So is it okay to leave mandy in the tank? Has anyone done this and not had ich reapper after the 8 week period. I just wanna cry cause this is the millionth time i have dealt with this stuff and the last time i made sure to qt fish for 4 weeks with 2 weeks of copper to avoid this.

 

[byrdman81]

bump

 

[francis1123]

if you leave the mandarin in the tank, the parasite will not go away. it will continue to breed on the mandarin, and when the other fish are reintroduced, there is a chance of them getting ich again. all fish have to come out to stop the breeding process of ich.

 

[kinlayan]

while mandarin's due to their slime coating are more resistant to ich they are not immune and francis is correct it will most likely host a low level infection which would reinfect fish introduced to the tank

 

[byrdman81]

meh i had thought i had read somewhere it was okay to leave them in the tank but i couldnt find it i guess i was wrong.