New Ich Fallow Period

Humblefish

Active Member
First off, I must thank @victoly for bringing this recent study to my attention: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0044848617317544

It has now been peer-reviewed and the findings verified by other scientists. I'd also like to share a couple of other related studies (below):

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3284114?seq=1

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2761.1979.tb00146.x

These studies verify what we have all long suspected: Lower temperature slows down Ich's lifecycle, whereas higher temperature speeds it up! Of course, we must still keep in mind that different strains of Ich might react differently to various temperatures. However, based on the information below I feel confident that raising aquarium temperature to 27C/80.6F can shorten the Ich fallow period to 6 weeks. Also, two studies now suggest that raising temp to 30C/86F can shorten the fallow period to just 2 weeks! I am confident that nitrifying bacteria can survive 30C, but not so confident about corals & inverts. So, raising tank temp to 30C might be a strategy best used in a FOWLR system.

Table1_zpsfwf5goxj.jpg
CAVEAT: You must still eliminate any hypoxic/anaerobic regions in your tank whilst going fallow. If a protomont crawls into a hypoxic environment before encysting, it may go dormant and all bets are off! This is probably the "real reason" behind most fallow failures. More information on Why a fallow period will sometimes fail can be found here: https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/fallow-periods-going-fishless.32/#post-1120
 
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PSU4ME

JoePa lives on!!!
Staff member
PREMIUM
Hey Humble,
How would you apply this to curing/QT’ing new live rock? I’m looking to do a full rock swap from the the dead stuff I started with to all new KP Aquatics rock.

I want all the life and bacteria but am missing that with the dead stuff. Will the higher temps kill things off while I’m curing them? 2-6 weeks seems a lot better than 76 days!

thank you
 

Humblefish

Active Member
@PSU4ME I wouldn't raise the temp all the way up to 86F because as you said that might kill some of the rock fauna. But 80.6F for 6 weeks should accelerate the hatching of any tomonts on the rock and should be safe for all life on/inside the rocks.
 
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