Ich and live rock

[donlankford]

i have a angel that has ich. I am in the process of getting a bigger tank 50gal and wanted to move all my live rock and the angel to that tank. Will the ich go with the live rock? I dont want future fish to catch the ich so should i treat her in the big tank before i move the live rock? I

 

[little_fish]

the ich will travel on the fish, in substrate and on the rocks. So if you truly want to become ich free you need to leave the tank fishless for a few months and treat the angel and every fish you get afterwards with either copper or hyposalinity otherwise you will have ich in the tank again.

However, most of live with ich in our tanks and provide our fish with a stress free environment, good water quality and good food and then ich isnt a problem

 

[Jr.Ramirez]

It may help to dip fish in some ich med & fresh water for a min or two. Would not do though if fish looks really sick though.

 

[little_fish]

It may help to dip fish in some ich med & fresh water for a min or two. Would not do though if fish looks really sick though.

That wont do anything to the ich except go after the parasite that are visible on the scales, the ich parasite also embeds itself in the fish's flesh. Which is why you have to treat for an extended period of time, so that the parasite in the flesh continues through its lifecycle and eventually get exposed to the copper or lower salinity

 

[wontonflip]

+1 fish

 

[Old_Moe]

that is an interesting question ( for me at least ). If ich could survive being transferred in the live rock and substrate, does that mean that you could introduce ICH into your tank by adding coral?

so if I add a zoanthid from a tank with ICH, does that mean that there is a chance that I just introduced it into my tank? anyway to prevent that?

thanks.

 

[justanotherfishhead]

Yes, you can introduce ich with corals, invertebrates, anything wet. That's why most experts recommend quarantining everything you get for 6 weeks. But alot of people on this site just take their chances and many have ich but their fish build resistance to it if they are low stressed by not being overstocked, etc. but a new fish coming in could get it and die. I'm going to start quarantining everything because I think I got ich from getting coral from my LFS tanks that had fish with the coral. Even if your LFS doesn't have fish in their coral tanks they could have just gotten a shipment with coral that was living with fish last week.

 

[Bifferwine]

The chance of ich coming in on a coral, rock or in water is so slim. It's possible, but not likely. The chance of it coming in on fish -- the organism on which it lives and is required to survive, is much much higher. Because the odds of it coming in an anything but a fish are so small, most people don't worry about it.

 

[justanotherfishhead]

Biff, I can understand why many people think the risk isn't worth the hassle. Especially if you don't have room to set up a QT.

It may be less likely to come in on invertebrates, but if you want to be totally assured your tank is free of ich then I guess you would have to QT everything. There are other reasons to do QT for non-fish. By observing the coral you can see if it has unwanted pests (for example I think nudibranches and "bad" snails are a few). But maybe these can be taken off with a coral dip? I haven't used those yet and wonder if many people have had success with them. But if you're not going to QT I wonder if it would help to rinse invertebrates in a cup of tank water after the acclimation before adding to your tank to hopefully rinse off any ich.

Here's an article I read that explains the benefits of QTing really well: An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure: A Quarantine Tank for Everything by Steven Pro - Reefkeeping.com