How long will ich live.....

[Jim_S]

I lost power for three days last month to horrible storm last month (of course while I am out of town). So I came back to find my emp has been overcome with ich. I'm sure its immune system just dropped from the 3 days of 60 degree tank temp :( I know that there was ich in the system before the power outage, but it was never an issue. Maybe a spot or two here and there. But now, its covering my emp and I'm worried about my Tangs now..... All the fish are eating well, very aggressive and other than the spots on the emp appear to be totally healthy.

I've managed to keep it under control with water changes, but the only way I know can really get the fish's immune system back up is through a full hypo QT. I plan to pull all the fish from the display and put them in a 100 gallon hypo QT for 2 months.

Does anyone know about how long the ich will be able to survive in my display w/out any fish to host it?

I don't want to treat the fish, only to place them back in infested water.

Thanks for any help.

BTW, I have studied up on this and read the stickied links. I wasn't able to locate much info about how long the ich can live w/out a host, or how long to leave the tank fallow for.

Cheers,

Jim

[chowder]

I've read that 6 weeks would work well. Some have tried 4 weeks with success, but apparently there's still potential for a few bugs to slip through that period and cause grief all over again.

[chowder]

Sorry, didn't read your question carefully enough.

I've read that duration of ick survival without a host depends on various factors that affect its life cycle, such as strain and temperature. There was one web article that listed ranges of ick survival without a host reported by various investigators, and the longest duration I can recall is 31 days, with the average being in the 14-21 day range.

Survival can be thought of as a bell curve, so if your quarantine time is only 14-21 days, then perhaps you have a 50% change of eradicating the ick. Quarantine beyond 31 days and you have a greater likelihood of being certain that it is gone.

[Jim_S]

Great!! Just info I was looking for :D

I'm gonna do a 2 month QT. I want this stuff gone.

Thanks very much!

BTW, do you have any links to that info? I'd love to read more if I can!

Cheers,

Jim

[chowder]

The ich sticky provided in this forum has pretty good articles. I think the first link provided had the chart I was talking about.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=282934

Best of luck to you.