Ich Question

[Tang tank]

So I have been reading on this web site, and others like it regarding ich and how to treat it/prevent it. How is it that people that are so set on QT every fish they purchase before putting the fish in the display tank, and yet they some how get ich after their system crashes or something happens to cause a great deal of stress on the tank? Ich rearing its ugly head even after cycling the tank and letting it go fallow for 8 plus weeks? If having a tank go fallow, plus always using a QT when introducing a new fish for the proper amount of time, and purchasing the new fish from a place that runs copper in their system to insure that their fish don't have ich or other diseases; then how is it that their fish still get ich??? I currently don't have an ich problem, but I am just trying to see the sense in the whole QT thing. I did have an ich problem I treated the tank and the ich is gone, assuming that I don't have an out break in 8 plus weeks then wouldn't my tank too be considered "ich free"? I'm really starting to believe that it doesn't matter how careful or what acclimation procedures you use your tank will always have ich present.

[snorvich]

Try reading this. (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1986013)

[Sk8r]

I don't have ich. Last time I had a serious issue with ich was back in the 1980's. I'm just trying to help people not have it in their tanks right now.

Most often when a tank gets it AFTER quarantine, it's because of a mistake in the process, not a failure of the process itself. Most ich outbreaks happen within two weeks of qt, but 4 will usually eliminate all chance; and if you're really worried about your source, go 6: according to some research, the last cysts HAVE to reinfest a fish by the 6th week, and the swimmers MUST imbed in a fish's skin or gills within 12 hours. If you have to use a cycled qt your chances of seeing ich happen do go up slightly, because if it drops off the fish and encysts in the sandbed---a cycled qt has a sandbed for it to go to, and from which it can come back at your fish.

A non-cycled bare qt doesn't. In the stickies above I do outline some alternatives to a cycled qt, and ways to be more likely to export the cysts to the trash than to let them hatch and reinfest your fish.

This is an issue which affects everybody in the hobby sooner or later, often at great inconvenience, and too often with loss of a nice fish. The loss part doesn't need to happen. The inconvenience just goes with the hobby.

If you'll read up on the science behind the quarantine procedure, and understand the choices you have in types of procedure, you'll save yourself a lot of hassle. It's quite possible to start up a tank, have fish, and NEVER see this pest at all. But HOW experienced reefers manage to be ich-free for several decades at a stretch---it's doable by everybody. And we'd like to see everybody able to do it.

[Sk8r]

And, just a note: we've got some research squirreled away in the eel thread that may interest you: the problem is when you start talking about this pest, it seems to be a permanent full moon, and theory-city. We've got a quiet, science-based little discussion going, in between trying to help the OP with his beautiful eel, who was exposed to it. The more you know about this stuff, the more you have to respect its survivorship, but it does have limits, and it's possible to find them.