Should I QT My Fish?

I have to take down my tank to move to another location. I know there is ich in my tank right now but im trying to understand if getting rid of it now will only be a short term thing.

So if i was to keep all my fish in QT tank with copper for 6 weeks leaving no fish in my DT i know that will kill the ich in the short term but if i QT all new fish will it just come back anyway? Please forgive my ignorance on the subject i have a basic understanding of ich now but thats about it.

you are on the correct path IMO. Run the display fallow for 6 weeks while your fish are getting copper for at least a month in the QT tank. All ich in display and on the fish will be eradicated.

I dont understand why you are saying that if you QT all new fish it will just come back anyway. If you QT all new fish and run copper/prazi on them then you will never re-introduce ich in your system. You will be good to go long term as long as you dont slack on the QT'ing
 
I dont understand why you are saying that if you QT all new fish it will just come back anyway. If you QT all new fish and run copper/prazi on them then you will never re-introduce ich in your system. You will be good to go long term as long as you dont slack on the QT'ing

To be honest it was more me not fully understating where ich comes from.

All,
I talked things over with my wife and we both agree that nuking the tank and starting over is the best approach. I will be setting up a 40 gallon breeder for a QT tank for the fish and a 10 gallon for coral/inverts.

If anyone thinks this is not the best approach please speak up, and thanks for all the advice.
 
Im still having a hard time wrapping my head around how to handle invertebrates. I know the invertebrates cannot get ich but the water they are in can have it. Is there any way to dip the invertebrates in multiple tanks to get the water off or is that not an option for snails/crabs because of the shell.

Im just thinking it would be difficult to keep some of those alive in a QT for that long if there isnt enough algae/food to eat.
 
Im still having a hard time wrapping my head around how to handle invertebrates. I know the invertebrates cannot get ich but the water they are in can have it. Is there any way to dip the invertebrates in multiple tanks to get the water off or is that not an option for snails/crabs because of the shell.

Im just thinking it would be difficult to keep some of those alive in a QT for that long if there isnt enough algae/food to eat.

Not really, no. The only way inverts can infect a system is by bringing in a tomont (cyst) on their shells/carapaces/skeletons. Because the cyst is impervious to chemical treatments, the only way to QT is through observation and time.
 
I would never nuke a tank with live rocks because of ich. The damage from this will always be greater than the actual benefit.

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If you've got inverts in your tank, treat them as you do the liverock: During the fallow period, any cysts on the rock, crab-shells, sand, glass, snails, or ... wherever ... should hatch, sending theronts out hunting for fish to infect. When they don't find any fish, they'll die of starvation.

I've heard a lot of tales of failed fallow periods in this thread, but have only my own story to tell. I had ich in a 65 gallon DT - the fish who'd been there a while were OK, but any new fish contracted the disease and died rather quickly, so I made the decision to set up a QT and go fallow. All the fish were treated with chelated copper (I found ionic copper to be rather lethal to the wrasses I love :-( and TTM didn't work well for me) and Prazi-Pro, and returned to the display after about 73 days. (I'd wanted to go 76, but things started going south in the QT...) Although I still get jumpy when I see a white grain of sand or micro-bubble adhering to a fish's slime coat, so far things in my display have been going very well for the last several weeks, and I think I may just have the buggers beat.

During fallow, continue to feed your display as well as your fish - give your bacteria something to nitrify! - and look at what's going on in there! Your corals will glow and grow, your inverts will move confidently without threatening shadows from above ... and your 'pod population will go through the ceiling. That fallow period can be as fascinating (on a smaller, macro scale) as a tankful of brilliant fishes. Ich isn't magic; it's a parasitic creature, and subject to its own biology. You can beat it. Good luck!

~Bruce
 
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