So is the wine aged enough?

Marty, if you want to use a copper based medication I'd really recommend SeaChems Cupramine I believe it's much safer to use on your fish. The fresh water dip thing is a good idea, again Seachem makes a marine buffer and if you use it you can set your pH pretty well on the button. Ich (supposedly) is present in most if not all tanks, once a fish is weakened the Ich can gain a foothold. Tangs are especially susceptable to Ich.

Doug

Based on what research exactly ?


Always thought that ich had a specific cycle and if a host was not present then the ich would die ( hence not be in that tank anymore )

Steve, yes that seems to be a popular train of thought but think about this, you've got 5 healthy fish in your tank, drop the temp 10 degrees, and they get ich, where did that ich come from? As far as research, hmm I guess it depends on who and what you read.

Doug

Doug, gotta agree with you on this. I've gone forever without ich and then if something stressful happens, my tang will stat developing ich again. Luckily she gets over it with a bit af garlic. But I've gone 8 months between ich outbreaks and nothing new was added to the tank.

Well Brad ... IMO your tang never got rid of the ich in the first place ... maybe only one or 2 that you might not notice ... even in the gills where you cant see it ... but being healthy the ich does not take a stronghold till he gets stressed and then boom ... they break out

If the fish are healthy I think you can have ich in your tank and they can deal with it but the best situation would be to eliminate it altogether so they can deal with a little stress ( our hands in the tank for instance )

Cheers

Steve, that's the point Brad and I were trying to make. The ich is always there, healthy fish don't succumb to it though. Stress your fish and the parasite will grow quickly. You can take a sterile tank and put a fish in there and the fish will develop Ich if it's stressed that means the fish carry the ich. So yes, your fish never get rid of it, yes it can die off in a tank but as soon as another fish goes into that tank it brings ich in with it. So, when I said it's present in most if not all tanks I mean tanks with fish. That being said, once a parasite dies it may leave behind an egg/cyst that can be dormant until a new host picks it up. I'm not sure how long that cyst can lay dormant with Ich.
Just a final thought, yes you can bleach, copper treat, bake your tank in an oven etc to get rid of ich out of a tank with no fish but as soon as you add a fish, you've got Ich in that tank.

Doug

Doug, exactly. I didn't suggest my tang got rid of it. I merely stated that after 8 months of no visible signs of ich, and no new additions to the tank, ich was still present in the system. Whether it was in the gills or hiding ina snail shell, I don't know. But it is in the system and short of bleaching the system and treating everthing with coppoer, I believe it will always be there. It just isn't anything I worry about unless I can see it.

Brad yes exactly, I believe the Ich can live on coral or like you say on a snails shell etc. The only way to keep a tank an not have ich would be to not add water, live rock, corals, fish, inverabrates etc...

That being said, have you given any thought to that thread about water temperature and rapid tissue loss? I'm thinking of trying to aim for 78 degrees for my tank temp on the new tank.

Doug

My point is that I dont think all fish carry ich ! ... a healthy fish can deal with it ... it is proven scientifically that ich has a specific cycle and if it is broken the ich will die ... because we all dont get rid of ich in our systems does not mean that it is a impossible task ... I believe that if a tank is left fallow for 4 to 6 weeks and the fish put in hyposalinity the cycle will be broken for good ... the problem is when we get a new fish or coral we have to be meticulous to QT them so as to not introduce ich back to the system. For most of us this would be a daunting task as that would mean a Fish QT tank with it's own filtration and yet another QT tank for corals as well with seperate filtration :eek:

Not sure which thread that is....