Salt water ich destroyed my tank

[nawt2tawl1221]

So everything was going well with my tank until one fish eventually got ich and within days it destroyed all the fish. It’s been a month since then I still have my snails crabs and shrimp. They are all fine. My question is do I have to drain my entire tank? I have been slowly letting the water evaporate and planning on doing a big water change. Is this enough. I don’t know what I did wrong. I use rodi water have a protein skimmer do not over feed. Sucks all that money and work down the drains. Would like to try again just nervous now. Any advice would be great. Thanks

 

[brandon429]

leave the tank full, remove current fish if any, fallow for three months, reintroduce qt prepped fish. keep the system@!

you specifically do not have to restart with a new cycle. simply fallow out the tank and it'll be the best it can be. feed corals and inverts as normal, with no fish the major disease players will starve/fallow.

 

[brandon429]

there is a benefit of being at the stage you're at: you have a base cycle going and are building up resistance to the dreaded dinos invasion common in new tanks every day your benthic layers increase (growths and microfilms that form on live rocks and surfaces)

in fact the other animals in the tank beyond fish provide something to look at/do/ as you wait for fallowing to complete. you still feed and clean the tank as normal.


specifically, starting over doesnt get you better fish disease control it gets you a higher risk for dinos. its best to keep the current system.

 

[Tamberav]

So everything was going well with my tank until one fish eventually got ich and within days it destroyed all the fish. It’s been a month since then I still have my snails crabs and shrimp. They are all fine. My question is do I have to drain my entire tank? I have been slowly letting the water evaporate and planning on doing a big water change. Is this enough. I don’t know what I did wrong. I use rodi water have a protein skimmer do not over feed. Sucks all that money and work down the drains. Would like to try again just nervous now. Any advice would be great. Thanks

Have to keep the tank without fish for min 45 days (if at 82 degrees) up to 76 days.

You probably didn't do anything wrong. These fish and creatures are from the ocean and parasites come with them. Your options are to quarantine them or take the risk of losing fish if you don't.

Starting over won't accomplish anything. Probably time to read up and learn about fish diseases.

 

[brandon429]

agreed fully.

nawt2tawl1221 post a pic of your tank let's see the setup

 

[nawt2tawl1221]

Perfect that’s actually what I wanted to do was leave it. Maybe get some more inverts snails crabs etc. So they can get working on cleaning the tank then next month get a couple clowns and try again.

 

[nawt2tawl1221]

That’s my tank. Have 2 peppermints a cleaner a couple snails and a few crabs.

 

[brandon429]

stock them before the fallow, then its clean fallow.


dirty fallow is where people add wet things from other tanks continually without isolating them. its really ideal to wait on new fish and stock up pretty much the last good amount of items for a while, then do fallow, then add only the prepped fish that's about as high level as you can get/clean fallow.

heck it wont hurt the tank, my reef is packed in corals and haven't had a fish in 17 years. its permafallow.

even dirty fallow is better than no preps/has a higher degree of fish retention at 8 most-1 yr vs no preps. but clean fallow is tops, nothing wet goes into the tank that wasn't prepped either by fallow or by qt observation/treatment with meds if indicated.

 

[brandon429]

NICE clean setup that's sharp. excellent.

 

[nawt2tawl1221]

I’m probably going to sound stupid asking this but what is fallow? Lol. Thank you I wanted to add a few more live rock to get to the top.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I’m probably going to sound stupid asking this but what is fallow? Lol. Thank you I wanted to add a few more live rock to get to the top.

Fallow for fish disease means running the tank without fish hosts for a specific length of time. This causes the parasite to die out. As mentioned, adding invertebrates from a dirty tank during this time resets the counter to zero.
Jay

 

[brandon429]

nawt2tawl1221​

I'm rather shocked too at the changes needed in the hobby over the last 20 years in order to keep fish going. this didn't happen as much in 2005 I have no idea why the trending, but its marked. you have a nice open minded reefing perspective nawt and a heck of a tank to show for it too, this will fix you up strong. I like how you can easily stock up corals in that tank, work on growing them with feed and care and normal water changes and that whole time after your last addition can count as the fallow.

you get to enjoy a 90% built reef for several weeks vs have to start one over.

And then with the temperature adjusts Tamberav and Jay mention, well within tolerance limits of our animals, you can shorten that fallow time to an easy month and a half.

nice example thread here you made nawt. nearly every cycle tank we fix up in my cycle threads needs this exact same prep. they need willing aquarists initially though, ready to win reefing attitude stands out.

 

[Tamberav]

nawt2tawl1221​

I'm rather shocked too at the changes needed in the hobby over the last 20 years in order to keep fish going. this didn't happen as much in 2005 I have no idea why the trending, but its marked.

I was just thinking about how different it is now then when I started the hobby 10+ years ago.

Corals were plentiful and cheap.

Fish were plentiful and cheap. 1/3 maybe 1/4 the cost of now for some.

Disease wasn't as prevalent.

I could buy fish on Live Aquaria/DD that was owned by Dr Foster and Smith at the time. They were inexpensive and came with a TWO WEEK guarantee. Even expert fish did. If one died for any reason (you didn't even need a photo), they refunded you (REFUND not CREDIT).

However 90% of fish made it just fine, arrived healthy, didn't need quarantine, etc. I didn't quarantine then.

Oh and UPS/Fedex delivered on time.

Free shipping was at $99 and no box fee (so basically always free shipping).

 

[brandon429]

Back then I still had just a vase reef/ never owned fish but all my friends had no fish issues

I never met a single person from hundreds of reefers in Lubbock at the old reef meetings who did one ounce of prevention. It was buy fish from pet store, feed them well and reef with a bioballs setup.

 

[nawt2tawl1221]

Thanks guys appreciate the support. I I as really down because I did so much research and thought I did everything right then that outbreak happened and kicked me hard. Does make me terrified to try corals since they are more expensive. I do miss watching the tank hence why I wanted to get some more CUC and then end of November early December try fish again.

 

[Big Smelly fish]

Don’t let the water evaporate, salinity going to rise and may harm the inverts. And you maybe staining the glass to a point you will never get clean 100 %.
so take care of tank as normal and go don’t add fish for 90 days. Or 72 as recommended

 

[brandon429]

@Tamberav

EMERGENCY - New Additions Dying At High Rate In Mature System

Hello, I am at a loss, with no idea on what could be going on other than the fact my source for fish Marine Collectors just had a bad batch of fish, or they introduced something to my system. System 3 years old now 120gal. Last fish was added 2 year and 8 months ago. I decided to add a few...

www.reef2reef.com

that’s a devastating loss example it shows supply chain challenges not in the sense of container shipping but as a burgeoning ten year trend this last decade of reef hobby for disease vectoring.


in 2004 he could add those fish and not wipe out his whole fish population, but not since about 2011.