Is my tank infected too?

[Bunnyspit]

Not sure if I'm posting this in the right place.. if not I'm sorry.

I'm a little panicked right now. Over the weekend my mother in laws tank had a little issue and we had to put a few of her fish in our tank. Because we have a good amount of the fish she does we only ended up putting her 2 chromis and her Male valentini puffer (we have a female) the valentini didnt make it but the two chromis did. That was Sunday morning. Her clownfish and 2 dartfish went into a little bucket together and her dragon goby and lawnmower blenny went into another bucket. This morning we got a text saying her clowns both had ick. I havent seen them yet so I can't tell you if they do or dont with my own eyes. But should I be worried about our tank being infected with ick? She says none of the other fish are showing symptoms but.. we have a few fish that are pretty susceptible to ick and I want to start preventing it from showing up if theres a chance our tank has it too.

 

[Flippers4pups]

How long did she have her fish before the issue?

 

[LAFANBLUE]

Hard to tell 100% but I would say this... If you put a sick kid in a class room full of other kids and shut the door.. most likely another kid in that room is going to get sick. It is a chance I wouldn't take in the future.. Putting potentially sick fish in your tank is something I wouldn't recommend.

 

[Bunnyspit]

Putting potentially sick fish in your tank is something I wouldn't recommend.

She just found the ick this morning (tuesday) and the fish were in our tank on Sunday. If the chromis do have ick we weren't aware of it at the time, otherwise they wouldn't have gone into our tank.

How long did she have her fish before the issue?

She hasn't added any new fish or inverts for at least 2 months. Shes pretty tapped out on fish room in her tank, and has been adding corals pretty much non stop. I think the last coral that went into the tank was Tuesday or Wednesday of last week.

 

[Bunnyspit]

I would never do anything to put especially my cowfish in a situation that I can't easily fix like this. I don't want anyone thinking I did this knowing her fish had ick and I took the risk. I would have never allowed her to put anything in our tank if she has ick, and from here on out I wont let anything from her tank come into ours.

 

[GoldeneyeRet]

Your tank is likely contaminated with any parasites that the other tank contains.

 

[Jon Fishman]

I would remove her fish, FW dip all yours, do a HUGE water-change, add carbon maybe, ramp up flow/filtration, and hope for the best

 

[Bunnyspit]

Her fish are no longer in our tank, and havent been since Sunday. Should I be taking the fish out of her tank? I just realized I didnt make it clear that her fish went back to her tank

 

[Bunnyspit]

I sent her a bunch of pictures of velvet & ick and she says it looks more like velvet. None of us are home right now so I can't get any pics of her clowns

 

[Bunnyspit]

Got some pics.. the orange little guy didnt make it.. the white spots were coming off and you can see it on her hand. Not sure if that means anything but..

 

[Kal93]

I would assume that your tank is infected and either "manage" the ick or plan to go fallow

 

[Bunnyspit]

What does managing it entail exactly.. because of how large of a tank it is and the amount of room we have to work with it's going to be hard to go fallow at the moment..

 

[Bunnyspit]

We just upgraded to a 250gal tank, finished the move Sunday night around 11pm

 

[Kal93]

What does managing it entail exactly.. because of how large of a tank it is and the amount of room we have to work with it's going to be hard to go fallow at the moment..

Management usually employs an oversized UV or a diatom filter with the understanding that, if any stress occurs, you may have an outbreak. Any fish in your system will become "immune" to the ich in your system for ~6 months (perhaps longer), but the addition of new fish/corals, etc. can introduce a new strain that your fish are not immune to. Also, FYI if you decide to manage and have corals, don't bother with in-tank treatments like Polyp Lab's Medic; they're snake oil. I saw better results with I added UV to my system.

 

[Kal93]

I'm not sure of your stock list, but it might be better to treat the tank directly with copper (if you have a FOWLR). I tried management for ~2 months, and then all my fish died from a bacterial infection (which I believe, was secondary to the ich). It seems like everyone who has success with management has more established systems than mine (~6 months old)

 

[Bunnyspit]

Okay this seems like a long shot so tell me if I'm just trying to find things that are small and im going to end up killing my fish...

I dont think its velvet, I called the LFS and talked to my very good friend and he said if we had velvet all the fish would already be dead, but this happened over night and from everything I'm reading it's very unlikely that ick happens overnight. Her fish had a pretty stressful weekend, Sunday she woke us up at 6am to tell us her fish were dying (that's why we didnt think anything of putting them in our tank, we assume a nitrate problem due to overfeeding / over stocking) the two clowns sat in a very tiny one gallon fish bowl we had from when we acclimated our clown into our first 55gal tank for.. at least 4 hours. With no filter or heater (stupid yes, very stupid I know.) We kept the water stirred and we constantly made sure they were still okay. The problem in her tank turned out to be an air flow problem from the ph too far from the surface and the filter accidentally being shut off. Is it entirely possible that they could have just died from stress? No other fish are showing any symptoms and before the orange clown died he never showed any symptoms of ick or any disease.

I'm only worried about dosing in my DT because of my cowfish, I dont know how they tolerate meds.

 

[sharpimage]

Your tank has ich now. Either pull all fish and treat and leave the dt fallow 72 days. Or ich management.