To QT or not to QT: Fish in Display - WWDRCD

DRC Archive General Saltwater Discussion
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What would DRC Do.

Powder Brown Tang: Been in the display for months. QT’d a Lawnmower Blenny, he’s the latest addition to the tank. Blenny has been in the tank over a month. However, the PBT has for sure contacted ICH. It’s had it for about 2.5 weeks now actually. Tank is still acting normal, eating, not seemingly distressed. I’ll add, that the other fish have yet to be effected.

So my dilema:

Keep feeding it normally, hope it self resolves.

Or start McGyvering a method/trap to extract it w/o disassembling.

I only post as sofar the “hope it self resolves” has been working, however today is the worst that I’ve seen. Fish is still seemingly normal though…as normal as one could be with parasites popping out of your body leaving white scars eveywhere…poor fish.

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That is quite the quandry.

Personally I believe that most fish have the ability to overcome the ich infection without intervention, especially a larger fish in a mature tank. Stress is one fo the factors that will enable ich to take hold and prevent the fish’s immune system from fighting it off - trapping and removing the fish to out in a hospital tank could be enough stress to send it over the edge.

On the other hand, medicating the fish is the fastest, easiest method of ich removal, which would probably be better for the fish in the long run.

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Yep, right there with you Craig. Catch 22.

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How big is your display, and do you have an extra tank you can set-up as a QT?

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Sneeyatch: Tank is 90g. I have a 20 long setup as a QT tank.

Simple setup, Heater, Filter, Powerhead, LED strip light, and a piece of PVC 3way union for shelter.

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Or treat the entire tank! Ruby reef sells it’s called kick Ick a 2 part reef safe treatment so you don’t have to tear tank apart.i used it in my 180 2yrs ago with great success

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IMO I think the powder tangs seem to get Ick the easiest,so I stay away from them.(wasted a lot of money on them)

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I’m wondering if it would be easier for you to remove the corals and inverts, put them in the QT tank and let your display run in hypo with the fish in it. I did it in the past with my old 150 cube and it worked for me - however, there will be die-off and you will need to to be on top of water changes until the bio-filter can adjust to hypo conditions.

Depending on what your coral load is like though, you may just want to trap the fish and QT them separately with meds. If I were to do it again, I would go the med route in a separate QT.

All of my fish will be QT’d before going into my 90. The fish from my 25 are staying in the 25. Some folks laugh at me for wanting to QT my fish, but I’ve been down that road too many times to repeat and with some fish being very expensive, I know I’ll be doing the right thing up front.

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I think either way you go I would suggest boosting their immune system best you can
Add something like Voogle and soak food in Selcon.

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Is it true, that once the ich bug is in your tank, it remains there,dormant, even if you don’t see any visible signs?

If that is the case, then once a fish is QT’ed, treated, and cured of the ich, will it not be exposed to the ich in the main tank again, with the possibility of contracting ich again.

With that being said, then what Jason has suggested seems like a proper way of treating a ich breakout, just my :TWOCENTS

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[quote=“houndsbayman, post:10, topic:7234”]
Is it true, that once the ich bug is in your tank, it remains there,dormant, even if you don’t see any visible signs?[/quote]
Yes and No, well no if all fish are treated to 100% and the tank is left fallow for the life cycle which is 72 days.
the cycle is totally broken.
Now that being said it can come in on anything added to a tank and a fish can have marine Ich an have a strong enough immune system that it never shows and then the cycle can just keep going until a stress factor or immune system is compromised and then the epidemic starts again.

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Some think that Ich is always in a tank.

I’m on the side that believes if a tank if fallow long enough that the parasites lifecycle is broken (aka: they all starve to death without a fish to host, which effectively makes them extinct.) they are no longer present.

Proper QT should then keep the parasite out of your tank going forward.

It is my assumption that I didn’t QT my lawnmower blenny long enough even though it doesn’t show any signs of the parasite.

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With that said, I think I’m going to go the route of keeping the Tang in the tank, maybe even feed a little more often, and treat the food. Trying to assist the immune system of the fish and relieve stress with a fat belly of food. So far, none of the other fish have it, and its been in there for 2+ weeks with obvious sings of the parasite. Time will tell.

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Casey just when through with his treatment of ich for his tank. He took all the fish out of the tank and all put all the fish in the QT. He treat them with chloroquine phosphate (suppose to be the best stuff for ich and it suppose to kill both inside and out) in the QT for 28 day and nothing in the tank for 9 weeks. Within that 9 weeks fishless tank, it suppose to kill all the ich since it do not have anything to host.

He just recently put everything back into his tank couple of weeks ago before he left last night and they’re all doing well.

Also, he was in contact with Carman, the guy who is building the 20K shark tank up in Wilmington. He is doing research on ich and suppose to be expert on it. He also suggested to Casey to use that chloroquine phosphate stuff.

I’m sure if Casey was not traveling right now he would jump on here and say something about.

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Rob, I done a lot of research and reading on this. As A said, i did go fallow for 11 weeks. 9 weeks gives you a 95% chance that your tank no longer has any stages of ich, because the multiple stages/life cycles have gone without a host, therefore starved. 11 week fallow period gives your a 99.9% chance ich free tank.

The method i took was what A said. Removed fish and QT them with CP (chloroquine phosphate) for 30days exactly. Run no carbon or skimmer and try to keep the tank as dark as possible( i wrapped a curtain around mine), because the medication is sensitive to light and will deplete once uv makes contact. I would flip on a low powered light for 5 mins ever day or 2 to check the fish of any signs of other infections.
Running this med can result in other intestinal bacterial infections, so after the CP treatment i ran Prazi Pro to help with any other infection the fish may have gotten during treatment.

As John said, once ich has showed it face in your system then it has introduced itself to other fish in your tank. The best and most effective way to rid your tank and fish are to treat both tank and fish separately. Even if you don’t see ich, it is in your fish in one form or the other.

Once the 30 day mark with CP was up, i don’t a 50% water change, ran strong carbon and went back to running lights. I gave them a week of no treatment then started bacterial treatment. If you decide to take this route, id be happy to help as much as i can from across the pond. Remember to not cross contaminate QT and DT. Meaning, don’t feed QT with food soaked in DT water, or DT with food soaked in QT water.

During the 11 week or 72 day fallow period, i added a lot of corals and inverts, couldn’t be a better time to do that because, worse case senario, the new additions have ich on them, the cycle they carry will not last because they do not have a fish to host and start their life cycle.

I have to say its very rewarding to go through this process, knowing the fish no longer have ich in their gills or other parts of their body to irritate them. The fish i treated are doing great and have even gained some healthier colors after treatment.

Hope my :TWOCENTS helps, LMK if i can help anymore.

GOOD LUCK BROTHER.

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Well, I guess you’re not flying yet huh?

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Mission slipped again just now. Total of 48 hours.

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I have a powder brown that gets a very mild case every 60 days or so. Like 8-10 spots on the entire fish. Lasts about 48-72 hours max. I have not ever medicated him or the tank, it just resolves itself with a stop at the cleaner shrimp. It never seems to bother him and shows no other symptoms. Been doing this for years without a problem. No other fish ever get it that I can tell, not even the hippo tang. If I was going to move the PBT to another tank I’d treat it, but to catch it would be a MAJOR PITA due to the amount of rock and coral. It would be nice to have an ich free tank, but for me its not worth the effort since it doesn’t bother him, other fish or me for that matter.

If it is not a big deal to QT yours, go for it.

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Not to hijack the thread, but since the question was asked about ich always being in the tank - I decided to ponder while reading the rest of the replies…

We always say that a healthy fish’s immune system is strong enough to fight off ich, but that it is always present and a stresser can allow the fish to become infected. Heck I think I said it in the 2nd post of this thread. But let’s think about this for a minute.

If a fish’s immune system is strong enough to fight off an ich infection, then it MUST be killing the ich in/on it. We believe that ich can not live without a host. So… if the fish is able to kill the ich itself while it’s immune system is healthy, how is it that the ich is still present to infect it when it get stressed?

I can’t carry the flu around in my body for 2 years and not get sick, only to suddenly come down with the illness in mid-july during all-star season. How is it the fish is able to carry a parasite around for months, or years and never have the parasite grow or infect? Is it possible that ich can in fact live without a host and only infects when the immune system is compromised? Does the fish’s immune system only kill the ich off at juvenile stage, and not as a cyst?

I’m wondering if we’ve been wrong about ich, it’s life cycle, and why some fish get it easily while others never seem to get it.

Personally - knock on wood - I’ve been fortunate and don’t think any of my fish have EVER had ich so I’m no expert, just a curious mind pondering the information we’ve been passing on for years now.

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I had ich on a powder brown and it infected other tangs and a couple scaled fish too. I fed selcom and soaked food in garlic and it was gone but the powder brown died. I gave up on them. I think it’s so hard to remove fish esp. In my system plus I think my clowns would die if I took them from the anemone. It was already said that it’s stress and catching them to put them in a qt would stress them more. I side with not removing but if they are easily removed from the dt and can be put in a nice qt I would do it.