Live rock and freshwater

B-ridge · Mar 30, 2016

I noticed a few of my fish have ich. I plan on taking the fish out of the main tank and placing them all in a qt tank to be treated using hypo salinity. My question is if I take my rock out the main tank and soak it in fresh cold rodi water for 10-15 minutes will it kill off the ich that may be on or inside the rocks?

Lowstorm · Mar 30, 2016

I doubt it. @Humblefish recommends 72 days fallow from the time all fish are removed from the tank. The disease forum has tons of info.

Humblefish · Mar 30, 2016

FW dip won't eradicate ich tomonts on a rock. And even if it did, you'd still have tomonts encysted on the substrate, glass, pumps, equipment, basically all over the tank. Unfortunately, no shortcut exists for going 76 days fallow (based upon new calculations.)

B-ridge · Mar 31, 2016

Thanks for the information. I'm not looking for a shortcut. I plan on taking all the water out of my main tank, sump and fuge. I didn't know ich could live outside of water. And I didn't know saltwater ich could live in cold fresh water. As far as the equipment goes the skimmer will be taken out of sump and washed off thoroughly and left out to dry as well as return pump. As far as powerheads I'm replacing the ones I have now for 4 mp40's

Humblefish · Mar 31, 2016

B-ridge said:
I didn't know ich could live outside of water. And I didn't know saltwater ich could live in cold fresh water.

Everything has to be completely dry for 24 hrs in order for sterilization to take place. Table 2 "Methods for disinfection of Cryptocaryon irritans life stages" (at the very bottom) lists other options as well, including running Chlorine through the system: https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa164