Might have to eat my own words re: quarantine

[daniella3d]

That's not usual and surely not any excuse for not doing a proper quarantine. Usually it is quite obvious if there is a disease after 3 to 4 weeks. Of course to be safer is to leave the fish for 6 to 8 weeks, but if there is a disease it is a lot more common to come out after a week to 3 weeks.

Originally Posted by Aquattro

I'm in the same position. Even if I had quarantined, I would have put the fish in the main tank after a month. He didn't get sick until 5 or 6 weeks, so this still would have happened.

[MKLKT]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

That's not usual and surely not any excuse for not doing a proper quarantine. Usually it is quite obvious if there is a disease after 3 to 4 weeks. Of course to be safer is to leave the fish for 6 to 8 weeks, but if there is a disease it is a lot more common to come out after a week to 3 weeks.

Unfortunately that didn't apply to me, haven't had a new fish in about a year. After losing the first two and starting to feed metro/focus/garlic combo it's been stable, going to run the full course and hopefully that's the extent of it.

[edit] Checked on the tank today, no new deaths and the damsel has probably 80% colour back after being almost white. Foxface seems less bothered and the spots are easing up. I'm cautiously optimistic. The skimmer went nuts though, haha.

[daniella3d]

That's probably because you had ick in your tank and never treated it and it was just in a state of low infection so not visible, so when the fish are stressed it all come out, even if it takes a year.

Once you got ick in your tank and if you don't treat for it, it won't go away on its own and will eventually return, as you noticed.

Obviously parasites don't come out of nowhere, but they can also come on corals and frags..this is why I desinfect all my corals.

Originally Posted by MKLKT

Unfortunately that didn't apply to me, haven't had a new fish in about a year. After losing the first two and starting to feed metro/focus/garlic combo it's been stable, going to run the full course and hopefully that's the extent of it.

[edit] Checked on the tank today, no new deaths and the damsel has probably 80% colour back after being almost white. Foxface seems less bothered and the spots are easing up. I'm cautiously optimistic. The skimmer went nuts though, haha.

[lastlight]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

Once you got ick in your tank and if you don't treat for it, it won't go away on its own and will eventually return, as you noticed.

Apparently a study showed that if no fish are added for 11 months the ich goes thru enough cycles that it diminishes and dies out so this isn't entirely true.

[daniella3d]

Yes I have heard about this, that after 10 generations it just exhaust itself. Dunno if it is true, but one thing is for sure, if that person got ich without introducing anything new for that long, then ick can surely survive that long as it does not pop out of thin air.

Maybe also the fish develop such strong resistance to the parasite that after a year or so it cannot survive. Not sure what it is. I know some people have ich in their tank and are seing cycle of it coming back even after a very long time.

Originally Posted by lastlight

Apparently a study showed that if no fish are added for 11 months the ich goes thru enough cycles that it diminishes and dies out so this isn't entirely true.

[muck]

Originally Posted by lastlight

Apparently a study showed that if no fish are added for 11 months the ich goes thru enough cycles that it diminishes and dies out so this isn't entirely true.

Got a link to an article on this study Brett? I'd be interested to read it..

[Reef Pilot]

It's mentioned in this article.
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/...ths-facts.html

[lastlight]

Yeah that's the one.