Ich and TTM

[gotwins86]

So I have had my 75 gallon mixed reef up and running for about 9 months now. Everything has been great until about a week about my royal gramma, who i have had for about 6 months broke out in ich and was scratching on rocks. A couple days later both my flasher wrasses had ich. Right now all spots on all fish have gone away and everything is back to acting normal.

I am debating on taking out all fish and running them though TTM and then in a quarantine for 72 days. Allowing the DT to hopefully become ich free. My question is what is the best way to do this with the fish I have?

Current stocking
2 Clowns
1 Royal Gramma
2 Flasher Wrasee(1 is the boss of the other)
1 Red Salon Wrasse
1 Yellow Watchman
1 Coral Beauty(will probably rehome, nips on corals)

I am kinda limited for space. But have a 24G Nano cube sitting around and 4 5 gallon buckets. Could I split into 2 groups for TTM in 5 gallon buckets, the keep all in the 24G cube for 72 days? How should I split them up?

Thinking 2 groups of
Clowns, flasher, Red Salon
and
More Aggressive Flasher, Gramma, Watchman

Are the 5 gallon buckets(with probably only 4 gallons of water) to small?\
Is the 24 cube to small for everything in quarantine for 60+ days?

Any advice or suggestions is appreciated.

Edit: Also have a Cleaner Shrimp and Snails, they are safe to leave in the DT, correct?

[thegrun]

4 gallons is certainly on the small side for the transfer tanks, I would think about picking us a few 20 gallon tanks at Petco if they are having their dollar a gallon sale or some 32 gallon Brute trash cans. With the Brute trash cans you could put them all in the same trash can during the TTM.

[CarrieB]

You can leave the inverts in the fallow tank.


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[gotwins86]

Update: Lost my royal gramma a few das ago. But I got a couple 20l tanks from petco.com and got all fish caught today. So today is day 1, hoping to be able to add all fish back to DT on Oct 15th.

Do in have to worry about a cycle in my DT once I add all fish back, after 72 days of being fallow?

[dweber618]

There's definitely a chance adding that many fish back at once that tour biofilter couldn't keep up. I would say add them back slowly, a week or so apart, with a couple at a time. Or - keep prime on hand and keep checking your parameters to watch for a spike. But, that's pretty risky after trying to keep them alive for so long then having them die after going back.

[Spar]

You can also just continue feeding your tank fish food. This will effectively feed your current bacteria.

At that point, when adding fish back after the fallow period, just add some bacteria-in-a-bottle and you won't see a cycle at all. Regardless, keep an eye on ammonia just in case.

[LJLKRL]

I did the TTM a while back and although I did lose a couple of fish to ich it went well. I was amazed by the number of pods that appeared after the fish were out of the tank. Also the number of bristle worms that just crawled around in broad daylight. There were no predators to eat them, so they were all over the place.
When I put the fish back in, they started hiding again.
I used some new clear plastic storage containers from Walmart as transfer tanks. Now I use them to store other stuff.

[mets17127]

Yes, the ttm is great as long as you stay on top of ammonia

[Spar]

Yes, the ttm is great as long as you stay on top of ammonia

given you do 100% WC's every 3 days, you will rarely see ammonia since there isn't enough time for it to build up. as a 'just in case' many people dose Prime/AmQuel at the end of day 2 of each transfer. ammonia is a non-issue with that approach.

[mets17127]

Depends how small the vessel is versus the number and size of inhabitants. Lots of big fish peeing in a small bowl causes ammonia in less than 3 days

[Spar]

Depends how small the vessel is versus the number and size of inhabitants. Lots of big fish peeing in a small bowl causes ammonia in less than 3 days



True. My assumption is people are providing a respectful fish to water balance... but isn't always the way it is.


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