Ich

aquaman

aquaman

Member
I have one fish in my tank that has been in another (friends) tank for 3 years with no signs of ich. When I set up my new tank he decided it was time for him to take his (29) tank down, and I put his fish in my tank. There has been no problem, until I added some turbo snails last week maybe 10 days ago, now the fish has ich. Can Ich be introduced to a tank via snails (not attached to them) and I did not add the water to the tank either. Is it possible? Or perhaps with live rock, which did have water, but I was told had no fish in the system with it. Tomorrow I start up a hospital tank and have the joy of removing a very small fish from a 225 gallon tank...
 
cranberry

cranberry

Active Member
Yes, snails can carry ich on their shell if they were around when the parasites dropped and encapsulated. BUT, unless every fish in your tank, including the one that was recently introduced, was treated for ich (hypo or copper) the odds are the fish were carrying a manageable population of them and a stressor created a situation that caused them to become vulnerable to a full fledge outbreak.
You need to remove and treat all fish and leave your tank fallow for 6 weeks. If you don't, you'll be doing this again when the next stressor comes their way.
 
deejeff442

deejeff442

Active Member
i added a couple corals one time .they brought ich with them.took me three times to get rid of it.now i plan to qt everything i get.its not worth even adding one snail anymore without qt them first.hypo is a drag
 
cranberry

cranberry

Active Member
I'm just curious why you would assume it was the coral that brought them in. Did you treat all fish in your tank before adding them? It's sometimes hard to read people's "tone"..... I'm totally being curious is all. Just in case that question could be taken the wrong way.
Sorry Aquaman, I thought you said you added one fish. How long ago did you add it? When ich comes into a tank on something other then fish, it's not in the water but encapsulated multiplying parasites attached to an object. It's rarely free swimming in the water unless you catch it right as they are released (from the fish or the object) but this usually occurs "after hours".
 
aquaman

aquaman

Member
The more I think about it, the more I think it came in on the live rock, it was already cured, and I went back to the place I got it, and there were fish in with the LR and it looked like they had ich. Lesson learned, and the fish did not make it, he died during the night.
 
aquaman

aquaman

Member
Oh and I will add whateve LR and inverts I can for the next few weeks, then give it a good 6 - 8 weeks before I try to add anything else.
 
cranberry

cranberry

Active Member
I was thinking more along the lines of if the tank was fallow with the live rock for 6 weeks or not. Some people feel 4 is just as appropriate.
 
cranberry

cranberry

Active Member
I do 2 months ..... I don't want to have to yank out fish and treat them because I shaved a few days off. I just finished a treatment with a volitans.... hypo is not fun. There are indeed some of the parasites that takes longer than 4 weeks to complete a cycle.
I'm treating the new tankmate for the volitans in hypo now... for this tank, every fish gets treated and everything gets QT'd in a fishless system before going into this one.
 
deejeff442

deejeff442

Active Member
hey cranberry.i know it was the corals because i had 5 tangs in the tank without any ich for over 6months adding anything.i added the corals and within a week they all were loaded.with 5 tangs there is always a bit of tension so if there was ich in the tank it surely would have come up before the coral.qt for everything from now on.i also agree about the 6 weeks.beth says 3 weeks after no sign but i disagree.
 
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