QT'd, didn't see ich, but it showed up in the DT?

[geaux xman]

i know enough about the ich cycle, treatments, etc.

i'm just interested in people's experiences with having QT a fish and thought with good confidence the fish was parasite free, but then it showed up in the DT.

it could be, "i copper'd for 4 weeks and ich still showed up"

"i hypo'd 5 weeks and ich still showed up."

"i only treat as needed. observed a PBT for 5 weeks, added the fish and boom, the fish shows ich."

i also understand, the fish could've been parasite free, but was in a weaken state when entering a tank with existing ich and contracted it.

thanks for sharing. i dont have a story to share, b/c my failure was not QT'ing the fish.

 

[Kieth71]

I think their will be many stories like the scenario you mentioned above..i know the last time i had done something like this i had a kole tang that was not doing great in qt..i had him in copper for three weeks and although i knew better and should not have i put him in the display i decided to go ahead and take a chance.He had no signs of parasites and had been treated with prazipro as well..the smart thing would have been to remove the copper and do a big water change then observe and hope he pulled through but i put him in the display and a week later he was covered in crypto...this led to a few deaths in my tank and having to leave it fallow for 10 weeks along with removing and treating all the other fish...not worth it and i will not do it again-Kieth

 

[rssjsb]

I remove all my fish to a hospital tank and treated with copper. Kept them there for six weeks and put them back in the display. Ich showed up within a week. Really made me crazy because I lost a couple of my favorite fish in treatment, including a gorgeous flagfin angel. I still haven't figured out what I did wrong.

It made me so crazy that I then did something extreme, and treated my display with chloroquine diphosphate (which I've used quite successfully in hospital tanks). After the treatment was done, I ran carbon. Fish are spotless. Killed all the snails, bristle worms, vermetids, algae, and tiny brittle stars in the tank.

Five months later, the algae and bristle worms are making a comeback. Snails and corals not so much. I'm running carbon now full-time and hoping that eventually the tank will sustain reef life. For now, it's a very healthy fish-only tank.

 

[peasofme]

the only way to guarantee ich free is to take biopsies of the fish which is what large public aquariums do. hyposalinity doesn't work ime. cupramine is proally best.

 

[Texastravis]

Ick is everywhere. IMO there is no such thing as an ickless tank. In theory, you hear that an ickless tank is achievable but I am telling you its not. For the people that claim they have an ickless tank I challenge them to add aggressive fish, have a durastic pH swing or temp swing, and dump bad quality water into the tank....By next morning every fish will have ick.

I think you should NOT treat the fish. A good quarantine goes a long way....take this time to acclimate the fish to aquarium life, FATTEN HIM UP (A Fat fish is a happy one!), and get him used to your foooood. As said if you want to treat then treat with hypo...this will help lower the levels of ick and make a less stressful environment for him. As for food get off the low nutrient frozen food crap if thats what you feed and get a hold of some good Thera A New Life Spectrum food.

So get the fish HAPPY and STRESS FREE and the ick will be gone. IF he is eating then he is fine IMO. But feeed him a lot. I am talking about 3-5 times daily. If other fish are causing the stress go out and purchase some 3" 4" and 6" PVC pipe fittings and toss them in there for temporary hiding spots. Get the water quality up if it is down.

Trust me, I have 15 tangs, and many other fish in a 300 gallon. Not one has ick, never have had ick, and never have treated for ick. The trick is water quality, lots of feeding, and ample hiding spots. Good Luck

 

[Jon_Hewett_85]

I do not agree with the above post at all. We have a good understanding of the parasite, and a PROPER QT procedure will keep it out of your display. Where people run into problems are where they are not adhering strictly to it. What people forget is that an infected fish does not have to be introduced to the tank to introduce the parasite. It can hitchhike in on critters, substrate, corals, rock etc. that has been added from another tank without being QT'd. This can introduce the parasite which can go unnoticed and rear it's ugly head in a time of stress.

The only way to be sure there is no ich in a tank is to allow it to run without fish, until the parasite starves. After experiencing problems early on, I quarantine EVERYTHING that goes into my tank. Fish, Corals, Inverts, Etc. An ounce of prevention and all that.

Temp swings, salinity swings, etc. I have had all of that and have never had an issue with ich since starting to QT.

 

[Recty]

Ick is everywhere. IMO there is no such thing as an ickless tank. In theory, you hear that an ickless tank is achievable but I am telling you its not. For the people that claim they have an ickless tank I challenge them to add aggressive fish, have a durastic pH swing or temp swing, and dump bad quality water into the tank....By next morning every fish will have ick.

I think you should NOT treat the fish. A good quarantine goes a long way....take this time to acclimate the fish to aquarium life, FATTEN HIM UP (A Fat fish is a happy one!), and get him used to your foooood. As said if you want to treat then treat with hypo...this will help lower the levels of ick and make a less stressful environment for him. As for food get off the low nutrient frozen food crap if thats what you feed and get a hold of some good Thera A New Life Spectrum food.

So get the fish HAPPY and STRESS FREE and the ick will be gone. IF he is eating then he is fine IMO. But feeed him a lot. I am talking about 3-5 times daily. If other fish are causing the stress go out and purchase some 3" 4" and 6" PVC pipe fittings and toss them in there for temporary hiding spots. Get the water quality up if it is down.

Trust me, I have 15 tangs, and many other fish in a 300 gallon. Not one has ick, never have had ick, and never have treated for ick. The trick is water quality, lots of feeding, and ample hiding spots. Good Luck

Completely wrong for the most part.

The only part I agree with is having happy fat fish with good water quality goes a long way towards keeping ich levels down or not apparent at all. But "get the fish HAPPY and STRESS FREE and the ick will be gone" is 100% wrong. Unless by gone, you simply mean not visible to the human eye, then sure. It's still lurking, it just isnt in sufficient concentrations to be causing problems.

It's been proven in controlled test environments that copper treatments totally destroys ich, when treated consistently and to a dosage that is specified by the manufacturer of the product. Same with hyposalinity or letting your tank run fallow for months...

Ich isnt some magical creature that just appears on fish when it wants to, it's a living, swimming organism that can be eradicated with the proper procedures. It isnt floating through the air, so if you completely kill it off from a tank and then dont add any new fish with the parasite, it wont ever be a problem again.

That isnt an easy task, but it's worth it imo.

 

[peasofme]

i do agree that a fish should be healthy and eating well before you buy it for it to have the best chance. and be put into a stress free qt with hiding spots and fed well.

 

[geaux xman]

Travis, so none of your tangs has seen copper while in your possession?

Saw the old video of your tank. it is pretty impressive if you can pull that off without ever having to treating them.

 

[Texastravis]

Completely wrong for the most part.

The only part I agree with is having happy fat fish with good water quality goes a long way towards keeping ich levels down or not apparent at all. But "get the fish HAPPY and STRESS FREE and the ick will be gone" is 100% wrong. Unless by gone, you simply mean not visible to the human eye, then sure. It's still lurking, it just isnt in sufficient concentrations to be causing problems.

It's been proven in controlled test environments that copper treatments totally destroys ich, when treated consistently and to a dosage that is specified by the manufacturer of the product. Same with hyposalinity or letting your tank run fallow for months...

Ich isnt some magical creature that just appears on fish when it wants to, it's a living, swimming organism that can be eradicated with the proper procedures. It isnt floating through the air, so if you completely kill it off from a tank and then dont add any new fish with the parasite, it wont ever be a problem again.

That isnt an easy task, but it's worth it imo.

LOL and you are saying what is completely wrong!?? Of course by gone I mean OFF the fish, not eradicated! That is in fact the goal isnt it!? I started the whole dang thing with saying I dont believe in am ickless tank.

In my experience...as long as fish are stress free they can live ALL DAY LONG with ick "in" the tank. The ick will NEVER host on a stress free fish!

People, WHY go through the rediculous and silly routine of quarantineing and treating rock, snails, hermits, inverts, corals, and fish when its unecessary? Not to mention the ill effects copper has on fish! Then my favorite part of this is when people go through 2-3 months of this crap then one day they see ick in there tank and have to start allllll over because they "messed up" somewhere along the way. Instead of trying to eradicate ick, go strait to the source of the problem....THE STRESS!!!!!

Personally, I LOVE ICK! I love it soooo much in my tank! Why? Because it is a perfect warning sign for when something is wrong in my tank! IT lets me know when certain fish are having a hard time, etc.

Here is my 300 gallon tank. No fish deaths in a year (not including a couple chromis), No ick, and NEVER have I treated a fish, quarantined inverts and rocks, or any other silly rediculous thing. Yes I quarantined my fish, and quaranting is a GREAT thing. But never did I treat a fish in quarantine. If I saw ick I let the fish's immune system take care of it himself. 16 tangs....This video is before I added 2 Powder Blues, a sohal, and 10 lyretail anthias

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[geaux xman]

In my experience...as long as fish are stress free they can live ALL DAY LONG with ick "in" the tank. The ick will NEVER host on a stress free fish!

People, WHY go through the rediculous and silly routine of quarantineing and treating rock, snails, hermits, inverts, corals, and fish when its unecessary? Not to mention the ill effects copper has on fish! Then my favorite part of this is when people go through 2-3 months of this crap then one day they see ick in there tank and have to start allllll over because they "messed up" somewhere along the way. Instead of trying to eradicate ick, go strait to the source of the problem....THE STRESS!!!!!



Personally, I LOVE ICK! I love it soooo much in my tank! Why? Because it is a perfect warning sign for when something is wrong in my tank! IT lets me know when certain fish are having a hard time, etc.

Here is my 300 gallon tank. No fish deaths in a year (not including a couple chromis), No ick, and NEVER have I treated a fish, quarantined inverts and rocks, or any other silly rediculous thing. Yes I quarantined my fish, and quaranting is a GREAT thing. But never did I treat a fish in quarantine. If I saw ick I let the fish's immune system take care of it himself.

Travis, earlier in the year you had this thread?
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1950552

Achilles is dead....sigh.

I picked up 2 large fish last weekend, a 6-7" achilles tang and a 7" emperor angel. My plans were for both to go in my 55 gallon quarantine and then after Cupramine treatment be put in the display. They have been in there for past 5 days and my ammonia is at 1.0!

Post #8.

I like a fast quarantine which is why i chose to go the cupramine route. I have found that the whole wait and see if the fish is diseased typically doesnt go well for me. I was going to try and attempt to treat all fish before going in the display thus hopefully aachieving an ichless tank but this is probably a bit over zealous.

 

[Texastravis]

Originally Posted by Texastravis
In my experience...as long as fish are stress free they can live ALL DAY LONG with ick "in" the tank. The ick will NEVER host on a stress free fish!

People, WHY go through the rediculous and silly routine of quarantineing and treating rock, snails, hermits, inverts, corals, and fish when its unecessary? Not to mention the ill effects copper has on fish! Then my favorite part of this is when people go through 2-3 months of this crap then one day they see ick in there tank and have to start allllll over because they "messed up" somewhere along the way. Instead of trying to eradicate ick, go strait to the source of the problem....THE STRESS!!!!!



Personally, I LOVE ICK! I love it soooo much in my tank! Why? Because it is a perfect warning sign for when something is wrong in my tank! IT lets me know when certain fish are having a hard time, etc.

Here is my 300 gallon tank. No fish deaths in a year (not including a couple chromis), No ick, and NEVER have I treated a fish, quarantined inverts and rocks, or any other silly rediculous thing. Yes I quarantined my fish, and quaranting is a GREAT thing. But never did I treat a fish in quarantine. If I saw ick I let the fish's immune system take care of it himself.

Travis, earlier in the year you had this thread?
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1950552

Quote:
Originally Posted by Texastravis;
I picked up 2 large fish last weekend, a 6-7" achilles tang and a 7" emperor angel. My plans were for both to go in my 55 gallon quarantine and then after Cupramine treatment be put in the display. They have been in there for past 5 days and my ammonia is at 1.0!

Post #8.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Texastravis;
I like a fast quarantine which is why i chose to go the cupramine route. I have found that the whole wait and see if the fish is diseased typically doesnt go well for me. I was going to try and attempt to treat all fish before going in the display thus hopefully aachieving an ichless tank but this is probably a bit over zealous.

LOL Congrats you can dig around and find old threads. Yes I lost achilles tang in quarantine in DECEMBER of 2010 1 year ago (Achilles was the last fish I had die next to some chromis). Havnt lost a fish in a yaer. Could never figure out *** was up with her heavy breathing. No ick no nothing just heavy breathing. My test kit kept regestering 1.0 ammonia so I kept doing water changes but it never budged. Turned out that the test kit was either old or crap (dont buy API). So, the achilles died of unknown causes (no ick no ammonia). Emperor angel entire time was perfect in every way. I am going to just conclude that the fish unerwent a stroke or heart attack haha.

In regards to that post I made. I, like a ton of other people around here, had been persuaded to attempt the whole ichless tank thing. I then realized that in quarantine some fish would sprout some ick but with heavy feeding and stress free environment it would just go away. So instead of doing that whole pretreat bull crap I just kept my fish happy and moved them out of quarantine once all fish appeared healthy. I never used one drop of the two cupramine bottles I bought, you want them? And what do ya know...SUCCESS

 

[sandwi54]

LOL and you are saying what is completely wrong!?? Of course by gone I mean OFF the fish, not eradicated! That is in fact the goal isnt it!? I started the whole dang thing with saying I dont believe in am ickless tank.

In my experience...as long as fish are stress free they can live ALL DAY LONG with ick "in" the tank. The ick will NEVER host on a stress free fish!

People, WHY go through the rediculous and silly routine of quarantineing and treating rock, snails, hermits, inverts, corals, and fish when its unecessary? Not to mention the ill effects copper has on fish! Then my favorite part of this is when people go through 2-3 months of this crap then one day they see ick in there tank and have to start allllll over because they "messed up" somewhere along the way. Instead of trying to eradicate ick, go strait to the source of the problem....THE STRESS!!!!!

Personally, I LOVE ICK! I love it soooo much in my tank! Why? Because it is a perfect warning sign for when something is wrong in my tank! IT lets me know when certain fish are having a hard time, etc.

Here is my 300 gallon tank. No fish deaths in a year (not including a couple chromis), No ick, and NEVER have I treated a fish, quarantined inverts and rocks, or any other silly rediculous thing. Yes I quarantined my fish, and quaranting is a GREAT thing. But never did I treat a fish in quarantine. If I saw ick I let the fish's immune system take care of it himself. 16 tangs....This video is before I added 2 Powder Blues, a sohal, and 10 lyretail anthias

Travis, your school of thought is old and definitely does not apply to many aquarists.

if all of the fish are healthy and the tank truly is stress-free, then the fish could fight off most of the ich infestations. the problem is, how do you know how healthy the fish is. it only takes one not-so-healthy fish to get heavy infestations, then those tens of ich spots fall off and multiply into hundreds, if not thousands of free swimming ich. even the healthiest fish could succumb to attacks from thousands of ich babies. Plus, ich often attack the gills where they are not visible to human eyes. This makes many aquarists think that ich is gone or under control, when in fact fish are still infected (just not too much). Ich is an obligatory parasite and needs hosts to survive. Theronts die 18-24 hours without finding a host. The fact that ich persists in your tank means your fish are still infected (in the gills).

many people talk about maintaining stress-free environments. the problem is, no one can guarantee stress-free environments forever. almost all aquarists experience power outage some time in this hobby, and that is something that cannot be controlled. natural disasters, errors on the utility companies, etc., will all cause power outages. a simple power outage lasting 8-10 hours during the winter is enough time to cause a rapid temperature drops from 70's to the 60's, and that immediately stresses the fish out and lowers their immune system, exposing them to ich attacks. during hurricane irene (and katrina), many people lost their a lot of fish to ich due to this very reason. Their fish were otherwise healthy, but the moment the stress kicks in, the fish get heavy infestations and go on a downward spiral.

the point is, we as aquarists should strive for not getting ich into the DT in the first place, and if we accidentally do (trust me even experienced aquarists could make mistakes), we do something to eliminate it. If the QT is set up properly and the treatment is carried out appropriately, ich is very easy to eradicate. those who lose fish to ich treatment in QT likely are not doing something right, such as not changing water often enough when the QT is uncycled. If we don't do anything about ich in the DT, we are just pushing luck and will eventually lose the battle, which may weeks, months, or years.

 

[geaux xman]

Actually I was looking up your old build thread the other day and came across that thread in which i had originally posted in too.

So at one point you was a firm believer of cupramine("I like a fast quarantine....), but your tune has changed over the course of this year?

I mean if it works for you it works for you. I got a buddy that does the same on his current tank and he has no problems with ich. His prior tank he had a huge ich outbreak after adding a non-QT achilles and lost 75% of his livestock.

 

[peasofme]

gambling with 1 fish in qt seems better than gambling your entire dt

 

[Khemul]

It's really one of those things (like many things in this hobby) that'll be different for each individual.

Some of us can run tanks without QT, throw wild fish/macro/rocks/inverts in without a care, use NSW for water changes, and never see a major problem. Others could QT/treat everything in order to get a sterile environment and get a full crash. There isn't one set way that you can point to and say "this is the correct way to do it!".

That said, I think we do try to reach a good middle-ground or at least a safe-point when suggesting how people do things. That is really the key. The way Texastravis does things may work for him but could be disaster for someone else. Just like I'd never openly suggest someone do everything I've done to my tank, even though it works for me (personally I do wonder if there are positives to having parasites and such in a tank - fish in sterile environments seem to crash at the slightest sign of infection).

QT/treatment isn't 100% (maybe a 5-6 month QT would be, but doubt many people are willing to do that). But it is the safest method and only method that really works for the majority of people.

 

[Texastravis]

Im trying to get past this notion that people think they should take a healthy fish, toss it in quarantine, then take him through copper treatment. Just at an attempt to achieve an "ickless" tank. It is a preposterous notion that should not be practiced.

Now, take my tank as an example. I quarantined all fish and treated NONE of them. The fish that showed signs of ick eventually settled into the quarantine and began eating and loving my food and rid themselves of ick on their own. Now, if I had a bad outbreak of a couple fish I might have to run a course of treatment to help the fish along with riding itself of ick. I then only place the fish into the DT when all ick is VISIBLY off the body.

The results is a DT tank full of happy fat fish...A dense population of fish in my case. However, is my tank ickless? Probably not but if there is ick in there its in very little numbers. I have never so much as seen ick on any of my fish since in the DT.... Even after stressing fish out with water changes, re-aquascaping, etc.

So I would agree with you that if I were to throw a sick fish covered with ick into my tank there could be some major problems. The ick would use that fish as the host and multiply its numbers very fast in which it could potentially affect my other fish.

My point is this....practice simple quarantine procedures...Feed your fish and I mean FEED them, keep them happy and low stress and you should end up with good results. Dont go to the unnecessary extreme of quarantining rocks, treating healthy fish, etc. If you have a healthy tank full of fish, and you finish quarantining a fish that appears super healthy but has an ick hitchhiker in his gills that makes it to your DT, will your tank crash? Absolutely not yet your idea of an "ickless" tank is gone.

I will also add that my case that I am trying to apply to more people with the larger tanks such as myself and/or larger fish lists. Could you imagine treating every fish that hits a 500 gallon tank in which you will be buying corals/rock/snails and hermits weekly? It would be very difficult, time consuming, and a hassle. I have over 50 fish and even more inverts....I would have never pretreated all those fish. And when I start adding massive amounts of corals, will I be quarantining the coral for 8 weeks? HA, not a chance! (Now I will dip my corals, etc but thats a diff subject all together)

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

Texastravis,

Would you please post a video of feeding your 50 fish. That would be fun to watch.

Also, how do you get all of your fish to eat the NLS pellets? Just don't feed anything else once they are in your DT?

What is your maintenance schedule to keep a heavily fed tank with so many fish clean?

Thanks.

 

[peasofme]

oh well. at least he qt's and dpesn't starve his fish which is more than you can say for 90%

 

[jcw]

I bought all my initial 4 fish from DD and placed them into the DT.

Ich showed up and lost all but two.

Treated them with hypo for 6 weeks.

All new additions went through at least 5 weeks of observation without treatment.

After the last additions 4 reef chromis, 2 large anthias, ich started on a mimic tang that has already been in the tank for a couple months.

This happened about 1 month ago.


I was not going to go through catching and treating 15 fish after going through it with the 4 fish.

So far, the tang gets a spot or two but is doing ok.



If ich can stay subclinical (not observable on a fish) for an indefinite time in a dt as I've read, then qt without treatment will ALWAYS be potentially flawed.