Totally confused by ich reappearance.

[smokythemattman@gmail.com]

So I am at a total loss. And am totally infuriated. I hope this serves as a psa. I had ich in my tank many months ago. Back in June/July. Came in from a snail or water from LA. No problem. Broke down tank. Treated everything with copper for 30 days. Observed for another 30. No signs of anything. Put the fish in early Sept. Everything wet gets QT by me if its a fish. If its a coral and from a trusted seller who qts I dip it and place it in the tank. I have an invert/coral qt for others from systems I don't know about.

 

Early September. 2 fish from LA. Go into QT tank. Got a potters angel from ReefEscape. They had it out of QT for months. Healthy and happy. 

 

They showed no signs of anything. H-E-double hockey sticks I even prophylactically treated the LA ones in copper for 2 weeks. After 5 weeks  of nothing wrong I added them to my display. No issues for the past month with them. 

 

October 26th.  I got some corals at the meeting. The ones from trusted sellers who qt were dipped and placed into my display. The others to my qt. I do trust these sellers as I have bought from them in the past with no issues. 

 

Today november 18th. Hippo tang is covered in ich. Nothing has been added to that tank since then. It perfectly lines up with the timeline for ich to hatch and reinfect from the additions on October 26th. But I highly doubt that. 

 

The only source of cross contamination. I use a net and algae scraper to clean the glass on both tanks. However, i always went display tank first followed by qt. I rinsed them thoroughly before and after each use and there wouldve been a week of air exposure between uses. Unlikely cause. I highly doubt ich wouldn't have hatched for 4 months.  

 

If you have made it this far. Truly double and triple think everything that goes into your tank. I spent way to much time being cautious and still got burned somehow.  I made that mistake and now my tank will pay the price. And now I have to debate going ich management or tearing apart my tank and treating fish all over again. 

Edited November 18, 2019 by smokythemattman@gmail.com

[smokythemattman@gmail.com]

Mods please move this to general. 

[fry_school101]

No such thing as a trusted tank. I’ve incorporated a fallow tank for qt of all non fish - plants, frags, snails, everything. Not fun being unable to appreciate new specimens, but worth the wait. 76 days min per the humblefish recommendations.  Good luck with qt!

[treesprite]

I think some fish are like typhoid Mary. They carry the disease but do not themselves get sick, at least not unless stressed. It has been years since I saw ich in any tank of mine, but the last couple times I just maintained a good routine and the fish recovered on their own. I qt new fish, but stopped doing it with copper probably a decade ago due to the inherent problems with use of copper, especially for certain kinds of fish. I guess if a fish came in to me with ich, I would use a treatment, but seeing the fish doesn't have signs of disease is another reason to buy from a LFS when possible. 

Edited November 18, 2019 by treesprite

[madweazl]

If you're going to QT and maintain an ich free environment, you have to QT and treat everything without exception, there is no trusted tank. 

[smokythemattman@gmail.com]

27 minutes ago, madweazl said:

If you're going to QT and maintain an ich free environment, you have to QT and treat everything without exception, there is no trusted tank. 

Yeah I was either to trusting or it snuck in. Shame I will never really know. 

[smokythemattman@gmail.com]

16 hours ago, treesprite said:

I think some fish are like typhoid Mary. They carry the disease but do not themselves get sick, at least not unless stressed. It has been years since I saw ich in any tank of mine, but the last couple times I just maintained a good routine and the fish recovered on their own. I qt new fish, but stopped doing it with copper probably a decade ago due to the inherent problems with use of copper, especially for certain kinds of fish. I guess if a fish came in to me with ich, I would use a treatment, but seeing the fish doesn't have signs of disease is another reason to buy from a LFS when possible. 

Yeah I am struggling with it in my mind. Like the hippo tang obviously has it. And theres some stray spots on like 3 of the other 14. But none are really bothered by it. My fear of ich management is adding new fish and them dying even if they seem healthy in qt. 

 

But I am going to try my luck with a fish trap. And run em through ttm as I already treated them once with copper and don't want to put them through that again. I still have a 40b and lots of extra equipment. So I dont really have a good excuse for leaving them in there to fight it off. 

 

 

[smokythemattman@gmail.com]

Its just amazingly confusing to me. But I still wanted it to hopefully be a heads up to someone else. Either it snuck by me (most likely) or I trusted someone elses clean system (i really dont think its this). But now I am just going to treat all fish with ttm and copper. I am a firm believer in the folks that say that is the way to go if your qting. That observation alone isnt enough.