Can live rock have Ich in it?

ReefLove25 · Mar 19, 2016

It sounds stupid at first but I just want to make sure I didn't just contaminate another tank with ich...

I have a 70 gallon FOWLR tank that had an ich outbreak about 2 months ago, I recently tried to add a fish again only to watch it catch ich within the first 48 hours (now he is back in QT).

I'm working on a small 20 gallon tank that is going to have pygmy seahorses and MAYBE some clown gobies or soft corals (I heard seahorses can usually live ok with soft corals but no other kind)

I wanted to get some live rock in the tank and without thinking grabbed a rock out of my 70 and moved it to my 20, just to get things going in there. Within 5 minutes I realized I could've just transferred ich to my new tank. Is that possible with only live rock being the common factor between the 2 tanks? All the water in my 20 is newly mixed saltwater (didn't use any from my 70) and nothing in my 20 has ever been in my 70 other than the one piece of live rock.

I took it out within the first 5 min just in case I did something bad.

What do you guys think???

Triggreef · Mar 19, 2016

It absolutely can. If you removed it that fast your probably okay.

When the parasite drops off the fish after it's feast, it attaches to any hard surface... Rocks, algae, glass, sand etc. Then a few days later it erupts into hundreds of new ich parasites. Hope that helps.

ReefLove25 · Mar 19, 2016

Triggreef said:
It absolutely can. If you removed it that fast your probably okay.

When the parasite drops off the fish after it's feast, it attaches to any hard surface... Rocks, algae, glass, sand etc. Then a few days later it erupts into hundreds of new ich parasites. Hope that helps.

Yikes okay, I removed it within 5 minutes, so I'm hoping I'm safe. My tank is nowhere near ready to add the seahorses anyways so hopefully anything that could've transferred will die off by then