Odd question???

[spmnarciso]

Odd question??
I bought a hippo tang 4 weeks ago which became ick infested. In turn infected my butterflyfish and one of my clowns. Removed hippo and gave him to a friend who is curing him. My butterfly passed a day after I tryed like hell to get him out(overstressed) My clown died also. I left my yellow tang in there wth my other clown, which I felt might survive if I do nothing to stress them out. It's been 3 weeks now and my yellow is as beautiful as ever, no problems ever. My clown showed a couple of spots at first but have disappeared since then.
How long should I wait, after seeing no ick on any of my fish before i can assume that ick has died off and add new fish?

 

[elfdoctors]

You have to assume there is still ich in the tank if you haven't treated those fish. Some fish can get a limited immunity to ich and not die from it. It tends to be difficult to see the salt-granule-looking trophonts on some fish, especially yellow tangs. I would be worried about any new additions.

 

[spmnarciso]

How long will the fish survive if the ick is still present? Ick will eventually reproduce so much that it will kill the fish, correct? But say after 2 months my fish are still ok, can I then assume that ick has died off?

 

[elfdoctors]

Ich will not necessarily kill all your fish.
If the fish are otherwise healthy and aren't under a lot of stress, some fish can get a limited immunity to ich. This immunity prevents the fish from getting sick and dying. Unfortunately, the cryptocaryon parasite can still reproduce at a low level. If it is still present, when a fish without the immunity is introduced, the ich will rapidly reproduce, possibly killing the new arrival.
I envision that the mechanism of the immunity is to force the trophont off the fish before it has finished eating. (This is conjecture on my part. I don't believe science knows how the fish survive). I envision it somewhat like a mosquito; if it has had a large blood meal it will lay lots of eggs; with a small blood meal, it will only lay a few eggs. As long as the ich continues to find a fish, it will continue to reproduce in your tank. TerryB would know more about this then I.
For your sake, I hope the ich is gone. As I said before, I would be concerned about the health of any new arrivals.
Another possiblity - were you absolutely convinced that you had ich in the first place? I have seen sand grains on fish which looked like ich. This would have been gone in a few days and would not have been associated with any other symptoms (except rock-scratching).

 

[spmnarciso]

I'm not absolutely positive, but is sure looked like it. Alot of scratching and alot of spots on the fins of my butterfly, which had white fins, which at some times looked like sparkles in his fins. Hippo had spots one day and then no spots the next,...and so on. I thought for awhile there that it was just sand on there slime coat, but then after the horrible ordeal of trying to get the butterfly out, he died several days later and my clown soon after. My clown didn't look too bad though, just a couple of spots if any.
I really want to add some fish soon, a nice school of blue/green chromis, so I want to set a goal for myself, stating when I could be assured that they will survive. What should I do?

 

[elfdoctors]

The safest thing would be to treat all your fish. That's the party line for standard responses.
If you did not want to do this, I would recommend adding a single cheap fish (a chromis would be a good choice here). The ich would probably take some time to get its population up but within 4-6 weeks it should be obvious that you had it. If you started to see spots then you would know that all your fish would need to be treated. The additional fish would not dramatically increase the bioload of the fish that needed to be treated. I hope that helps. Does this sound like a reasonable alternative?
When I had ich-looking sand grains on my fish, I had either just added live sand or had changed the direction of powerjets which caused lots of sand to move around in the tank. It did not last beyond a few days.

 

[spmnarciso]

That sounds pretty good. i hate inflicting stress on any fish, trying to capture them. i've also heard many different opinions on just letting them fight it off and using garlic as a possible cure. I'll try a new fish in acouple weeks.