how long can ich live

[maxxy]

I just lost several fish to ich.and possibly a secondary bacterial infection. I took the olny living fish out of the tank and put him in my sick tank. My question is how long will the tank be infected? It is a 75 gallon I have a few inverts in there and also some corals. I made the mistake of listening to my lfs and waiting to treat after a noticed white spots on my royal gramma. 3 weeks later he was dead,

Back to the lfs I went and they told me to treat with kick ich and also rally. I can say neither of these products worked. I still can't figure out the cause. The only new thing added to the tank was a leather coral. Any ideas would be great. I need to know how long I should wait before I try a new fish in the tank.

 

[fedukeford]

i think it lives for a couple weeks, but im not 100% sure, beth would know that answer

 

[27mtaylor]

The ich lifecycle last for 4 weeks or so. Without having a fish to host it, it will die off in that amount of time. It stinks to get ich. I've been there before too ( along with a lot of others on here) Good luck!

 

[maxxy]

Thanks for the info. I 'll never make the mistake not to treat early again. It was a very expensive and sad lesson. I guess the use of a quarentine tank still isn't 100%.