Survived ICH outbreak

[JohnVH]

Hello all it’s been awhile since my last post. I hope everyone had a good summer. As some of you know I had started a battle with ICH and I chose to try Hypo-Salinity route to my display tank. I had taken over the dinning room with the quarantine tanks (Oh and did I mention that I also decided to move my Crested Gecko into the area as well) wife and mother in-law loved that (Oh yeah did I also mention that my Mother in-law lives with us) HOORAY! Just kidding she’s a good sport. So I pulled 20lbs of my best live rock and all my Frags and inverts and had them in a 20-gallon tank with powerhead, light and heater. I took another 25-30lbs of the remaining rock and kept it in a closed Rubbermaid bin with heater and powerhead with small water changes as needed.

In the DT I had managed to get and keep my salinity down to 1.008 – 1.009 with my Refractometer, if you are new to this hobby I highly recommend that you get one when you get a chance.
The Clown fish seemed totally unaffected by the ICH at all. The Coral Beauty and the Flame Angel had it the worst. The Yellow Tang and the Sailfin Blenny (Lenny) also had it pretty good. I could see the little white cysts all scattered all over the back glass as well. ICH had taken a very firm and visible hold on my reef tank.

The Flame Angel (Scorch) started to decline rapidly so I pulled him out of the DT and set up a 10gallon tank for him, just a small heater with a small powerhead and a piece of PVC for him to hide in. Unfortunately it was not enough. I lost my beloved Flame, Scorch RIP Buddy!

I spent the rest of the summer slowly sucking out the fish crap, Cyano, sand and uneaten food and doing more water changes than I can count. Once in Hypo-salinity the tank looked like crap. I left some of the rock in for the fish to hide in and it went to crap as well. I am just going to clean it and store it for now.

Did suffer a major Cyano outbreak in the QT with the Corals and inverts while we went camping, left a friend to watch the house but he didn’t know what to do. Close to the end of the summer my Yellow Tang would not eat for almost a month and was breathing rapidly and swimming funny I thought I was going to lose her, but when the salt level started to climb back up she started eating again and now it is fine.

I am finally done and the tank is put back together and I could not be happier. After all is said and done, would I do it again? HELL NO! I have learned a tremendous amount, the biggest thing is now I quarantine all fish before they go into the DT, now that I have a QT and equipment to start one.


I owe many thanks to people on this forum for all the help and advice I had received during this ordeal, Thank You very much to all who took the time to reply to my posts.

 

[Ted]

well....shit I have never QT anything...ugh...

 

[Civicdemon]

Well i had a outbreak way back when, i left my tank with only 4 firefish for 2 months. So i know i still have ich since there was never a time with out fish in the tank. after waiting for a couple months and only adding a couple corals, i started a good schedual and started making my own water and everything. i then started adding fish again and everything has ben fine, i had a couple little spots apear on my sailfin when i first got him but they have since disapeared and have not come back. my fish look great.

I have ready it before and i know believe it to be true, as long as your fish are stress free and there water quality is kept good they should be fine and should be able to fight off the ich. i have also since started using selcon on my food ones a week to soak it in and that might be helping also.

When you quarentined your fish did you also use hyposalinity on the qt tanks and the dt ??? when you moved the live rock did you treat it also ??? where there fish with the live rock ????? How long was the live rock left alone if it was ???? its posible some ich eggs can be on the rocks so if you had them with fish and did not have the rocks seprate for atleast 2 months then its still posible you have ich in the system.

 

[JohnVH]

I did not do hyposalinity in the QT with the corals and inverts, they could not survive the hyposalinity. The rock that was in the DT is no longer in the tank. the live rock was not treated the life on the rock would die with the hyposalinity. All the rock had been seperated from the affected fish for over 3 months the ICH parasite cannot live without a fish host. The clownfish were the only fish that seemed to fight off the ICH all the rest of the fish had it pretty bad. One of the main reasons I teated the DT was that I did not want to overcrowd the smaller QT with all my fish I felt that would stress them even more. The live rock and the corals were kept at 1.024 - 1.026 SG during the outbreak. My outbreak
started in June and I just put the DT back together so it's been about 4 months and as of now there is no sign of ICH. You are right that fish can fight it off and you more than likely still have ICH in your tank as long as your fish are stress free you should be OK. The reason stress free fish can fight off ICH is that when a fish is stress free its slime coat is too thick for the ICH parasite to get through. As soon as a fish is stressed the slime coat weakens and the ICH parasite can penetrate the slime coat. So you should be fine but as soon as your fish feel stressed enough the parasite will more than likely return. A fish can stress when you add a new addition to your tank or you decide to move things around, anything can trigger it. I also soak my food in garlic extract to help boost there immune system.

 

[FishyReef]

I am so glad to hear that it was mostly successful! (sorry about your angel though :( )

It was a creative way to do it in your DT and sounds like it was a great choice that worked out well for you!

 

[WannaRace]

I'm not sure I understand what you went through exactly, but from what I make of it you can still quite possibly have ich in the tank.

 

[JohnVH]

I dont know how I could have ICH still in the DT (though anything is possible).The tank was in hyposalinity for just under 4 months the SG did not waiver the whole time.
Late into the teatment my Yellow Tang had not been doing well at all and he was pretty weak and stressed and no ICH had returned on him.

Through the research I have done leading up to this, the ICH parasites should not have been able to suirvive that long in Hyposalinity, all rock and sand that was in the DT has been removed.

 

[WannaRace]

Did you treat the fish? Ich does not always present itself on a fish so whatever survived may still carry it.

 

[Zissou]

:question: I would think hyposalinity would be treating the fish.

With no hosts in the live rock bins, any ich should have theoretically died off in that period of time.

 

[JohnVH]

Yes I treated the fish. It was my understanding that the ICH could not survie the Hyposalinity. The fish stayed in the DT while I treated the DT via Hyposalinity. ICH was all over the DT, the walls, rocks and of course the fish. Through the course of the summer I had slowly removed all the sand that was in the DT and all the rock that was left in the tank came out at the end. I replaced the sand and the rock I had remaining in the rubbermaid tub should not have any ICH on it because it sat in temp. regulated saltwater with powerhead for 4 months with no fish to host parasite. Also my best most thriving live rock went into a separate tank with the Corals and Inverts as well there should not be any ICH because there was no fish to host. I suspect that the Yellow Tang was the carrier. The ICH showed up shortly after adding it. If he was the carrier I suspect that he would have suffered a repeat outbreak when he was not doing so well for those few weeks that I could not get him to eat. I did alot of research before taking this route and everything went pretty well. If I suffer a repeat outbreak I will not be doing this again. I will pull the tank apart and set up the QT and treat with Copper. I will be quarantining all new additions from now on. \
Thanx for the replies to this post.

I love this forum!

 

[WannaRace]

I just must have missed that part. Thought you took the fish out and put them in QT. Very well done then!

 

[Bifferwine]

Yes I treated the fish. It was my understanding that the ICH could not survie the Hyposalinity. The fish stayed in the DT while I treated the DT via Hyposalinity. ICH was all over the DT, the walls, rocks and of course the fish. Through the course of the summer I had slowly removed all the sand that was in the DT and all the rock that was left in the tank came out at the end. I replaced the sand and the rock I had remaining in the rubbermaid tub should not have any ICH on it because it sat in temp. regulated saltwater with powerhead for 4 months with no fish to host parasite. Also my best most thriving live rock went into a separate tank with the Corals and Inverts as well there should not be any ICH because there was no fish to host. I suspect that the Yellow Tang was the carrier. The ICH showed up shortly after adding it. If he was the carrier I suspect that he would have suffered a repeat outbreak when he was not doing so well for those few weeks that I could not get him to eat. I did alot of research before taking this route and everything went pretty well. If I suffer a repeat outbreak I will not be doing this again. I will pull the tank apart and set up the QT and treat with Copper. I will be quarantining all new additions from now on. \
Thanx for the replies to this post.

I love this forum!

Sounds solid. If I'm understanding this correctly, the ich should be 100% gone.