Tank upgrade, time to treat fish. help me do it right.

[Meshmez]

so here's my situation. I'm upgrading my tank, I have some time before the new tank comes in, and I'm going to have to basically cycle my new tank. I have seen ich spots before, but none for a long time (over a year) as far as I know I have no other signs of disease.

I know ich is in there as I have seen it before (I never quarantined, I will in the future)

I plan to move all my coral and live rock to a separate tank for at least the 72 days required to let ich die off.

so I'm going to treat my fish. I'm thinking tank transfer to treat ich.
Question 1: does tank transfer work even if you cant see when the spots fall off? I think that is the whole point of the 3 day cycle (for 7 total moves, right?) but I just want to confirm that I dont need to be able to see any change.

Question 2: after TTM for ich, I will be housing the fish in basically a QT tank for another month or two. should i treat for anything else, even though i dont see signs of anything?

Question 3: for future fish QT. would it make sense to TTM all new fish no matter what? If so, would I then just QT and monitor for another 2 or so weeks before adding to tank? or would it be safe to assume that TTM has gotten rid of the potential for ich, and other diseases would have shown themselves during the TTM process, therefore after TTM they can be added to the tank (assuming no other symptoms were shown)

Thanks in advance.

 

[ThRoewer]

Tank transfers are the only method I would use if the fish don't show clear symptoms. (applies to 1 and 3)

Besides that no further treatment is required.

You may need several holding tanks and separators to keep the fish from fighting while doing the observation/fallow wait.

 

[Dmorty217]

TTM works best with a single fish, when multiples are involved the degree of difficulty rises. You will also need 4 or more sets of everything if doing several fish in TTM at once unless your trying to do TTM with large tanks

 

[Meshmez]

its only 4 fish, so its not like im working with a bunch. but why 4 sets of everything? how does the degree of difficulty rise? isnt it just a matter of moving more fish over each time?

 

[jbvdhp]

I was successful moving batches of fish, no more than 4 at a time though.

 

[Krispifsu]

I went through this process the end of last year because we moved and I used the opportunity to upgrade to a Reefer 450.

My process - I purchased a marine pure block and cycled in a bucket with saltwater and pure ammonia and fed it heavily for a few weeks. Coral and CUC got pulled from tank and set up seperately. Fish were then pulled and went through TT method. I used large plastic bins so I could add some length to their swimming area and just used air stones for oxygen and water movement and pvc for hiding. I tossed airstones and tubing at each transfer and bleached/air dried bins and pvc.

Rock was pulled from tank and put in a brute trashcan with power heads. Sand was tossed and old tank drained and removed. After moving, I set up new tank with new sand, fresh SW, and old rocks. Coral and CUC added to tank after a short cycle. Rocks, coral and CUC all sat fallow for a total of 75 from the day all fish were removed until fish were added back to tank.

After TT, fish were moved to a permanent QT and I treated with Prazi for 3 rounds. I added the marine pure block I had cycled to the permanent QT as fish would be in there for 2 months and I wanted to avoid an ammonia spike in a new QT.

Now all fish go though TT and Prazi and sit in QT for another 3-4 weeks. All coral and CUC go in QT before being added to tank.

 

[Meshmez]

Thanks Krispifsu! looks like you did pretty much the exact same thing. you didnt use any filtration on the tanks during the tank transfer time? just airstones?

 

[Krispifsu]

I did not use filtration during TT. I opted to use 2 air stones, one on each end of the bins. For a light fish load it may not have been necessary but I didn't want to chance that one would die or a hose pop off and not see the fish were not getting any air or water movement.

To lessen chance of ammonia, I added Prime on day 2 and fed very lightly. On transfer days I fed more.