Dilan Patel
2500 Club Member
So I knew I introduced ick into my tank a couple weeks ago due to the fact when i brought home a naso tang and copperband one of them had the parasite. The fish seem to be good. But now I am noticing flashing on my clown tang(the only fish flashing) I thought this could be from the sparring it does with the yellow tang and it was the damage he took. But I never noticed anything wrong with my kole tang...Until today.
It was swimming in the light and I could see the ick parasite on him clearly. So I know there is for sure ick in the tank. he is eating well still and quite fat as is the clown tang. and the new Naso is thin but is bulking up. They all are eating nori everyday with a feeding of frozen everyday and a feeding of pellets twice a day. So it is not like they do not get to eat a lot. My only plan is to not add anymore fish and keep these fish eating. If a fish looses it's appetite it is just a harder battle. If I want these fish to survive they are going to have to eat and keep on the weight. My plan is to let everything run it's course. i think of Ick as the cold. What do you do when you get the cold? You rest and eat. That is sort of my idea. While keeping these fish well fed and keeping the tank as stress free as possible.
Now people will ask if I quarantine my fish. The answer is no. I personally think quarantining is a waste of time. Now let me explain myself. To me quarantining a fish is our way of watching a fish and making sure everything checks out as far as eating habits and disease. You also could quarantine corals and inverts. I bet more than half of the people who read this write up do not/did not think of quarantining corals/inverts. Some people do not know that a cycle of Ick can live on any invert such as crab shells or snails or even coral plugs. If you do not quarantine these things when you put it in the tank, than without even knowing it you might have already introduced the ick parasite into the tank.
So lets say you have a brand new tank set up. You quarantine your first fish and place it in the tank free of disease. Perfect the fish is happy. Well than you get into the diatom phase and a CUC is added without quarantine. Than all of a sudden your new fish which was disease free due to you going through all the correct procedures to kill off most common diseases, comes up with white spots all over its body. You decide it is ick. You start wondering what could have gone wrong with your quarantine process with the fish without ever thinking about the CUC you added without quarantine. Now you have ick in your system. But lets say you don't over react with this and decide to not try and stress/catch the fish. you decide well I will create a hopefully a low stress environment and make sure it eats and stays up on weight. Well a few days-a couple weeks pass and now sign of Ick and or any sign of disease on the fish. Fish is eating well and has grown. you decide it is time for another fish. Quarantining this fish but once adding to the tank this fish gets ick but your other one does not. Keep in mind im not saying once a fish fights off ick it will never get it again. im saying that once a fish gets/fights off ick it builds a little resistance too it. So it takes more stress on the fish to contract it. So that new fish gets ick and you wonder why. Than you remember that your old fish had ick but got rid of it. if you did not physically remove any fish the ick parasite is still present in the aquarium. The tank HAS to sit without fish for a minimum I think of 6-8 weeks for the whole cycle to complete and the ick to die off.
Sometimes this is not possible with a large aquarium and or an aquarium with lots of fish. So I guess my Idea of sharing this with you is to say that if you do not quarantine every thing you put in your aquarium and that means keep specific ,nets and buckets for each aquarium, You run the risk of adding this parasite into the tank. if you do not plan to do this than I do not see the reason to quarantine. I would rather put that time/money into the main display to help stress relieve the tank.
But Now I see others will say what about velvet. I am not saying once velvet is in the tank a fish could fight it off. If velvet is in the tank that is worse than the common flu. If you want to protect your fish from velvet than I can see why you would want to quarantine.
I guess I will end this before I get into velvet and other diseases. What I hope you take away from this is that. Ick can be fought without removing all fish and also you can either deal and affect the fact ick will make it into your system somehow/someway or try and prevent ick from entering with a step by step procedures. Hope everyone who took the time to read this post gained something from it and if not can add onto this to help somebody else.
It was swimming in the light and I could see the ick parasite on him clearly. So I know there is for sure ick in the tank. he is eating well still and quite fat as is the clown tang. and the new Naso is thin but is bulking up. They all are eating nori everyday with a feeding of frozen everyday and a feeding of pellets twice a day. So it is not like they do not get to eat a lot. My only plan is to not add anymore fish and keep these fish eating. If a fish looses it's appetite it is just a harder battle. If I want these fish to survive they are going to have to eat and keep on the weight. My plan is to let everything run it's course. i think of Ick as the cold. What do you do when you get the cold? You rest and eat. That is sort of my idea. While keeping these fish well fed and keeping the tank as stress free as possible.
Now people will ask if I quarantine my fish. The answer is no. I personally think quarantining is a waste of time. Now let me explain myself. To me quarantining a fish is our way of watching a fish and making sure everything checks out as far as eating habits and disease. You also could quarantine corals and inverts. I bet more than half of the people who read this write up do not/did not think of quarantining corals/inverts. Some people do not know that a cycle of Ick can live on any invert such as crab shells or snails or even coral plugs. If you do not quarantine these things when you put it in the tank, than without even knowing it you might have already introduced the ick parasite into the tank.
So lets say you have a brand new tank set up. You quarantine your first fish and place it in the tank free of disease. Perfect the fish is happy. Well than you get into the diatom phase and a CUC is added without quarantine. Than all of a sudden your new fish which was disease free due to you going through all the correct procedures to kill off most common diseases, comes up with white spots all over its body. You decide it is ick. You start wondering what could have gone wrong with your quarantine process with the fish without ever thinking about the CUC you added without quarantine. Now you have ick in your system. But lets say you don't over react with this and decide to not try and stress/catch the fish. you decide well I will create a hopefully a low stress environment and make sure it eats and stays up on weight. Well a few days-a couple weeks pass and now sign of Ick and or any sign of disease on the fish. Fish is eating well and has grown. you decide it is time for another fish. Quarantining this fish but once adding to the tank this fish gets ick but your other one does not. Keep in mind im not saying once a fish fights off ick it will never get it again. im saying that once a fish gets/fights off ick it builds a little resistance too it. So it takes more stress on the fish to contract it. So that new fish gets ick and you wonder why. Than you remember that your old fish had ick but got rid of it. if you did not physically remove any fish the ick parasite is still present in the aquarium. The tank HAS to sit without fish for a minimum I think of 6-8 weeks for the whole cycle to complete and the ick to die off.
Sometimes this is not possible with a large aquarium and or an aquarium with lots of fish. So I guess my Idea of sharing this with you is to say that if you do not quarantine every thing you put in your aquarium and that means keep specific ,nets and buckets for each aquarium, You run the risk of adding this parasite into the tank. if you do not plan to do this than I do not see the reason to quarantine. I would rather put that time/money into the main display to help stress relieve the tank.
But Now I see others will say what about velvet. I am not saying once velvet is in the tank a fish could fight it off. If velvet is in the tank that is worse than the common flu. If you want to protect your fish from velvet than I can see why you would want to quarantine.
I guess I will end this before I get into velvet and other diseases. What I hope you take away from this is that. Ick can be fought without removing all fish and also you can either deal and affect the fact ick will make it into your system somehow/someway or try and prevent ick from entering with a step by step procedures. Hope everyone who took the time to read this post gained something from it and if not can add onto this to help somebody else.
