Ich Transmission from frags

[ReefJCB]

I had a complete fish loss event at the beginning of the year that was not disease related. I had decided this was a good time to change my fish introduction practices and went fallow for 3+months and committed to QTing for any new fish

I did tank transfer method for the first few fish (2 clowns and a fire fish) and have been purchasing pre QT & treated fish from vendors on this forum.

I recently redid my entire aquascape and pulled out all my rock, sand, corals, fish, inverts etc. Definitely a Stressful event for the fish (not to mention myself!). Of fish (Pyramid butterfly, yellow tang, PBT, anthias, clowns, fire fish, and a wrasse) everthing did great except for the butterfly.

Im 90% sure he was showing signs of ich. Spots cleared up and he has been doing well ever since. No other fish, including the ich prone PBT showed any signs of disease/parasites

There are several possibilities for how I introduced it:

I didn’t do well with TTM (fairly likely)
It came in on a fish that was pre treated (unlikely)
It came in on a coral Frag from another hobbiest (unsure)

I dip all of my frags and rinse it in tank water before introducing it to my tank. There haven’t been many frags I’ve introduced lately, but this feels like the most likely culprit.

So moving onto my actual question (sorry for the ramblings). My dad has set up a new tank and is getting his first fish introduced next week (pre QT/treated from a vendor here). We had planned on fragging just about every coral in my tank to get him started.

Setting up a QT tank for the corals is not doable for either of us. I’d HATE to start his tank out with me giving all of his fish ich from a coral. We’ve talked about it being a possibility from almost every coral source as most hobbiest/vendors aren’t fragging in fallow systems.

What practices, if any, can we do to lower the risk of transmitting. I was thinking of rinsing any Frag in several stages of his sterile tank water to “knock off“ any free swimmers.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Sure, the more precautions you take with rinsing/dipping, the less the risk will be. Exactly how low the risk will be is impossible to say. Same thing with buying prequaratined fish; it reduces, but doesn’t eliminate the risk. Shoot - even fully quarantining your own fish still carries some risk. It becomes a cost/benefit exercise. I would say wait a week or two just to ensure ich doesn’t pop up on your PBT.
Jay

 

[AfaceInTheCrowd]

Put a saltwater acclimated molly in your tank if anything Like ich is in there it will come down with it....
I would guess most likely is TTM not done perfectly, although no method is 100% even copper so could be from anywhere.. corals can absolutely have ich on them if it’s in an “egg” stage I don’t think dip would remove it, although maybe.
If your dead against coral QT, (can be done in a uncycled tank for 72 days) then you do unfortunately run the risk of introducing something no matter how careful you are with the prophylactic treatment of fish