Clearing Marine Ich from Empty DT Prior to Restocking

Tanktified

New Member
What is the fastest way to completely clear Marine Ich from an empty DT where Ich broke out after fully cured base live rock (LR with little life of interest) was introduced. The fish are undergoing tank transfer Ich treatment with 3 days x 4 transfers and should be cleared of Ich in about two weeks.

Due to the longer life cycle of the Marine Ich Protozoa in the tank substrate, rock, skimmer, and filter, the fish cannot be placed back in the original tank for another two to four additional weeks unless the empty DT can be cleared more quickly.

One idea is to run the tank temperature up to, say, 98.6F while it is empty. It is not clear to me that this will automatically accelerate the life cycle, and could instead cause the Ich to encapsulate and remain longer. The filter bacteria should not be harmed by the mildly elevated temperature (am I wrong?), but would need to be fed some ammonia to keep the population up.

Another idea I have is to reintroduce the fish in two weeks with the tank equipped with my as yet unused 36W CoralLife UV sterilizer (low pressure bulb). This would hit the 1 Watt per gallon rule of thumb for Level 2 sterilization in this 33 gallon tank where a return flow rate from the sump is about 100G/H providing volume turnover 3 times/h. My understanding is that the UV will not be a 100% kill and may not prevent reinfestation, so I'm not sure this would work.

Any other suggestions? My main goal is to avoid over stressing the fish (2x3") and myself by keeping fish 2-4 weeks longer than necessary in a tank with only large water changes to keep ammonia under control.
 

Talon33

Active Member
depends on if you are wanting to keep you live rock live or not. But if you kill the bacteria in live rock you will have to cycle your tank all over again. That means it would probably take as long if not longer than just leaving tank fallow for the recommended time length. But if you are determined to kill the ich quick I would just run like freshwater through system. That would kill the ich and everything quickly.
 

nanoreefing4fun

Well-Known Member
RS STAFF
welcomefish.gif

to ReefSanctuary, a real Sanctuary of reef forums, with lots of very nice members
745.gif
 

Start a new tank thread & share your tank with us so we can follow along - we love pics :)

The links in this post are a great :read: too
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums...ologist-advice-ich-cryptocaryon-irritans.html
 

ziggy

Active Member
depends on if you are wanting to keep you live rock live or not. But if you kill the bacteria in live rock you will have to cycle your tank all over again. That means it would probably take as long if not longer than just leaving tank fallow for the recommended time length. But if you are determined to kill the ich quick I would just run like freshwater through system. That would kill the ich and everything quickly.

Will fresh water alone kill it or is bleach needed?
 

Talon33

Active Member
Fresh water will do the trick. The parasite doesn't have the ability to of osmoregulate from saltwater to fresh water. Which means the cells of the parasite are put into a hypotonic solution. Then that leads to swelling of the cells of the parasite and bursting which would kill it.
 

ziggy

Active Member
Fresh water will do the trick. The parasite doesn't have the ability to of osmoregulate from saltwater to fresh water. Which means the cells of the parasite are put into a hypotonic solution. Then that leads to swelling of the cells of the parasite and bursting which would kill it.

How long in fresh water?
 

Tanktified

New Member
This is one interesting piece on the subject amongst a wealth of educated writings on the subject which are available on the net if you google enough for them.

It covers a couple of the points you are asking about.
I have hundreds of hours reading about Ich, trying to sort through what is fact, what is urban legend, , what is speculative, and what was written in connection with some product's marketing. The article you point out is one of the best! It provides citations, data, and facts which I like as a scientist. Unfortunately it doesn't provide answers to the key questions. For example:

- how hot does water need to be to actually kill off this organism in two weeks?
- will heat cause some Ich to encyst and go dormant making recurrence later likely.

The optimal range of temperatures for the organisms growth is given, but not the mechanism of action producing the limits (e.g. one organism stage dies).

Thanks for the good reference, but it only gets me close. I'm trying to know how temperatures not useful for fish treatment affect the organism. Thee seems to be a gap in the literature, but maybe I just haven't found the right study.

What would also be helpful is hearing what others did to solve this same problem, if it is solvable. What worked. What didn't work? People don't like talking about the latter, but what didn't work is often more useful to know than what seemed to work. :)
 

Tanktified

New Member
depends on if you are wanting to keep you live rock live or not. But if you kill the bacteria in live rock you will have to cycle your tank all over again. That means it would probably take as long if not longer than just leaving tank fallow for the recommended time length. But if you are determined to kill the ich quick I would just run like freshwater through system. That would kill the ich and everything quickly.
You have accurately identified the dilemma; not killing off the filter.

A novel idea is to treat the tank with fresh water, killing what is on the rock, but not treat the filter.

Because using UV Level 2 on the sump return would mean 100% of the water from the sump would be disinfected, maybe the few Ich swimmers still coming from the filter 2 weeks later would be killed before they got to the aquarium.
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
This is not going top be what the op wants to hear, but the display tank should be left empty of fish for 8 weeks to kiss ick. There really is no short cut that does not also destroy the bacteria base.

UV can help limit the disease, but should not be considered a cure.

The op is also using the transfer tank method for treating ick. I never found this to be too effective. However, it might work. Even so I'd quarantine the fish for 8 weeks before introducing them back to the display tank.

There really are no short cuts here and truing to improvise something is a sure fire way to get your reef into trouble. Stick with methods that actually are known to work. Yes, all this is going to take a long time and be a lot of work.

For more information see this thread and the others by leebca on the subject - http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/fish-diseases-treatments/52236-curing-fish-marine-ich.html
 
I have hundreds of hours reading about Ich, trying to sort through what is fact, what is urban legend, , what is speculative, and what was written in connection with some product's marketing. The article you point out is one of the best! It provides citations, data, and facts which I like as a scientist. Unfortunately it doesn't provide answers to the key questions. For example:

- how hot does water need to be to actually kill off this organism in two weeks?
- will heat cause some Ich to encyst and go dormant making recurrence later likely.

The optimal range of temperatures for the organisms growth is given, but not the mechanism of action producing the limits (e.g. one organism stage dies).

Thanks for the good reference, but it only gets me close. I'm trying to know how temperatures not useful for fish treatment affect the organism. Thee seems to be a gap in the literature, but maybe I just haven't found the right study.

What would also be helpful is hearing what others did to solve this same problem, if it is solvable. What worked. What didn't work? People don't like talking about the latter, but what didn't work is often more useful to know than what seemed to work. :)

That is just one of the papers.

There are others out there and I did come across one before which did cover the subject of an increase in tank temperature to kill the parasite and it was found to be a myth. That was an obvious safe increase for the fish. If you whacked it up to boiling point then that would be a different matter lol.

I read up but then incorporated it with research about nitrate, nitrite and ammonia levels on fish along with a lower salinity level.


The last time I had ich it was dealt with in this way:
Fish taken out and placed in hospital tanks.
Salinity dropped to 1.019 (might be gravity and not salinity)
Copper dosage built up over days to the stable level required for that particular product and then gradually stepped down after 4 weeks. (4 weeks from memory)
An air stone was added during treatment as this counter acts the effect of high ammonia or nitrate (can't remember which and didn't keep the link for the research paper either)
Water changes were done once a week to keep copper level stable instead of yo yo ing it every day.
The display tank was fallow for 8 weeks.

That does not mean I no longer have ich in my tank, even though it is over a year since the fish went back in and new ones have been added. It merely means that there are no visible signs of ich either to the eye or by behavioural traits infected fish may show.

The only way to know ich has been eradicated is to do scrapes and get them analysed.
 

ziggy

Active Member
Because using UV Level 2 on the sump return would mean 100% of the water from the sump would be disinfected, .

This is a very dangerous assumption to make. A lot of If's must be in place for this to possibly be true, i.e.:
tube must be clean
tube must be > 70% life
water flow must be within UV rated flow parameter

and even then, no other particles can be in the water that would block the ich from being exposed to the radiation energy level, for the required period of time

I would not rely on this assumption
 

Mischko

Member
You won't be able to cure Cryptocaryon irritans at all. It is not an infection desease which can be cured by chemicalsd, medicals or the organism at one point develops an immunity for it. It is a parasite being latent in any fish. You can compare it abit to human herpes. We all have the virus since the moment we were born, but the outbreak depends on many factors. Mostly due to a weakened immune system by stress.
Cryptocaryon irritans is mostly a secondary sympton on the fish being already weakened by another infection or desease. The outbreak can also occur due stress from one or several factors like:

- changing parameters in the environment like salinity, temperatur, Ph and so on
- stress with other fishes as in constant fighting
- infections with other deseases e. g. over contaminated frozen food

In any case, the fish showing Cryptocaryon irritans is already weakened and stressed for some reason. Now if you want to cure such a fish you have basically 2 options. Seperate the fish in quarantine tank where it can rest and recuperate by feeding healthy food and where you use ozon and/or UV. Though it has been proven that using ozon in the skimmer is far more effective on the parasite than UV. Ozon already has an effect on the parasite after a few hours. Also, a good and strong skimmer is able to skim out a huge amount of floating parasites. Please refer to this link for the life cycle of the parasite to see how Ozon and skimming help.
If you are not using anything like copper to treat you can have the quarantine tank in the same filtration circle as the display tank. The parasite is in the display tank already from the moment on you added life rock, corals, fish, whatever. If you plan more drastically methods like copper solutions, formalin solutions and quinine based drugs (such as Chloroquine Phosphate and Quinine Diphosphate) then the quarantine tank has to be completely seperated from the main tank. Guess you can tell why from the samples of chemical warfare.
As ziggy pointed out, there is no way using UV and 100% of bacteria/parasites killed in the tube. You have to keep in mind that particles like bacteria and alike have to float by the UV lamp inside the tube in a very closed range to have an effect on them. Besides, if the 'kill ratio' in an UV lamp was that high, there would be no sense using such a device in a delicate system so depending on bacteria to maintain its balance.
In anyway, you won't be able to get a tank Ich free at all. You can only help by keeping your fish in optimal running typal system for specie's requirements like in the wild.
 
Top