Reef nutrition

Proper ich treatment

Christopher Derleth

Christopher Derleth

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Just wanted to post this vid 'cause in my opinion, this guy's right on with the proper way to cure ich with regards to leaving the tank fallow for that long and quarantining the hell out of ANYTHING that goes into the tank. Although I go with hypo-salinity instead of cupramine or any chemical for that matter, I like this guy's knowledge of the subject matter and diligence in his execution of taking care of the tank. I've seen way too many videos and posts/discussions with people trying to give advice on how they got rid of ich and it's not even close to the proper way it should be done (and their fish probably still have ich, just not visible).

www.youtube.com/embed/G0L5GIJbOfM
 
If you are adverse to medication, you may want to look at tank transfer method for treating new fish. Two weeks of tank transfers might be easier than 2 months of hypo.

I just treat every new fish with chloroquine phosphate and I quarantine all my inverts for a few weeks at least to make sure ich doesn't hitchhike in on them.
 
I prefer tank transfer over the other methods (hyposalinity, copper). Chris theres a good thread on reef central about crypto and tank transfers.

Ive tried copper before and had no success even after three weeks. And you cannot combine hypo with copper or other treatments

The deal with ich aka crypto is that it has a dormant phase where it exists as a spore on a surface and it can be dormant for two months. Meaning that snail you bought, even that frag of zoas, could potentially have a few spores sitting on it.

I know that most people dont quarantine frags and snails for two months prior to putting them in their tanks. I currently dont even quarantine corals. But i do quarantine fish. Its good practice to avoid buying frags from fish systems and/or to inspect the fish even if youre just buying coral. If their covered in ich then you probably bet there are ich spores on the coral and you should quarantine the frag for two months. Who knows maybe the frags i added from the swap may cause an ich outbreak next month.
 
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Hey Mike and Blueprint, yea I used to only quarantine fish but once I'm done with this quarantining process with my fish I will no longer add even a frag or snail to my setup without putting it in a quarantine for two months. IMO it's relatively simple. I'm just going to keep a small 2-5 gal tank under my stand that will always be ready for me to toss a round of inverts or frags into for their two month quarantine period. I've already got all the fish I want for my tank so there's no need for me to keep a bigger quarantine tank ready. In my experience hypo-salinity is actually very easy, although I do run a skimmer in my QT so it helps with keeping levels down along with a small 1-2g water change daily. I just check the salinity and nitrates once a day and make sure the levels stay right where they're supposed to...I check nitrates once before I do the water change and salinity once right after I do the water change. The tank transfer method seems way to stressful for not only the fish but for me as well...always having to snag them out of one tank and get them into another.
 
I said the same thing. I found it was really hard to plan for your need of inverts though and most corals want a stable environment. I've ended up just keeping the invert tank up pretty much all the time. Also, if you set up a new tank and buy more than a few snails, you have to figure out a way to feed them, which was always problematic for me.

My invert tank has been down for a few months now and my tank now has about 3 snails left in it. I set it up again to hold corals from the frag swap and I need to place an order for CUC soon too.
 
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