Where did my Ich come from?

Fowler freak

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Nuked my aquarium and I mean nuked it! Coppered all of my fish for 33 days at 2.0 (Hanna)
After 3 days post QT I saw my blond naso darting around and breathing heavy. It came and went which immediately put me on alert. I thought maybe it was a reaction to the copper as some tangs will react in weird ways post treatment but alas I saw a small amount of ich on him that would disappear after a few days and show up somewhere else. My Tomini has a few spots too but again it wasn’t an outbreak just a few spots. I am not going to try to eradicate ich for this is my second unsuccessful attempt and I went above and beyond and I mean textbook. I will just do my best to manage and Will not over stock the tank while keeping tangs to a minimum. The reason for the post is to hear about people’s thoughts in regards to Algaebarns copepods possibly containing ich. If I could do it all over again I would’nt have “seeded” the tank with algaebarns copepods to eliminate that possibility because there is NOTHING else I could think of to have contaminated my display with ich, nothing. I called them and they said there aren’t any fish in their facility but that’s according to someone on the phone in a different state. I looked on their website and there aren’t any pictures/videos to prove anything either. I’m not saying that that’s where it came from 100 percent but I just can’t figure it out. I dried my rock then soaked it in RO for 5-7 days. Took out all my sand and bought new dry sand. Ran my empty tank with tap water for a week. Had it professionally buffed out to get rid of old scratches after I drained the tap water. I’m at a loss and the only thing I can think of is one of two things. Either the ich was able to survive in Copperpower at 2.0 for 33 days or there was ich in one of the 3 jars of Algaebarns copepods. I’m leaning towards the copepods and wish I never would’ve purchased them at this point. Would love to hear your thoughts my reef2reef family.
 

NeptuneRjo

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If I'm not wrong ich can live in a system and not be visible for a very long time, as can many other pathogens. There's no reason for algaebarn to keep any livestock other than pods in their culturing tanks so I doubt that's where it came from.
Just my 2 cents.
 

Fishbird

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I’m having trouble following your timeline. When did the ich present? Before or after removing all the rock and cleaning it?

Also, do you have any corals, snails, shrimp, hermits, anything else alive in the tank besides fish and copepods?

I also agree that it is unlikely to have come from algaebarn. If they kept fish in the tanks with the copepods the fish would be very fat and they’d have fewer copepods to sell.

I would say that from what I’ve read, to rid your tank of ich, you need to go fishless for 76 days. If your rocks had been in saltwater even if you ran them in RODI water for a week, that’s still water and I can easily believe that some salt may remain behind in a tiny crevice somewhere. I’m basing this in part on seeing how many critters survived four day shipping when I got my live rock. It was in a box with damp paper towels but it wasn’t under water.
 

Bramzor

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So you have a tank with 0 corals in it right? You didn't put in anything in the tank that came from anywhere and was kept wet and you did never put your hands in the QT tank?
Also not sure if drying the rock is enough to kill all the cysts.
 

Tahoe61

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Seriously you should edit your title if they have no fish, and your dealing with tangs.
Feel for your frustration, but this tact of calling out a vendor with such a serious accusation seems premature and with little actual data.
 

andrewey

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I think cross contamination should definitely be considered in this situation. In addition, I know velvet can spread via aerosol dispersal (if your QT was near your DT) and I believe ich can too (but I can't remember if that's been demonstrated or not).
 

Tahoe61

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I think cross contamination should definitely be considered in this situation. In addition, I know velvet can spread via aerosol dispersal (if your QT was near your DT) and I believe ich can too (but I can't remember if that's been demonstrated or not).

If you hear hooves think horses not zebras.

There could have just as easily been testing error with regard to copper levels. Or resistant strains.

JM2C, but there is too much to speculate on before calling out another party.
 

TheShrimpNibbler

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It does not make sense at all for algae barn to have fish in their copepod tanks. They would eat the copepods, which would be quite counterintuitive to the purpose of culturing them. It is far more likely that a cyst either remained on rocks or the shells of a snail or hermit. There is no reason at all for the person on the phone to lie about not having fish in their tanks, and I would be willing to bet that there is virtually a 0% chance of ich being in the pods.
 

sfin52

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Pods are raised in thier own tanks. I highly doubt it was algae barn.

Cross contamination, bad testing, not leaving tank fallow for long enough, no inverts reintroduced with out qt.
 

ForTheLoveOfCoral21

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I have been dealing with @AlgaeBarn for 6+ years and have seeded 15+ tanks of my own with their pods. I can promise you, that ick didn't come from them. I would change your title as its not fair to the company, even more so that you're not sure it was from them. People scrolling through the forms will just see that, and you're going to cost them business when they didn't do anything. Word of mouth travels fast in this hobby. Unless you are 100% sure, i would make that change.

In regards to the ich, have you added any new corals? Rock? Anything?
 

JFJ

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Nuked my aquarium and I mean nuked it! Coppered all of my fish for 33 days at 2.0 (Hanna)
After 3 days post QT I saw my blond naso darting around and breathing heavy. It came and went which immediately put me on alert. I thought maybe it was a reaction to the copper as some tangs will react in weird ways post treatment but alas I saw a small amount of ich on him that would disappear after a few days and show up somewhere else. My Tomini has a few spots too but again it wasn’t an outbreak just a few spots. I am not going to try to eradicate ich for this is my second unsuccessful attempt and I went above and beyond and I mean textbook. I will just do my best to manage and Will not over stock the tank while keeping tangs to a minimum. The reason for the post is to hear about people’s thoughts in regards to Algaebarns copepods possibly containing ich. If I could do it all over again I would’nt have “seeded” the tank with algaebarns copepods to eliminate that possibility because there is NOTHING else I could think of to have contaminated my display with ich, nothing. I called them and they said there aren’t any fish in their facility but that’s according to someone on the phone in a different state. I looked on their website and there aren’t any pictures/videos to prove anything either. I’m not saying that that’s where it came from 100 percent but I just can’t figure it out. I dried my rock then soaked it in RO for 5-7 days. Took out all my sand and bought new dry sand. Ran my empty tank with tap water for a week. Had it professionally buffed out to get rid of old scratches after I drained the tap water. I’m at a loss and the only thing I can think of is one of two things. Either the ich was able to survive in Copperpower at 2.0 for 33 days or there was ich in one of the 3 jars of Algaebarns copepods. I’m leaning towards the copepods and wish I never would’ve purchased them at this point. Would love to hear your thoughts my reef2reef family.
I do agree your title may be unfair to the company, and it may be a good idea to change it, however to try and offer a solution to your intrinsic problem, I am a new reefer, but stumbled across this thread that I found extremely helpful and knowledgeable on this issue should you decide to sterilizer your tank again in future or want more guidance on fish disease. https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/sterilize-reseed-any-tank.938/
 

sixty_reefer

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Nuked my aquarium and I mean nuked it! Coppered all of my fish for 33 days at 2.0 (Hanna)
After 3 days post QT I saw my blond naso darting around and breathing heavy. It came and went which immediately put me on alert. I thought maybe it was a reaction to the copper as some tangs will react in weird ways post treatment but alas I saw a small amount of ich on him that would disappear after a few days and show up somewhere else. My Tomini has a few spots too but again it wasn’t an outbreak just a few spots. I am not going to try to eradicate ich for this is my second unsuccessful attempt and I went above and beyond and I mean textbook. I will just do my best to manage and Will not over stock the tank while keeping tangs to a minimum. The reason for the post is to hear about people’s thoughts in regards to Algaebarns copepods possibly containing ich. If I could do it all over again I would’nt have “seeded” the tank with algaebarns copepods to eliminate that possibility because there is NOTHING else I could think of to have contaminated my display with ich, nothing. I called them and they said there aren’t any fish in their facility but that’s according to someone on the phone in a different state. I looked on their website and there aren’t any pictures/videos to prove anything either. I’m not saying that that’s where it came from 100 percent but I just can’t figure it out. I dried my rock then soaked it in RO for 5-7 days. Took out all my sand and bought new dry sand. Ran my empty tank with tap water for a week. Had it professionally buffed out to get rid of old scratches after I drained the tap water. I’m at a loss and the only thing I can think of is one of two things. Either the ich was able to survive in Copperpower at 2.0 for 33 days or there was ich in one of the 3 jars of Algaebarns copepods. I’m leaning towards the copepods and wish I never would’ve purchased them at this point. Would love to hear your thoughts my reef2reef family.
Please don’t do this kinda posts wend in reality you only got you to blame, there is so many things you’ve done that are wrong during quarantine. Not surprised that ich is back. If you want help sorting what you have done wrong please change your title or start a new thread.

correct me if I’m wrong

you moved your fish to quarantine, and break down your main tank, you never do this you let it run follow for 75 days. By doing this the cysts that we’re in your tank remained closed. You rinse the rock with tap water correct? Ich cysts can survive an nuclear explosion they’re shell is impenetrable most acids won’t even penetrate it. So the solution is to leave your main tank follow so that this cysts hatch and eventually die as they can’t find a host to survive.

You mentioned you have done around 30 days quarantine, half the recommended time.

that’s just two things I’ve picked up from your post, wonder where else have you followed the text book
 
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Fishbird

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I looked at your thread history to see if there was one that explained the timeline more clearly. Sorry this has been such a long battle for you! I’m still not sure exactly which kind of cooper you used but here is a thread where another person possibly had an issue and needs to keep copper higher than 2ppm to successfully treat.


I would reach out to @Big G @HotRocks or @Humblefish and see if they have heard of copper resistant ich or something like that. For example if any of your fish were ever in a system that ran sub-therapeutic levels of copper (Before you got them), that’s the perfect way to help ich evolve and become stronger/copper resistant.

It still seems way more likely to me that there was either some cross contamination the first you QTd or that as you mentioned in your thread you maybe had a goby in there during at least part of the fallow period or that you have a copper resistant strain of ich. Treating with chloroquine phosphate instead of ich might test this.

As for your second quarantine it sounds like it didn’t run for 76 days and that your tank was wet for much of that time even if it wasn’t wet with saltwater. I know one person in your other thread said it would work but I see people posting here all the time about how something will work but I’m very few ever show the way they tested their opinion and even fewer have set up their tests in a way that can be replicated. Several people in that other thread pointed out that running your tank with fresh water was unlikely to eradicate ich.
 
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Fowler freak

Fowler freak

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Wow I didn’t realize so many members had major stock in Algaebarn. My bad guys I said “Possibly” in the title and asked for opinions sheeeeesh relax. Ok let me break this down a bit More so maybe it makes more sense as I “possibly” didn’t articulate myself well last time ;)
My first attempt irradicating Ich I ran the tank fallow for 85+ days with fish in 3 separate aquariums (far from my display)for there were over 24 fish many and them large so a daunting task to say the least. CopperPowered them all for over 30 days at 2.0 and observed after the treatment until fallow for 85+ days was completed. I put the fish back in and several months later ich came back. I did not introduce anything into the tank not even a rock/invert. This approach did not work for me and I followed every instruction from well respected members here. My second attempt which was given the okay from Again,we’ll respected members here, was once again unsuccessful. “If it dries it dies” right? Can anyone dispute that? I dried everything and afterwards I soaked it in RO water for 7 days .The tank was empty and then I ran tap to rid of anything in there. New dry sand, dried my live rock then soaked in RO for a week. All fish were copper powered for 33days at 2.0. No cross contamination the QT was in the garage far away from display and all inverts were in a separate qt tank #2 (78 days fallow) opposite side of my house far from my display and fish QT.
The only thing I can point at is the copepods I purchased from algaebarn and/or resistant ich to copperpower at 2.0. Thanks for your replies and appreciate the ones who displayed a little bit of empathy through text after reading the absolute hell I’ve gone thru with my 265 full of angels, tangs, and wrasses.
 

alton

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There are pros in our hobby that can guarantee no ich tanks. For most of us it rest in our tanks for years and because our fish are so healthy and well fed they never show the signs. Then something comes along like stress from one fish starting to bully another and it spreads like wildfire. This may have happened in your tank? When Algae barn first came on here they had some issues and where harpooned on here. Instead of denying and running away they listened and changed the way they now do things and have been pretty successful at it. So I am guessing that is why so many took up for them. At the end of the day hopefully all your fish make it out of this.
 

muzikalmatt

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If the first fallow and QT approach didn't work and ich came back, couldn't something similar have happened the second time around and it's just a coincidence it happened after adding the pods? While I'm not ruling out the possibility, it just seems very unlikely that ich would come from pods.
 

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