Put fish into DT or leave in QT

Hmm. Mobalized I am going to share some advice with you. I have QT many fish. I have 3 QT's at all times. If your fish are looking good I would move them. It is impossible to keep the parasite out of your system. Are you going to QT every rock, invert, etc etc that every touches your water? If so then it may be possible but not likely. Again, get them healthy and eating then move them. The bad water quality is doing more damage to the fish at this point than the Ich is. How big are these QTs? You said you have a Tang in one? I have QT 4 different Tangs and the one thing I learned is yes you can rid the parasite (visually at least) but you cannot make up for the stress the fish is being put under from being in a small aquarium with bad water quality. Tangs need large aquariums. Secondly are you treating with copper? If so, are you testing the water for Ammonia with a test that compensates for the copper? Copper gives false positives.

 

The clowns are in a 10g tank that was treated with cupramine for the first 2 weeks. The tang is in a 20g that has not been treated with cupramine or any other copper based medication but has for the past 7 days gone through a prazipro regiment of 2 treatments according to the manufacturers label. The fish show no signs of ich or any other noticable parasite and are all healthy and have endless appetites. I think that it will be best for the fish to move them back to the DT and stop any further harm that could be caused by the levels of ammonia (.25-.5 range)
And to answer your questions no i do not plan on quarantining everything that goes in the tank only fish so I do see your point. And my other tank never had any fished quarantined and has never shown a sign of any parasite in the 7 months it has been up.

 

You only treated for 2 weeks? Its highly unlikely the parasite is gone. I believe the standard minimum is 3 weeks AFTER the last visible sign of the parasite the copper treatment can be stopped. The cupramine must be maintained at full concentration this entire time. So any water changes you do the water must be treated as well. Good for you on the prazipro. I still QT everything especially from online vendors and everything gets de-wormed. This is good practice. Be sure to acclimate the fish slowly as the copper in the water has their immune systems down and their general health will also be suffering. The change to the DT is good, however, after spending time in copper fish are fragile. Make sure you DO NOT mix your QT water with your DT water. Copper equals death to corals, inverts, etc.

 

The copper was already out of the clown tank via water changes for 2 weeks and carbon. The treatment for cupramine was done as the instructions stated. I dont have it with me off hand but a initial dosage and a secondary dosage to bring the copper levels to the final concentration. Held at that level using a seachem copper test, and each water change was re dosed with the correct amount of cupramine. The treatment lasted 14 days if I remember which is the recommendation from seachem.

 

It's really not hard to have an Ich free tank. You leave non fish things fallow for an appropriate amount of time before putting them in (you can treat your cycle as part of the fallow period). If you cycle last 2 months, your fallow period is complete. My 210g is going to be Ich free, because I am absolutely never removing a tank load of these fish into treatment. The rock for my tank has been fallow for a year, just waiting for this tank to be complete. All macro and what not will be QT'd in a fishless system and all fish will be treated for Ich.... seen or unseen. There.... Ich free. But it depends on your degree of "want" whether or not one goes through these steps to ensure they don't have to battle Ich in the future. My 12g tank with barnacle blennies....I never treated them. If they got Ich I would either pull them.... or not. No biggy either way. Some of my fish are not replaceable and I've been growing them out for over a year to go into this tank. They will NOT die from preventable Ich. So, the steps you choose, as I said, depends on how bad you want it.... or don't want it, I guess.

You can definitely try to fight it with diet and a stress free environment. That honestly keeps a lot of cases at bay. But what happens when that environment turns stressful.... new addition, power goes out for a day. Accidents and poo-poo just happens, it's life. If you fish live out their entire life without a stressful event.... I wanna go with you to Vegas.

So, there's a BIG risk they'll get Ich again if you put them back in the tank without any/complete treatment. There's a risk of killing them or damaging them if you don't get the ammonia under control. Rock and a hard place. Where you haven't tried an ammonia blocker, I would try that. I managed a large volitans in a small QT with that once.... but I use Ultimate because it never smells like skunk.

I personally keep cycled, but not inhabited LR, for my QT whenever possible. The rock is loaded with bacteria and there are no surface critters to kill in treatment (risking ammonia spike). It's SO much easier that way.

You basically have some choices to make as both directions have pros and cons.

 

If you use cupramine, it will give you false positives on ammonia tests.

Seachem. Cupramine FAQ

I would suggest using some of the Prime you have. It's made by the same company that makes the copper you put in the tank. A chemical is a chemical, and I promise you the prime is much safer to the fish than the copper is. But I would also run some cuprisorb first to get the copper out. You can deplete way too much oxygen if they are both in the tank.

I would go this route and continue to just watch for heavy breathing or signs that there is in fact ammonia in the tank. I know I would be pretty pissed to go through all this, and then put them back into the DT too soon, and watch it happen again.

 

I ended up moving the fish to Dt late last night. There shouldn't have been any copper left in the tank that was treated with copper, and the other was copper free. Both showed elevated ammonia. One had biological filtration via a established sponge. I am just crossing my fingers that my 60% chance of beating the ich in the Dt in the 4 week fallow period is in my favor. The fish should be ich free prior to being put in dt

 

Just like someone else mentioned, healthy environment is the best cure for the fish. When I added a juvie hippo, I see white dots on him not too long after he came to the tank. I was told that ich was always present in the system. I fed him very heavily, tried not to spook him, least stress on him. 2.5 months later, boom he is fatter than ever, swimming around like he owns the tank.

 

Agreed. Good food and good water will give you healthy fish. It is nearly impossible to keep ich out of your tank IMO and I am a big believer in QT.

 

Well fish have been looking pretty healthy still 24 hours into it. The tang keeps trying to kill its reflection in the glass though. No signs of ich yet and hoping it stays that way. All fish will continue to be quarantined prior to placement in DT.