Ich eradication vs. Ich management

pshootr

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I was on the bay. I used a hose connected to a mag 24 to pump it directly in. Water changes went right back to where I got it from.
That would definitely make it a lot easier and more practical. Assuming the water quality in the bay is good. Oftentimes a bay is somewhat polluted because of stormwater. Typically water quality is much better offshore.
 

drstardust

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Sorry to hear about your losses. 90% of us who end up doing QT have had similar experiences, i.e., learning the hard way. Good luck to you, and we are all here for support should you need it :)
 

Bruce Burnett

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I used to use reverse flow under gravel filters where the water would go thru a canister filter first. Started that on freshwater and would feed earthworms. They would get under the filter and live forever. Would stir the gravel about once a year and use a vortex diatom filter to clean up the water. Did that when I had a salt fish only tank. When I started doing corals went away from it, sometimes I think I want to try it again. I am one that never qt fish or corals. Never had a problem with disease knock on wood. Don't have room for a qt tank and any problems I have has been my own errors or laziness.
 

GTAReefTank

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Is morning ich a thing? On some weekends when the lights come on a couple hours earlier I am certain I see white spots on my powder blue, in a couple hours gone not to be seen again for weeks or months.

Otherwise, it's healthy, fat and a voracious eater!
 

pshootr

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Is morning ich a thing? On some weekends when the lights come on a couple hours earlier I am certain I see white spots on my powder blue, in a couple hours gone not to be seen again for weeks or months.

Otherwise, it's healthy, fat and a voracious eater!
Morning Ick? No, just Ick. Perhaps the lesions are healing quickly since he is healthy. Unfortunately if he becomes stressed, his luck may run out. The spots you see are not the actual parasite. These are lesions caused by the parasites point of entry.

Perhaps someone with more experience can correct me if I'm wrong.
 

HotRocks

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Morning Ick? No, just Ick. Perhaps the lesions are healing quickly since he is healthy. Unfortunately if he becomes stressed, his luck may run out. The spots you see are not the actual parasite. These are lesions caused by the parasites point of entry.

Perhaps someone with more experience can correct me if I'm wrong.
You are spot on. Often times the parasite insertion happens while the fish is still since they don't move about much at night. Notice in the am... Etc etc.
 

pshootr

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You are spot on. Often times the parasite insertion happens while the fish is still since they don't move about much at night. Notice in the am... Etc etc.
That is a good point. It makes total sense that the free swimming stage would have a much more opportune moment, while the fish is sleeping. Assuming most of the tophonts are near the bottom of the tank where the fishes sleep. Not to mention that the fish are still, during the time that trophonts are hatched/released. I had not even considered that aspect.
 

Purpletang92

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Im a strong believer that ich and other parasites live in our substrate (sand), the sand protects the parasite from medication and also provides a home for them, their food source (our fish) are always available for them to feed on. Even if you go fish less for months the parasites just return to the sand laying in wait. Kinda like hibernating or how some reptiles can go months without a meal. Based on my own personal experience I tried plenty of medication and methods , some worked and others didn’t. I always noticed ich would find its way back. I did some research and decided to remove my sand , based on what I could gather most of our fish in the wild don’t live near the sand bed , in fact they are amongst the upper parts of the reef swimming in and out of rocks or in open water, with the sand bed many many feet below them.

Have you guys ever noticed the only fish to get ich are the ones that live on the upper parts of the reef ? Our sand dwellers never seem to get attacked by ich. Then I started to think about public aquariums, the tanks are usually so large and tall, many of us have to step way back to see the whole thing, but what I always noticed, the fish that we all love and have in our tanks are impossible to see because they are either in the rocks or way up at the top of the tank. And the fish we get close-ups of are usually groupers , sharks and eels (bottom dwellers). Granted these public aquariums usually run ozone and have a ridiculous filtration system.

I believe most of us create the perfect environment for ich. We provide sand as a home , warm water , and our fish as food. Most of our tanks aren’t deep/big enough to have that separation. I struggled with white spot for months and once I removed my sand bed it was like a miracle. Not only did my nitrates and phosphate drop but the ich disappeared. I run ozone also and not having a sand bed gave my skimmer/ozone setup time to come in contact with the parasites.
 

GTAReefTank

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You are spot on. Often times the parasite insertion happens while the fish is still since they don't move about much at night. Notice in the am... Etc etc.
Yeah, it only happened to this specific tang and I have a total of 9 tangs.
I’ve read about the morning ich symptom from others as well. Some suggestion of micro bubbles being the course.
I’m a strong believer in watching, understanding before acting to avoid over reacting.
I haven’t seen the symptom in 2 months and I’m glad I didn’t panic and throw him in QT which could have caused more stress.
 

Consman

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Are sand sifting starfish able to get ich? Just noticed a couple of spots on my tang, so I'm working on getting my quarantine tank back up. Just want to make sure I'm not setting myself up for failure by leaving my starfish in my display during the fallow period.
 

drstardust

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Are sand sifting starfish able to get ich? Just noticed a couple of spots on my tang, so I'm working on getting my quarantine tank back up. Just want to make sure I'm not setting myself up for failure by leaving my starfish in my display during the fallow period.
Starfish cannot get ich, so no worries there :)
 

Huskymaniac

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So those who have practiced ick management how do you know if a fish isn't going to be able to handle it. Is it like after a few months of having ick spots and symptoms disappear. Or is it more like occasional spots break through every now then but a massive infestation never happens?
 

mav1ms

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For me I can usually tell immediately. The fish essentially doesn't thrive, regardless of the ick. About a month ago I added a yellow eye kole tang, a yellow tang and a powder blue. Each of them did show some ick over the course of the course of the 4 weeks. However they are now gone, the fish are eating fantastic and doing wonderful. I feed black and white worms along with a myriad of frozen food. I haven't lost a fish to ick since I started doing this.
 

Wowkuh

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I practiced ich management for over a year. read lots of threads about "letting ich run its course". I didn't wanna do ich eradication bause running my DT fallow and running a QT is A LOT of work, a lot of money and time, Until @Humblefish said at the end of the original post "Losing too many fish under “mysterious” circumstances is what finally led me to choose ich eradication." I've personally lost close to a thousand dollars in fish. due to lack of QT. Never again. My DT is now going fallow, and treating all my fish in a QT/HT. From this point forward, a strict QT process before anything hits my DT.
 

Huskymaniac

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I practiced ich management for over a year. read lots of threads about "letting ich run its course". I didn't wanna do ich eradication bause running my DT fallow and running a QT is A LOT of work, a lot of money and time, Until @Humblefish said at the end of the original post "Losing too many fish under “mysterious” circumstances is what finally led me to choose ich eradication." I've personally lost close to a thousand dollars in fish. due to lack of QT. Never again. My DT is now going fallow, and treating all my fish in a QT/HT. From this point forward, a strict QT process before anything hits my DT.

I can say the same breaking down my tank 3 times. Still getting ick again even when quarantining. Made no difference and on top of it all the tank breaking down killed my 20 inch derasa clam that I had for over a decade. Right now I am only buying fish that are resilient to crypto such as wrasses, assessors, anthias, and cardinal fish. No tangs or any sensitive or disease prone fish for me.
 

Samandar

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Hi,
I have a case. What do you think about white points on angle fish in pictures? Are these cryptocaryon? Could these be signe of flate worms? Or are they some illness els?
_20181208_092840.JPG


_20181208_092907.JPG


_20181208_092942.JPG


_20181208_092745.JPG


_20181208_092718.JPG
 

MnFish1

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Im a strong believer that ich and other parasites live in our substrate (sand), the sand protects the parasite from medication and also provides a home for them, their food source (our fish) are always available for them to feed on. Even if you go fish less for months the parasites just return to the sand laying in wait. Kinda like hibernating or how some reptiles can go months without a meal. Based on my own personal experience I tried plenty of medication and methods , some worked and others didn’t. I always noticed ich would find its way back. I did some research and decided to remove my sand , based on what I could gather most of our fish in the wild don’t live near the sand bed , in fact they are amongst the upper parts of the reef swimming in and out of rocks or in open water, with the sand bed many many feet below them.

Have you guys ever noticed the only fish to get ich are the ones that live on the upper parts of the reef ? Our sand dwellers never seem to get attacked by ich. Then I started to think about public aquariums, the tanks are usually so large and tall, many of us have to step way back to see the whole thing, but what I always noticed, the fish that we all love and have in our tanks are impossible to see because they are either in the rocks or way up at the top of the tank. And the fish we get close-ups of are usually groupers , sharks and eels (bottom dwellers). Granted these public aquariums usually run ozone and have a ridiculous filtration system.

I believe most of us create the perfect environment for ich. We provide sand as a home , warm water , and our fish as food. Most of our tanks aren’t deep/big enough to have that separation. I struggled with white spot for months and once I removed my sand bed it was like a miracle. Not only did my nitrates and phosphate drop but the ich disappeared. I run ozone also and not having a sand bed gave my skimmer/ozone setup time to come in contact with the parasites.

The reason (supposedly) - that sand dwellers do not get CI as often is because they have a thicker mucus coat - and have evolved to resist infection. (I'm talking about blennies, etc - not sharks, rays, eels (which do not get CI for other reasons)
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

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