Ich

[Mushutherhinoscorpion]

Hi ....my lionfish and rhino scorpionfish have ich they are in a 55gallon with a moray eel and 2 Domino damsel fish i have live rock and soft corals..i just set up a 250gallon tank a week ago i real dont want to use meds so i was think should i wait for the ich to go through the cycle when they drop off movie the fish to the 250gallon? And dose freshwater dip work or not i read it dont and some say it works! Please any help is really appreciated. ....thank you

 

[beth]

Sorry that procedure will not work since ich does not drop off all at the time, same hour, same day. I would suggest that you move your corals and LR over to the 250 and treat your fish in the existing tank using hyposalinity. As the 250 will be fallow of fish while they are being treated, ich will die off.

https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/c/index.php/articles/content/hyposalinity.100

 

[lmforbis]

Hyposalinity is your easiest bet.
Otherwise you can transfer the fish into a different sterile aquarium every 72 hours 5 times. This is called tank transfer method. It requires 2 containers with heaters and at least an air stone to get water movement. Every 72 hours, timing must be exact, the fish are transferred to a sterile tank. The tank they were in and all the equipment must be washed in bleach and allowed to air dry. Then you repeat. After 5 transfers you move them into a disease free QT for two weeks of observation. You are essentially out running the life cycle of the parasite. It is very effective but timing is very important. This is what I do to all my fish before they go into the display.

 

[Mushutherhinoscorpion]

Hyposalinity is your easiest bet.
Otherwise you can transfer the fish into a different sterile aquarium every 72 hours 5 times. This is called tank transfer method. It requires 2 containers with heaters and at least an air stone to get water movement. Every 72 hours, timing must be exact, the fish are transferred to a sterile tank. The tank they were in and all the equipment must be washed in bleach and allowed to air dry. Then you repeat. After 5 transfers you move them into a disease free QT for two weeks of observation. You are essentially out running the life cycle of the parasite. It is very effective but timing is very important. This is what I do to all my fish before they go into the display.

Thank you for the feedback

 

[Mushutherhinoscorpion]

Thank you!......now should i move the moray eel To the 250gallon too?

Sorry that procedure will not work since ich does not drop off all at the time, same hour, same day. I would suggest that you move your corals and LR over to the 250 and treat your fish in the existing tank using hyposalinity. As the 250 will be fallow of fish while they are being treated, ich will die off.

https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/c/index.php/articles/content/hyposalinity.100

 

[lmforbis]

All the fish need to be treated.

 

[lagatbezan]

Hyposalinity is your easiest bet.
Otherwise you can transfer the fish into a different sterile aquarium every 72 hours 5 times. This is called tank transfer method. It requires 2 containers with heaters and at least an air stone to get water movement. Every 72 hours, timing must be exact, the fish are transferred to a sterile tank. The tank they were in and all the equipment must be washed in bleach and allowed to air dry. Then you repeat. After 5 transfers you move them into a disease free QT for two weeks of observation. You are essentially out running the life cycle of the parasite. It is very effective but timing is very important. This is what I do to all my fish before they go into the display.

This^. I would also suggest tank transfer method. With hypo you have to make sure that sg stays constant at 1.009 for a full 3-4 weeks which is hard to do with evaporation so a ATO is highly recommended and comes in handy as well as a correctly calibrated refractometer.
for the TTM, 72 hour is the maximum so try to do it before that. If it goes over 72 the whole timer resets and the TTM has to be restarted from day one.
Get a small fan and put over the equipment to allow them to fully dry before reusing.

 

[Mushutherhinoscorpion]

All the fish need to be treated.

Okay! thanks ......just wasn't sure if the moray could be treated with copper. ...

 

[lmforbis]

Neither tank transfer or hyposalinity use copper.

 

[beth]

Ok, should have taken into consideration the eel when posting advice. Eels have low tolerance of copper and hypo-saline conditions. Tank transfer is the only option unless you can separate the eel and treat separate or isolate to observe for ich.

 

[Mushutherhinoscorpion]

Ok, should have taken into consideration the eel when posting advice. Eels have low tolerance of copper and hypo-saline conditions. Tank transfer is the only option unless you can separate the eel and treat separate or isolate to observe for ich.

Yeah i only have the 55gallon and the 250gallon tank running i have a 240gallon but thats out of the equation I do not have the money to set that one up at the moment .....so i guess i will have to move him to the 250gallon and keep the lionfish and rhino scorpionfish and the 2 Domino damsels and the 55 and treat them I was going to turn the 55 gallon and to a hospital tank anyways or quarantine .....so my only other question would be moving the live rock and Corel to new 250 can still have ich on the rock in the crystal stage?

 

[Mushutherhinoscorpion]

Neither tank transfer or hyposalinity use copper.

If iam to treat it for ich with meds

 

[lmforbis]

If you move the eel to the bigger tank you will move the ich as well. Ich is not always visible. The fish you treat will risk re infection and any new fish will get infected in the tank you moved the eel to. You will then have a larger tank with more fish that have ich.
You can use couple a Rubbermaid totes to keep the fish in for the tank transfers.
Otherwise I'd suggest treating everything with hypo salinity in the 55 except the eel.
For the eel I'd buy a couple 5 gallon buckets and do tank transfers in them. You can put several lengths of pvc pipe for the eel to hide in each bucket. As long as the temp is good and there is water movement, I use only an air stone and cheap ***** heater. The hard part is the additional 2 weeks of observation. You could skip that and move the eel after the 5 transfers but there is a risk.

 

[2quills]

I would not transfer anything to the larger tank, not even coral with out a quarantine process if the goal is to avoid contaminating that tank as well.

 

[Mushutherhinoscorpion]

F!#$en "ich" is a pain in the A$$

 

[Mushutherhinoscorpion]

How long will it take to be free of ich with out any fish in the tank? More or less starving the ich

 

[lmforbis]

Current research (humble fish on R2R) is 76 days.

 

[beth]

F!#$en "ich" is a pain in the A$$

Not if you follow correct quarantine of new fish first. Fish diseases is a big problem only when the hobbyists doesn't take steps to prevent infecting the display tank. You can always count on fish introducing diseases and parasites. It's a big risk, not a little one.

WO fish in the tank, in my exp., has been about a mo. Imforbis, can you link your source?

 

[lmforbis]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ich-cryptocaryon-irritans.191226/

 

[beth]

Thanks for the link. Its solid advice to leave the tank for a good long time, but impractical in most situations. The life cycle of ich is approx. 14-30 days. Accounting for not all parasites going through their lifecycle at exactly the same time at the same phase, it's good to leave fallow for at least a month, even 6 wks. If the tank in fallow and can be hypo-ed, then that is good as well, but obviously not all tank can be. I have read a lot of advice, some recommending 3 mos, and even longer. In the end, the individual hobbyists assesses what s/he can practically do about an infestation.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php