Urgent ich someone help

hello everyone I need help with this because i'm reading all kinda things. I have a 220 gallon salt water tank. My tank become ill with ich and all my fish just died. the only thing in my tank is star fish, snails and live rock with mushrooms on it. Can someone tell me how to clean my tank now. I was reading and it said drain the tank out clean it with eaither bleech or vinger then take the sand boil it and the live rock. can some one help me on what to do because i really don't wanna drain the whole thing out and wait a month for the cycle. Please help

 

First of all, I am very sorry to hear that your tank succumbed to ich.

Could you give us some information about your filtration, and stocking to maybe help you prevent this when you rebuild?

I would do a big water change and try and lower the salinity to about 1.009, I have heard this is quite good at removing ich. I think people do this for about 3 weeks but you will need to check this. You could then go to the LFS and get some ich treatment, but make sure that it does not contain any copper or this will kill everything you have left in the tank.

Sorry to be brutally honest, but since you dont have any fish, the ich will eventually have nothing to feed off and go back to normal, minuscule levels in your tank.

Again sorry for you loss. I hope you dont give up on reefing.

There are many great people here that can help you get your tank back into tip top shape.

 

If you have NO FISH left there is nothing to keep the ich alive during its 60 day **cycle since they have nothing to attach to they need fish to survive and reproduce . They maybe in the sand during that time but not to worry..

We would just wait it out do regular water changes over the next several weeks. I would not add livestock ( fish ) during that time frame.



Here is some good reading:

** Saltwater Ich (Cryptocaryon) Life Cycle - The Life Cucle of Saltwater Ich (Cryptocaryon)


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+1 Leave the tank fallow for 8 weeks to be absolutely sure.I would not alter the salinity for fear of hurting the invertabrates you still have.It will be necessary to ghost feed the tank while fishless to keep the bacteria from starving to death.

 

Maybe you can just focus on some new inverts for a couple of months to avoid all that work....mushrooms are growing, so why not try out some new corals while you are waiting- xenia, gsp for some quick growers, zoas/palys for some color, frogspawn, etc. Some new hermits, maybe a serpent star...You might be surprised by how much you enjoy those!

 

+2 I would leave the tank be, just feed your inverts and get yourself some new corals to keep ya occupied. 8 weeks without fish and you should be Ich free. Just add your fish back real slow, maybe 1-2 every few weeks to month.

Sorry for your losses and goodluck!

Vinny has a great thread about Ich;
http://www.3reef.com/forums/new-hob...general-rules-successful-aquarium-126326.html


http://www.3reef.com/forums/diseases/ich-101-noob-noob-128391.html

 

My question would be, how long did it take for this ich to kill all of your fish? Was this over the course of a couple weeks? Or days? Some people who don't know what ich is directly or haven't delt with it much may also get it confused with other issues that can arise. For instance I had brooklynella wipe my whole tank out in a week. I didn't know any better and I thought it was ich. If that was the case you really should wait upwards of 8-11 weeks without any fish. It is a painful process but I had to go through it myself because I didn't quarantine my fish properly. I bought two fish, one had brooklynella and it spread to the other and they both were dead in a few days. Since I didn't have any other fish I just put them in my tank which infected it. Then I had to wait... I made it to the 11 week mark and bought myself a nice fish. My tank is only 10g though. I can say in my waiting time I did learn to really appreciate my invertebrates and I found that it is nice to feed them even. In fact my emerald crab will come take algae wafers right from my fingers if I hold it out for him. I try to keep my hands out of my tank though normally so I usually get one wet and as it softens a bit my baster will make a good enough suction to hold it so I can put it over by him and he will reach out and grab it. After the emerald is done the hermits and other various things i have creeping around in my tank finish it off. Also as said before don't be afraid to throw a small amount of food in without your fish because your inverts are used to getting the left overs and will need to eat as well. Just don't over do it. My inverts are hefty eaters so I over feed on purpose but I have a lot of inverts so it balances out.

Sorry I have a tendancy to ramble. Good luck with whatever descision you make. I can say though ripping apart your tank probably won't help you with much other than starting another cycle... and then you're waiting for that anyway. So just keep it up and wait and enjoy what you have left instead of risking the life of everything that is left. You can probably add a few other low light soft corals to keep yourself occupied as well. Zoas, Xenia, and there are other kinds of mushrooms. Yuma's are my favorite so far. I also placed a sizable invert order to keep me busy as well.

 

Won't ich die without a host? I'd let it run for a month or two. Then replace the filter media before adding fish. A UV sterilizer would help too.

 

Thanks Cosmo.Heres another one which will help you keep it out of the tank to begin with as well.

http://www.3reef.com/forums/general-reef-topics/minimum-tank-sizes-selection-animals-137158.html