When is it safe after and ich outbreak?

[aschroeder]

I recently posted about most of my tank being wiped out by ich. The lone survivor is in quarantine. What is the life cycle of ich? When will it be safe to intoduce fish again? Right now, all that is in the tank is live rock, a few snails, and a cleaner shrimp.

By the way, my parameters are good. This is a new tank (4 months old), and I made the mistake of introducing a sick fish that infected my whole tank.

 

[useskaforevil]

6-8 weeks ive heard,

 

[aschroeder]

Really? 6-8 weeks?

 

[aschroeder]

I googled and found this:

http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/diseasesich/a/aa102797f.htm

It says 3-4 weeks before adding fish again. Can anyone confirm this? I don't want to add a new fish in month and infect him with ich.

 

[kfowler]

October or November issue of RC Mag will tell you everything you need to know. The time is 6-8 weeks. If this is in your display, I would do 8 weeks to be sure.

Are you treating the fish in QT?

 

[Reeses]

At least one whole month. Six weeks is much better for piece of mind.

edit: I just realized that you still have one fish that needs to be treated. Sorry about that, I thought that you were livestock-free for some reason. The time period gets bumped up (in my book anyways) to around 8 weeks for fish treatment/recovery.

 

[AquaReeferMan]

6-8 weeks. Please read over the links I posted to fully understand the life cycle of the ich parasite.

Part 1
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php
Part 2
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-10/sp/feature/index.php

 

[ralphie16]

60 days is in fact the number of days you have to keep your tank without fish. This will ensure that the ich is gone. Many studies have shown that they will survive without a suitable host for up to 60 days. Very few have survived beyond that but that is so rare you do not have to worry about it in the real world.

60 days im telling you.

 

[AquaReeferMan]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9757139#post9757139 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ralphie16
60 days is in fact the number of days you have to keep your tank without fish. This will ensure that the ich is gone. Many studies have shown that they will survive without a suitable host for up to 60 days. Very few have survived beyond that but that is so rare you do not have to worry about it in the real world.

60 days im telling you.

Can you show me any of these documents? I would love to read them.

 

[scumonkey]

you really REALLY should read this!
http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/ich.shtml
I had ich - lost 'em all.....
Eight weeks with NO FISH in the display to be sure!
I even added a UVS to the display to help make sure it was all gone!
4-6 weeks in a QT before adding new fish to the tank.
Tank now stocked with NO ich!!! (not even on my PBT!!!!)

 

[RichConley]

60 days is more accurate than 5-6 weeks. THere have been a couple studies where ich cysts have lived as long as 14 weeks. The longer you can go, the better.


That being said, if you're going to bother with this, you have to QT everything wet that is ever going to go in your tank. THat means corals, rocks, sand, frags, inverts, EVERYTHING. Ich has a bunch of life stages, some of them are substrate bound, and some are waterbound./

 

[navipro1]

4-6 weeks is typical, if you want to be really safe than 60 days is best, during this time, increase the temperture to 82-84 if you can (consider your livestalk though), it speeds up their life cycle. I would do a water change to trigger the eggs to hatch and die faster without a fish host.

 

[aschroeder]

Thanks for the feedback. I guess I'll have to be patient. My clownfish is still hanging on in the quarantine, hopefully he makes it. It sounds like he'll be living there for a couple months.

I'm going to up the temp in my main tank, but I have a cleaner shrimp, snails, mushroom coral, and zooanthids. How high can I safely raise the temp?