What does fallow period get rid of?

[rafibendahan99]

Quick storytime:
Set up my first tank, didn’t qt and did minimal dipping, everything was doing great, got another tank to set up (tank 2), got ich in tank 1, treating fish in qt tank (tank 3), doing 8 week fallow in tank 1.
My question is, how safe is it to move over rock and sand from tank 1 to tank 2 after fallow? Is it possible that I introduced a bad pest that I haven’t seen yet and can also survive an 8 week fallow period?
I don’t want to dip or bleach the rocks because they’re filled with good hitchhikers and a robust bacteria system I worked hard on establishing. There’s also fancy feather dusters I can’t remove without killing.
What do you guys think?

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

An 8 week fallow period isn't enough...only 56 days. You need min 72 days to take care of ich. I believe velvet, flukes can be gone in 6 weeks.

You can speed up the fallow period for ich if you increase the temp to 81 degrees...but I wouldn't risk/rush it. Just do the full time.

I recommend using a turkey baster or power head to blow the crevices in your rock and stir up your sand bed to eliminate any hypoxic areas. You don't want ich to go dormant in a hypoxic area and outlast your fallow period.

 

[rafibendahan99]

An 8 week fallow period isn't enough...only 56 days. You need min 72 days to take care of ich. I believe velvet, flukes can be gone in 6 weeks.

You can speed up the fallow period for ich if you increase the temp to 81 degrees...but I wouldn't risk/rush it. Just do the full time.

I recommend using a turkey baster or power head to blow the crevices in your rock and stir up your sand bed to eliminate any hypoxic areas. You don't want ich to go dormant in a hypoxic area and outlast your fallow period.

That’s good to know! Thank you! So I suppose my question is now if anything can survive 72 days?

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

That’s good to know! Thank you! So I suppose my question is now if anything can survive 72 days?

If you are talking strictly fish diseases/parasites that are common in this hobby I would say no.

Flukes, ich, velvet, and brooklynella all need a host and would not survive the 72 days.

The only one that doesn’t necessarily need a host is uronema.

 

[rafibendahan99]

Understood, how about coral pests? Also is it worth treating fish for uronema prophylacticaly?

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

Understood, how about coral pests? Also is it worth treating fish for uronema prophylacticaly?

I would treat fish that are more prone to uronema prophylacticaly.

Damsels, chromis, anthias, butterflies, angels

Other fish I wouldn’t unless you saw signs - generally red marks on the fish.

Most QT vendors treat for the big four plus flukes - ich/velvet (with copper) brook/uronema (with metronidazole) and flukes (with prazi)

They will also feed medicated food if signs of intestinal parasites, pinched stomach, stringy poop, etc.

As far as coral pests…most common would be aefw, monti eating nudis, other coral eating nudis, red bugs, black bugs, etc. I am pretty sure all of these need a host to survive. Could they survive 72+ days without food? I doubt it but don’t have any scientific literature to back that up.

 

[JayM]

Quick storytime:
Set up my first tank, didn’t qt and did minimal dipping, everything was doing great, got another tank to set up (tank 2), got ich in tank 1, treating fish in qt tank (tank 3), doing 8 week fallow in tank 1.
My question is, how safe is it to move over rock and sand from tank 1 to tank 2 after fallow? Is it possible that I introduced a bad pest that I haven’t seen yet and can also survive an 8 week fallow period?
I don’t want to dip or bleach the rocks because they’re filled with good hitchhikers and a robust bacteria system I worked hard on establishing. There’s also fancy feather dusters I can’t remove without killing.
What do you guys think?

Fallow for 60 days is fine.

There’s no treatment for uronema, so not likely to be a prophylactic process that’s guaranteed to work.

 

[rafibendahan99]

I would treat fish that are more prone to uronema prophylacticaly.

Damsels, chromis, anthias, butterflies, angels

Other fish I wouldn’t unless you saw signs - generally red marks on the fish.

Most QT vendors treat for the big four plus flukes - ich/velvet (with copper) brook/uronema (with metronidazole) and flukes (with prazi)

They will also feed medicated food if signs of intestinal parasites, pinched stomach, stringy poop, etc.

As far as coral pests…most common would be aefw, monti eating nudis, other coral eating nudis, red bugs, black bugs, etc. I am pretty sure all of these need a host to survive. Could they survive 72+ days without food? I doubt it but don’t have any scientific literature to back that up.

Thanks for all the help! I guess I’ll just keep an eye for any nasties during fallow and hope I don’t transfer anything over!

 

[rafibendahan99]

Fallow for 60 days is fine.

There’s no treatment for uronema, so not likely to be a prophylactic process that’s guaranteed to work.

So is there a way to prevent uronema or do I just hope for the best? A blue-green Chromis is technically on my list.

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

So is there a way to prevent uronema or do I just hope for the best? A blue-green Chromis is technically on my list.

No way to prevent it according to the link posted by JayM…other than avoiding species prone to it.

If you are going to get species prone to uronema then it says to QT for 30 days.

If they do get uronema in QT the article states some success in treating it with formalin or chloroquine phosphate.

Read through the article, it’s pretty good.