Ich issue, need some advice

[zXShadow]

Good afternoon y’all, I’ve got a bit of an issue I was hoping I could receive some guidance on. A little backstory- I just started my first saltwater tank a few months back, it’s a 32 biocube. Prior to that years ago I had a 90 gallon fancy goldfish freshwater tank I loved with everything I had, that got completely annihilated by ich in a matter of 3 days before I could do anything. This resulted in me abandoning the hobby all together for a few years.

Anyways, this relates to now because up until a week ago, somehow someway I did not realize that ich was also a thing in saltwater tanks and thought it was strictly freshwater. Because I was unaware, I did not quarantine, and surprise surprise, ich made its way into my tank a couple weeks ago, and now I am completely stuck on what I want to do.

Within a few days, it killed my flame angel and my six-line, leaving only my clowns as my remaining fish. My clowns were my cycling fish, and the others were rather new additions, with the flame I believe being patient zero. I did not have a quarantine tank and couldn’t set one up fast enough to save them.

So far my clowns have shown zero signs of infection, or unhealthiness, so I don’t want to risk throwing them in quarantine and killing time from stress alone if they are otherwise doing fine as is. If my clowns are immune in a sense and are unable to be infected… would this count as fallow and wipe it out after 5-6 weeks? Or are they still infecting my clowns and It just isn’t showing symptoms because they fight it off too quick?

If I leave it as is, and enter “ich management” as I’ve seen it called, will every new fish I add just automatically get infected and die? Will I forever only be able to have my clowns and inverts? Or will some new fish I add be able to survive it?

From what I’ve read, marine ich is not quite as awful as freshwater ich, but it seems to have wiped my non clownfish out pretty quick. I guess my question is, do I quarantine and treat the clowns and go fallow for 5-6 weeks, or do I just say screw it and move forward as is?

TLDR- Marine ich infected my tank + killed all but my clowns/inverts, what do I do from here?

 

[bluemon]

First of all, welcome to the hobby, and I do suggest you do some research before diving back in heavily. While some knowledge is transferrable from freshwater, many isn't; for example, the ich are different species; and there are other less treatable (as you would kill inverts) disease you have to worry about in the marine setting. Also "cycle fish" is very discouraged as it could/would really debilitate the fish long term.

That being said, even if the clownfish does not show any signs, it would still be a carrier, so your tank will never be "fallow" as long as there is some fish in the tank.

I suggest getting it out of the tank, treating the QT with copper, and leaving the tank fallow.

Ich can be pretty deadly too especially if left unchecked. What you might have had might be velvet, it is worth researching, but is hard to diagnose on our end without any picures.

Ich management means living with ich being in the tank, so you can have other fish, but they might periodically show some signs of ich, but theoretically can be "maintained" with good husbandry. I don't recommend this to a beginner, especially one who has a AIO (biocube) set up, as it is hard to get some of the heavy filtration required like UV, or diatom filters, etc.

As for the suggestion on what I would do:

this is your best chance at going ich-free.

All you have to do is catch ONE fish, and go fallow while you read up more about the hobby.

This will be the easiest chance to do so. If you don't treat it now, you will forever be dealing with this issue with harder fish to catch and harder fish to QT.

So I would catch the clownfish, set up a QT, brush up on your knowledge, and go disease free.

 

[Fish Fan]

Sorry about your fish losses here. Maybe one of R2R's #fishmedic crew can offer some advice going forward.

Good luck!

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Good afternoon y’all, I’ve got a bit of an issue I was hoping I could receive some guidance on. A little backstory- I just started my first saltwater tank a few months back, it’s a 32 biocube. Prior to that years ago I had a 90 gallon fancy goldfish freshwater tank I loved with everything I had, that got completely annihilated by ich in a matter of 3 days before I could do anything. This resulted in me abandoning the hobby all together for a few years.

Anyways, this relates to now because up until a week ago, somehow someway I did not realize that ich was also a thing in saltwater tanks and thought it was strictly freshwater. Because I was unaware, I did not quarantine, and surprise surprise, ich made its way into my tank a couple weeks ago, and now I am completely stuck on what I want to do.

Within a few days, it killed my flame angel and my six-line, leaving only my clowns as my remaining fish. My clowns were my cycling fish, and the others were rather new additions, with the flame I believe being patient zero. I did not have a quarantine tank and couldn’t set one up fast enough to save them.

So far my clowns have shown zero signs of infection, or unhealthiness, so I don’t want to risk throwing them in quarantine and killing time from stress alone if they are otherwise doing fine as is. If my clowns are immune in a sense and are unable to be infected… would this count as fallow and wipe it out after 5-6 weeks? Or are they still infecting my clowns and It just isn’t showing symptoms because they fight it off too quick?

If I leave it as is, and enter “ich management” as I’ve seen it called, will every new fish I add just automatically get infected and die? Will I forever only be able to have my clowns and inverts? Or will some new fish I add be able to survive it?

From what I’ve read, marine ich is not quite as awful as freshwater ich, but it seems to have wiped my non clownfish out pretty quick. I guess my question is, do I quarantine and treat the clowns and go fallow for 5-6 weeks, or do I just say screw it and move forward as is?

TLDR- Marine ich infected my tank + killed all but my clowns/inverts, what do I do from here?

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

Assuming your diagnosis is correct, using "ich management" after fish have already died from ich is difficult.

Not all fish will develop symptoms at the same time. The clownfish may be partially immune (depending on their previous exposure) or they could develop visible ich over the next week or so. You cannot count on the tank running "fallow" if there are any bony fish in the tank, they must be removed for a true fallow period of 60 days.

If you want to try ich management, you'll need to be pretty aggressive about it, and use all of the techniques I mention here:

"Ich Management"

Because this topic continues to come up, I wanted to create a sticky thread so that it is more easily referenced. Please understand that I am NOT presenting this as an optimum method for controlling marine ich, just putting it out there for people who want to try it. Also, do not pick and...

www.reef2reef.com