help with ICH!!!

My first 2 fish were CB Angel & PB Tang. Tang died from ich, but CB survived. CB is only fish in tank and seems to be ok with no more outbreaks.
My question is WILL ICH ALWAYS BE PRESENT? This issue is very confusing!!
How can I introduce new fish and keep them healthy?

Tank: 120 gal Sump: 40 gal breeder with Protein skimmer/LR/Chaetomorpha
30-40lbs of LR in display tank
Koralia 1050 PH

Thank you to all 3reefers!!

 

how long has the tank been set up? Really all tanks will ich in them. The idea is to keep your fish healthy so that they will not get infested with it. Tangs get ich very easily. Assuming your parameters are all ok, and your tank is done cycling, etc, you should be ok to add a fish. I would steer clear of tangs until you are comfortable with all params and your tank is stable.

 

My tank has been set up since last summer. I've had no problem with being patient and made sure that all parameters were great before adding fish. It's a shame cuz I love tangs. I really liked my powder brown that died. I've heard of placing new additions in a floating basket in DT, have you heard or had experience with this?

 

I"m def not an expert on Ich but think of it like cancer, it is present always but needs something to "activate" it. Things like stress, unhealthy conditions, etc can bring it out in the fish.

Powder Browns & Powder Blues are extremely prone to it, even when params are good and you try hard to keep them healthy. Maybe try the hardier tangs like Purple, Kole, Yellow, etc.

 

Yes marine ich will remain in the system as long as the parasite has a fish to feed off and to complete it's life cycle. The tank must remain without fish (fallow) for at least 28 days, and to be on the safe side 60 days.

It is a gamble and no one can really predict if a fish will become symptomatic with ich if placed in the tank. Introduction of another tang carries the added risk of tangs seeming to succumb to ich more frequently.

 

Thank you both for responding! Do you suggest leaving it fallow or just go ahead with more ich resistant fish and deal with the inevitable?

 

i'd let it sit fallow for the month...invest in a UV sterilizer...it will kill the crypto in its free floating state...then u should have to worry about the ich....unless u re-introduce it...a way to prevent this is to only buy healthy fish from a trusted source...or you could QT new fish...but i have never done that method myself.

 

IMO, all tanks have ICH, and what will prevent breakouts are:
Keeping properly sized fish in your aquarium size
Not having a large number of fish, which causes stress, as well as creates huge bioloads.
Feeding vitamin enriched foods, such as pellets soaked in garlic and selcon.

IMO keeping the fish stress free is the key. When I first moved my livestock to my current tank, I had 13 fish. I introduced a Lineatus Wrasse, which had ich in the store. But I didn't care, because I knew my tank was in better shape then the store's tanks. Within three days, I had a full on Ich outbreak in the tank. What did I do?

Kept my parameters perfect, and soaked the pellets in Selcon, and Garlic, and two weeks later, no more ICH. If your fish are still eating, you have a chance with my method. If they don't eat, then by all means try the other methods. Anyway, to this day, I never saw ICH in my tank again.

I've read more threads about people trying to catch fish to dip,/treat, and the fish dies in a hospital tank. Well you chased(shocked) a fish, medicated it(more shock), then tossed it in a 10 gallon (more shock) hospital tank, and the fish died...(not shocked)

 

Ich will not necessarily always be in your tank, if you can go around 8 months without adding a fish the ich should reproduce enough to become somewhat inbred and not be able to infect your fish anymore and die off. But very few people can go without adding a fish or live rock or coral that might bring in a new type of ich or a more potent one. Theres a full on article of it somewhere. And a uv light steralizer works wonders it keeps your tank from a full on break out and kills floating ich if set to the right setting. As for ich it has several life cycles, egg form which lays on rocks etc then non visible form which is beneath the skin and possibly gills and we cannot see.(this is one of the largest mistakes an aquarist does, he thinks hes rid his whole tank of ich in a week and adds a new fish and it outbreaks again.) Then cyst form which is the stage we can actually see and it appears to be grains of salt or sugar on the skin, then the cyst explodes and it becomes free floating again and either infects the fish or lays on the rocks. Ich is something that almost every tank has and stays with it for a very very long time.

 

I agree, that my fish still have ich, I didn't go fallow with my tank. So it lays in the shadows, ready to come out and wield it's ugliness. But for what it's worth, that was like a year and a half ago, and I haven't seen one fish try to scratch itself, or seen a single spot on the fish. And the funny thing is, that I have stressed out my fish plenty, without seeing the ICH come back visibly. The other day, I was replacing a heater, and forgot to plug it into the controller. Oh yeah, tank was 70 degrees the next morning.

IMO, the only way you can make yourself ICH free, is by QT'ing your fish, leaving your tank fallow for 8+ months, and when you reintroduce your fish back into the tank, you do not add another piece of livestock into the tank, without QT ing for 8 months. We all know that a rare few will do that.

So since the majority of the people will have ich in their tanks, then they need to do what I was mentioning...keep stress levels low, and feed highly nutritious food. Because chasing a sick fish around a tank, tossing him into a treatment tank, is highly stressful, and results in death most of the time.