Another approach to fighting ICH??

[mike6263]

So Ich has finally won the battle on my 92 gallon Oceanic bowfront tank. It was a fish only tank and the only inhabitants remaining are 2 cleaner shrimp and about a dozen hermit crabs. I was considering performing the hyposalinity process, but did not want to harm my live rock, live sand and inverts as I really don't have somewhere to store them through the process. I have decided to not place any fish in the tank for about 4 weeks hoping that the ICH will have died off by then without any hosts. I read that the ICH life cycle is about 1 week and higher tempertures actually speed it up. I am running a UV on the tank and don't know if I should keep my actinic lights on 24/hrs a day( I heard keeping lights on also help). I guess in a nutshell all I am saying is that I hope to kill the ICH by not having any fish in the tank for 4 weeks, running a UV to kill the free floating parasites and maybe raising the temp to 80-82 and maybe running actinics 24hrs while keeping the salinity at 1.0019. Does this make sense? Can I start adding fish earlier than 4 weeks? Is there any recommedations to add to my process?

 

[beth]

The life cycle for the ich parasite is 3 wks, not 1 wk. Take jwtrojan's advise and leave your display fishless for 5-6 wks.
If you do not have a means of preventing or treating fish diseases, then you shouldn't get fish. This problem you just experienced will happen again and again.

 

[mike6263]

Thanks for all the support and advice from this message board. It really contains a lot of good information from very experienced people. I do have a few last questions
1) Since I will be running a fish only tank, is it good to have charcoal in my system (sump)?
2) How long should I keep new fish in the 10 gallon QT tank that I set up before placing in the maine tank.
2a) What medications should I keep in the QT tank.
3) what salinity should I keep the QT tank at.
Thanks