who uses a QT tank

Thanks for everyones help still not sure what to do with the 46 gal it will prob turn into a qt for now. I also i have never lost a fish to ick i have had it but just kept up with garlic and vit C and only lasted a week or so.

 

I never said it wasn't ich. I said it was ich-like and may have been ich. I never sent the fish in for an autopsy.

Point 1. It happened months after adding any fish to the tank. Therefore it didn't occur due to not quarantining a new addition.
Point 2. No other fish got it. Therefore, it can be present in a tank without spreading to other fish and causing an epidemic and killing everything off.

I'm not sure what weakened the Royal Gramma that got it. But everything else in my tank resisted it.

Feel free to do what you want. I'm not advocating that you don't quarantine. All I know is that hobbies progress by people trying new things based on their own theories. 25 years ago everybody had sterile tanks with beached coral skeletons and they thought that was the only way to go. People tried new things and dared to be different and we now use live rock, live sand and are moving away from bio-balls.

 

I agree. Ich is like the cold. It's ubiquitous. A healthy system (immune, low stress, etc.) is all a fish needs to keep this at bay.

Chasing a fish around with a net to move it to another system (that's probably not as stable as the system it's being removed from) and then later chased around again with a net and moved back to DT... this is all stress inducing and from what I've seen often leads to problems on its own.

You can have a ton of ich in your system (ubiquitous) - healthy fish won't notice and weak stressed fish will succumb. There are plenty of documented cases of ich still being in a system after the 6 week treatment myth (myth only in the idea that it completely rids a system of it). Ich will run its course, but it doesn't completely go away. That's been shown.

QT doesn't do anything for that. All it does, IMO, is stress the fish and increase its odds of succumbing to the ich.

I disagree with pretty much this entire post mocarski. Your smoking example is apples and oranges. QT is debatable in its effectiveness with ich - the harms of cigarette smoking are not.

There are plenty of folks that don't do regular water changes on this forum and your insinuation that it's only a "claim" that this works is wrong and slightly hostile of you. I would not suggest this technique to someone new in the hobby - but that doesn't make it wrong. I wouldn't suggest an anemone for a newbie either.

It's not simply luck. It's a matter of keeping your fish strong and healthy. QT is not a requirement to do that. There isn't only one way of doing things - if 2 people take two paths to the same destination, one of them doesn't have to be wrong or lucky... just different.

People don't spend time "getting rid of it" because you can't. You can only let it run its course - but it doesn't go away. You can either keep your fish healthy and resilient (similar to how i eat more oranges during the flu season) or you can take the easy way out and just put everything in a separate QT and just move the ich around. It's not laziness or convenience - it's a different way that works just as well, if not better.

Ich is a big deal and nobody suggested otherwise. There is discussion about it because so many people don't properly cycle, or over stock, or under a multitude of reasons have high stress environments where ich can thrive.

There are so many products out there because people will sell you anything for anything. They even sell snake oil to "purple up" your tank. There being a ton of products doesn't mean anything. My LFS has a ton of products that are junk, worthless, or ineffective - there are a ton of examples.


Not sure if you meant to come across with a 'one way or the highway' tone as argumentative as you did, but that's how you sounded to me.

pgreef has been in this hobby for a very long time. Decades if I remember some of his other posts correctly. I'd say he has more than mere luck on his side.



Anyway, I don't use QT. Never have, probably never will. There are plenty of threads around here that debate the finer details - but there isn't a consensus on this topic. I wouldn't laugh at someone that does use one - but I would not recommend them to anyone.

If I had a second 46 gallon tank that I'd be willing to setup (i.e. a QT) I'd probably rather set it up as a predator tank. But that's just me.

 

I use a QT because my cheveron tang got like MAJOR ich and for like 2 months he had it and none of the clowntrigger 2 clowns some nano fish and cleaner wrasse never had it until the chevron died then the clowns got it nano fish died from it and cleaner wrasse survived. I mite keep mine setup just a little longorer maybe waiting for new arrivals for chrishtmas. I think you should get one just to be sure or keep the supplies handy for when you mite need it.

 

good food and a solution with anti protozoal - contains malachite green. i feed live brine daily and dried at evening

 

i should have mentioned that i treated for 7 days after the ich was off the fish...no spots on fish...you have to kill the parasite in the water