Going fallow. Invert advice needed.

reefofthenorth · Mar 2, 2020

Hey guys so I had an ich outbreak this weekend. I've quarantined all my fish and am going to let my tank sit for 8 weeks to kill any remaining ich.

However, I want to keep my inverts alive and healthy. I have an emerald crab, blue hermit, several red hermits, snails, and two anemones right now and I'm not sure how to continue feeding. Should I just squirt some mysis in there every few days? Should I buy different foods? Thoughts? What do you feed your BTAs?

Marc2952 · Mar 2, 2020

Mysis i dont think will be too good since most will just go down to the sump due to them floating. I bought some sinking pellets from amazon that work well for my fallow period.

Williamson’s Reef · Mar 2, 2020

I use pellets in a cup of water ...mix it around and they’ll sink. Use a coral feeding tube and feed the pellets directly to the nems. I’m on my 2 nd go around of fallow. I’m a hard learner..lol. A SPS coral addition got me this time.

kput · Mar 2, 2020

I'd think you could continue feeding as normal, but obviously a little less with no fish.
My BTA's seem to eat anything they get their hands on (pellets, frozen, mysis, etc). And the inverts should take care of everything else.

reefofthenorth · Mar 2, 2020

Marc2952 said:
Mysis i dont think will be too good since most will just go down to the sump due to them floating. I bought some sinking pellets from amazon that work well for my fallow period.

Link?

reefofthenorth · Mar 2, 2020

Biggestfish said:
I use pellets in a cup of water ...mix it around and they’ll sink. Use a coral feeding tube and feed the pellets directly to the nems. I’m on my 2 nd go around of fallow. I’m a hard learner..lol. A SPS coral addition got me this time.

Is there any way to avoid this? I can see how to prevent bringing in fish with ich, but what about coral and inverts?

Williamson’s Reef · Mar 2, 2020

reefofthenorth said:
Is there any way to avoid this? I can see how to prevent bringing in fish with ich, but what about coral and inverts?

You need to QT all corals and inverts in a fish less system for 77 days. Which I had been doing since I lost 13 out of 14 fish to velvet. But I spent over 1k on some SPS and put them directly in the tank. I’ve lost a lot of SPS in QT. Took a chance and lost. Fish caught ick and flukes. But haven’t lost any fish. Just pulled them all for treatment and fallow period. I’m a pro now and I have a lot of QT tanks.