So in order to keep an ich-free display you would have to quarantine everything going in. For those of us who keep sps this means another complete setup with good lights, flow, water quality and everything else needed to keep them happy for there 6-8 week coral quarantine. The fish quarantine is not the part I have trouble swallowing. It doesn't cost alot or take an awful lot of effort to run a small fish only quarantine. The problem is for the coral. Is anyone actually doing this? If you claim your tank is ich-free then you must be quarantining all coral that comes on a rock or plug for 6-8 weeks. . . . Seems pretty intense to me. . . I don't think the gf would agree to another tank for coral quarantine haha

All great arguments . . . good thread so far

Every fish has ich dormant inside of it. When the fish gets really stressed its immune system drops and the ich parasite grows and shows up on the fish. Just keep it in the quarantine tank until the ich starts to fade. Feed the quarantine tank small amounts of food 3 times a day to keep the fish healthy. Keep water changes often and the ich will die off as the fishes immune system recovers. I also had a blue tang that got ich, it dissapeared after a month of feeding garlic soaked fresh plankton. I also noticed if I missed a day of feeding the ich returned so the food is really important for the healing proces.

It's the fish that need to be qt for 6 to 8 weeks, not the corals, because of the life cycle. If you read the article on that link that was just posted by sphelps, it explains it pretty well.

With corals, you dip them in Revive (or something similar), and have a separate QT for them, with no fish, for a week or so, before adding them to the DT. I haven't bought any new corals for a while, so haven't done this myself, but that is the best practice as I understand it. I am sure there are others on this forum, that could tell you more about that.

I don't quarantine coral usual unless I know for sure there was ich in the tank it's coming from, I disinfect them though, with revive and also a lugol bath. Doubt anything will survive this. Revive also kill red bugs.

However I do not put the water from the bag into my aquarium.

I think the most way people get their tank contaminated is by introducing a contaminated fish. It can come from coral possibly, but that must be a rare occurence and a real bad luck.

What? no, the ich is not present and dormant on every fish, that's simply not true. Ich does not live inside a fish either, it live on the skin and gills.

Your fish got ich and then it disapeared and then returned, that's because ich is going through cycles.

There is no point in doing a quarantine on a fish that has ich if you are not going to treat it and then put it in your tank. YOu might as well put it directly into your tank! Ich is not going to go away on its own without a proper treatment.

Have never QT anything, only had i fish with ich and never lost it. He was like a teenager with zits, they would come and go.

Meh, I do alright not QT'ing. I'm more worried about my closed loop intakes claiming lives then I am ICH.

If its not true then prove it!
Show scientific evidence that it's not true. Wikipedia doesn't count

We need a cage match between daniella3d and MarkoD I think it should be hosted in Regina so I could be the guest referee and part way through the match I would go rogue and Mark and I would turn it into a handicap match... Again eyeballs, cocktail weenie forks, iodine and ahhh maybe a good viewing of the sun with binoculars this time!

This is pretty stupid thing to say, I mean really.... Not talking sides here but if you're going to make such ridiculous requests you could at least first support your side of the argument with the same "evidence". Simply saying proof it isn't an argument that supports your side, it's just an argument.

so much tension again...:twised: daniella3d, if you dont mind I would really like to see a few pictures of your tank.

I had a hippo tang for over a year, it had ick the third day I received it. I was a little stressed out for the first couple of month since most my collection of fish consists of tangs. I tried my best to catch the little bugger, but in a 210 was nearly impossible unless I dismentle the whole rock works. So I lefted alone, just keep feeding it selcom and garlic mix and slowly but surely after 6 long month there is no sign of any ick...until the achille showd up 2 months ago. He was treated with hypo prior to entering the dt but after a week of being chased around by the powder it is packed full of ick. Now 2 month later I still feed it heavily but the ich just seem to hang around.

I agree that quarantine will stress out your fish especially with delicate ones like achilles tang but as long as they are eating and they look health, they will be able to fight off infection. I strongly believe that ick is in everyone's tank, it's just the matters of wether your tank inhabbitants are health enough to fight it off.

Lol maybe I should explain.

I'm mocking Danielle because in previous threads se was requesting proof from others but providing Wikipedia links as her proof

Me too. Last pics I saw of her tank were awesome! I can only imagine it's even nicer now. But that should probably go in the Pictures forums :)

C'mon guys, Daniella is simply passionate about something she believes, much like most of you are on other subjects. There's no need for tension or name calling.
We all get to express our views, sometimes we'll agree, other times, not so much..:)

Your thoughts on "Ich-Free" tanks - IS IT POSSIBLE?


Yes it is!!! I have proof too!!!

Step one.... Buy brand new never used tank
Step two... Fill tank with water and salt.
Step three. Enjoy

Only problem you can never add any fish, corals or live rock. One bitch'in pest free set up.

My tank? what's the point of seing my tank ? :)

AS for your ich case, you will probably keep having episodes of ich here and there, not my fault so don't bite my head off. Once it is in the tank it can be in low level infection on the gills only, then one day the fish get stressed and weaken and the infection spread.

I quarantined a copperband butterfly..isn't it a delicate fish? you should see him now...huge fat and healthy. Why would it be stressfull for a fish to be in quarantine if the quarantine is well setup, have hiding places and have good water quality, again I am asking? why?

ich may be in your tank but it's not in mine. I have never had any case of ick in my tank and I had a blue hippo tang. It did get ich when I got it but not ever after the hyposalinity treatment. Hyposalinity treatment is hard to do. It must be done at 1.009 for 4 weeks minimum and with a well calibrated refractometer. But that did cure the ich on my hippo 100% since it never returned. If the fish still had ich, it would have showed up once I moved it to the display tank or when I redid my scape because that was quite stressfull for my fish then.

BTW, a week is about right for the ich to show up once it is in a system and a fish is stressed out. There could be a few explanation for your fish. Either ich was present in your main tank and although the hypo treatment worked when you introduced it in you display it got contaminated again? It could be that the hypo did not work? not sure.

None of my fish in the DT ever showed any sign of ich..stress or no stress and I can assure you that they have gone though major stress but still no sign of ich. That's the beauty of having a ich free tank...wether the fish are stressed out or not they don't show any sign of ich..and no need to feed garlic! no need to be carefull not to do that or do this to stress the fish.

Here is my tank...it has changed a bit now as there are no more algae and the coral have grow a lot and some have been replaced by others but that's it:

http://i786.photobucket.com/albums/y...s/_MG_0505.jpg

and this is the rock with the SPS now, 9 months later:

http://i786.photobucket.com/albums/y.../103_0520s.jpg

and here is a video of my copperband butterfly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=LJ61unnhpgQ

and a video of my tank today, sorry for the frag rack (I had to frag!) and the out of focus spots :) :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=TUltUhzQajk

The silence is deafening........ Advantage daniella

I'm not just pretty sure......I would bet money that I have no ich in my tank. Ich would stand out like a sore thumb on this guy


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../Doofus024.jpg

lol :)

Ich can be dormant on rock longer than 1 week. . . thats why you have to keep a tank fallow for 6-8 weeks to be sure all the ich dies before adding fish back in if you go through treatment. Like I said I have treated ALL fish with cupramine and took all precautions necessary to prevent ich. The only thing I did not do is quarantine coral. I dipped all coral in revive but am not about to set up another tank for coral quarantine. Maybe I got unlucky and it managed to come in on coral :cry:.

Either way I have decided that for the duration of this tank I am going to try the method of keeping the fish healthy in quarantine while feeding garlic and training them on different kinds of food. It would be pointless to treat with hypo or copper as it appears my tank already has ich in it.(I do not have an outbreak, just a couple spots on blue tang). The point of the quarantine will be to make sure something like velvet isn't introduced into the display. I am already planning an upgrade(aren't we all:razz:) in 3 or 4 years to a bigger tank with a fish room. If my experience with ich in these years leading up to the upgrade leads me to believe keeping it out of the tank is possible and the best route to go, I will put a strict coral quarantine into my new tank build.

I am deciding to try this for myself because I just got my system up and running and am starting to enjoy it. I do not want to tear the tank apart catching all the fish to treat them for ich at this stage. I would probably stress them half to death and do not have a qt big enough for them all. Thanks for all the insight. This is clearly a very debated topic in the hobby!

Why don't people just agree to disagree, hold onto what they believe is correct, go to their respective tanks and call it a day!:biggrin:

What fun would that be :mrgreen:

For myself, with barely 8 months into this hobby, when dealing with the ich outbreak I recently had, I researched both sides, ich is always present or you have an ich free tank. I set up a qt and put my fish in. I don't know what I did wrong and why I lost so many fish. Maybe the ones that died really fast were really sick with ich and the stress of moving them killed them. Fine. Why I lost another fish last week, with 4 weeks clear of visible ich I have no clue. Not ammonia, not copper od. I just don't know. The copper treatment has stressed the chromis enough for it to form lympho. At this point I decided, this is not worth the stress on the fish, me or my family. I thought I was doing the best thing by setting up the qt and it simply did not work for me. I realize SW fish are quite hardy and I'm sure I did something wrong, which you have no idea how this makes me feel. For these reasons I will no longer qt fish. The article posted earlier in this thread makes a lot of sense, I have a lot more to learn but I'm not prepared to fight with a set up that led to more fish dying than it saved. For those that qt works, great! Nobody is going to convince me to continue to experiment with a qt at the expense of a fish regardless of the argument.

Daniella, sorry but you are incorrect. Google ICH, and you will find alot of articles. Here is a blurb from one such article:

"The adult parasite burrows into the skin of its victim, feeding on blood and dead epithelial cells. The irritation caused by the burrowing parasite causes the skin of the fish to swell and produce white cysts seen as a small spots."

Here is another one:

"Cryptocaryon is a fully ciliated protozoan that is present in all saltwater environments. It is prevalent in marine aquariums, aquaculture ponds, and in import and wholesale holding environments. This widespread protozoan penetrates the skin and gills of the fish. Depending on the immune status of the fish, it can cause symptoms as mild as just a few small white spots to more severe symptoms including severe irritation, loss of appetite, lethargy, severe respiratory distress, and death."

Here is the link for the second quote: http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/g...ral_pagesid=78, also note this article states it penetrates the skin. Again, ICH doesn't just live on things, it is inside the fish. Also note, that it even states ICH is present in "ALL SALTWATER ENVIRONMENTS", this article does discuss quarantining as a "prevention", but not a cure or elimination.

No wonder Danielle has no ich. There's no fish

:deadhorse:

Yes I know that, what I meant is that it does not live inside the fish...like in the guts.

I know it burrow in the skin and gill.

when they say that ich is present in all environment, they simply mean that it can be found in the ocean, aquariums, etc...not that it is always present in all of these! no serious company or organism would be stupid enough to claim that ich is present 100% of the time in all and each one of these environments.

yes my 75 gallons tank is understocked with these:

1 niger trigger about 7"
1 copperband butterfly about 5"
3 pajama cardinals
1 mandarin

and a male mandarin in quarantine and 2 clownfish in quarantine awaiting to be in the tank.

Not enough fish? Should I add another niger trigger you think??

whao, buddy, that horse is dead. You gotta stop beating it!! :)

OP, I think you have to make up your own mind. I qt to rule out velvet, like Marie I have achillies, 3 regal angels and a copperband so I care enough to qt all new fish. As for ich, its just a parasite so of course it doesn't have to exist in our tanks but is extremely difficult to avoid, all new coral, rock etc would have to be in qt for 3 months IMO and all new fish treated with copper or hypo. I use copper on hardy fish and hypo on delicate ones. Good luck

Well there may be hope for you. I have read that ich will depleate itself out of a tank after about 10 generations if there is no new addition. I don't know if it is true or not but if it is true, then you might actualy get ich free at some point. Good luck with it. It is good that you decided to still quarantine as marine velvet is not so forgiving as ich.

It is really sad to see that you still have ich since you took so much care to quarantine your fish. it's not fair. If you treated with Cupramine, I would think the ich got into your tank with coral or in the water the coral were in. Really bad luck :(

I could get out my rented mule....

As my husband would say....."that's as subtle as a fart in a spacesuit" :lol:

It must have came in on the coral as I make sure not to add any water from any other system into mine. Thanks for all the advice everyone this thread has helped me understand just how complex the whole ich idea really is haha