Removing fish from SPS tank for 2 months

[jjencek]

Day 38 update:

Unfortunately the blue tang is showing ich again. This is after 14 days of TTM and 24 days in the QT without any signs. The only thing I can think of is that while doing WC in the QT, I used something from the DT (which is still in fallow time) and reintroduced ich to the QT.

I still have time to do another TTM while waiting for the fallow to finish, but it is a drag. Of course if I did not see it and returned the fish to the DT after 72 days, it would be much worse.

 

[heritage]

Is the blue tang in its own qt ?

I went through this myself, I caught a did ttm for each individual fish and had a 75 gallon holding tank set up a few month's before I moved any fish. Never again everything gets qt now.

 

[jjencek]

No, all the fish is together and they went through the TTM. I just missed something while doing it.

Started over and being very careful not to mix anything while doing that.

 

[heritage]

That sucks.. having to do this all again.

 

[jjencek]

It is not too bad. I never put the fish back into the DT. I am not redoing the 72 fallow. Just the TTM for 15 days.

 

[jjencek]

I might need some help or reassurance ....

I got 3 weeks to go before putting the fish back into my DT. Fish is doing fine, BUT

Things in DT are not looking well. Corals are not happy. Example: Milka has been closed for a week, green slimer is starting STN, other corals are loosing color. There is no growth of coraline and almost no algae.

I am doing water changes every two weeks - 15%. My water parameters are stable in "my regular ranges" (see below for numbers) except Ca got high. It was 490 and I have lowered it over two weeks to 450.

I am little confused and the only explanation I came up with was lack of nutrients. In the last couple of days I started to feed more frozen mysis and pellets into the fish-less tank.

Here are my water parameters:

Salinity = 35
Alkalinity = 7.8
Calcium = 450 (was 490)
Magnesium = 1280
Nitrate = 2.5
Phosphate = 0.01533

 

[nematode]

As noted in the thread, there is no effective chemical treatment for cryptocaryon irritans except for copper, and copper is extremely toxic and must be managed very carefully in a bare quarantine tank to cure the fish without killing .

Another chemical option is chloroquine phosphate. Very effective, arguably less toxic and simpler to dose since Only a single dose is needed (the fish still need to stay in the medication for several weeks. ) as the drug is very stable.

 

[jjencek]

Ok. I am living in Prague now. So I need to figure out if I can get it here.

In the meantime I did get copper and Hanna checker.

 

[Krush]

Any update on this thread?

I recently jumped back into the hobby after being out for about 12 years. I was excited and got two clowns, now one of them has ick and i'm scrambling to throw a QT together. I'm going to QT them both for 72 days and I will dose copper and prazipro during that time to make sure there are no parasites. All fish from now on will be QT'ed before going into my display.

I'm glad I found this thread, I was also worried about nutrient crash after removing all my fish. I guess I will just keep feeding corals and that should do the trick.

 

[jjencek]

The problem with my receding corals turned up to be unrelated to my fallow process. My salifert potassium test kit was bad and I overdosed potassium to over 470ppm. Several large water changes corrected the problem and corals that survived are getting better.

It is now day 84 of my fallow DT, but I am not returning my fish yet. The transfer method did not seem to work and the parasites kept returning. I now believe that I misdiagnosed the parasite and it is probably not ick.

To find more detail about what I am trying in my QT see http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2694062

 

[jjencek]

So it has been 90 days and I am done with the fallow. I kept feeding my tank frozen mysis and pellets. Except for the unrelated overdose of potassium, the corals and the rest of the inhabitants did just fine.

Thank you all for your help.