Ridding live rock of marine ich?

[Gourami Swami]

Hello Nano Reef,

I am planning on transferring everything in my 6.8g reef into a new, different 6.6g tank. I want to add another piece of live rock from Petco (where I work) when I do the transfer. The only issue is, we have marine ich in the system at Petco which pops back up every couple of months.

When it pops up, I remove the affected fish to a hospital tank and treat with hypo- the fish are cured in a few weeks, and they go back in the system. There seems to be no good way to rid our system of the ich, since copper or hypo would kill the inverts, and we would probably just get more fish with ich from the suppliers at some point anyway. Our regional director told me to keep doing things the way I am when asked about it recurring, and I have to listen to him. So I just tell every customer that they need to QT and treat for ich.

 

So anyway, if I want to take a rock from this system for my tank without taking possible ich with it- how should I go about doing that?

Freshwater dip?

Seachem Reef Dip?

I am not so worried about the rock's bacteria dying off, as this will only be a 2lb piece, and I have about 6lbs of cycled rock coming from the old tank. I just want more space to place corals.

Thanks in advance

[Clown79]

Any tank with ich, brook, velvet must go fishless for 8 weeks to kill the parasites.

 

As long as there is a fish in the tank with the rocks, the parasite has a host to live off of.

 

Even if you treat the fish, if they are returned to tank before 8 weeks, the parasite has a host.

 

There are no other safe treatments for the rock. Medications are not recommended with rock use as it will kill the beneficial bacteria and absorb the meds which will then leach from the rocks.

 

Dipping the rocks will not necessarily kill the parasite.

 

 

 

Treating the fish then returning them to the tank is counter productive. The fish just get reinfected. Clearly the mgr knows little and cares more about profit.

 

 

It must go fallow for 8 weeks....I wouldn't take the risk of adding a rock from an ich infested tank. I'd buy it elsewhere or buy a piece of dry caribsea liferock 

[Gourami Swami]

Thanks for reply, I understand that the store tank has ich still. There is no good way to treat the system, since it cannot go fallow, be treated with copper or hypo, due to the livestock in the system. And even if we did go through all that to rid the system of ich, the chances are we would bring in a new shipment of fish at some point that had some ich, and it would all have been for nothing. The manager understands this, which is why he's telling me to just treat the fish. what usually happens, is I put the fish back in the system, and before the ich pops back up, they are sold. So, I tell every customer that we've had ich in the system and they need to QT + treat.

 

But, this post is about me bringing one or two 2 pound rocks from that system, to my home reef, without infecting my tank. I am thinking that the bacterial die-off won't be an issue, since 6lbs or so of cured and cycled LR from the original tank will also be going into the new tank. The rock I buy from Petco, could even be completely dead and dried out for my purposes. (would letting it dry work?) But I just want to make sure that whatever method I use, kills the ich so that it doesn't come to my tank on the rock.

I have read some people use bleach? I would be willing to do this, but if there is a way to kill the ich without killing the rock + life in it, that would be my preference.

[Clown79]

8 hours ago, Gourami Swami said:

Thanks for reply, I understand that the store tank has ich still. There is no good way to treat the system, since it cannot go fallow, be treated with copper or hypo, due to the livestock in the system. And even if we did go through all that to rid the system of ich, the chances are we would bring in a new shipment of fish at some point that had some ich, and it would all have been for nothing. The manager understands this, which is why he's telling me to just treat the fish. what usually happens, is I put the fish back in the system, and before the ich pops back up, they are sold. So, I tell every customer that we've had ich in the system and they need to QT + treat.

 

But, this post is about me bringing one or two 2 pound rocks from that system, to my home reef, without infecting my tank. I am thinking that the bacterial die-off won't be an issue, since 6lbs or so of cured and cycled LR from the original tank will also be going into the new tank. The rock I buy from Petco, could even be completely dead and dried out for my purposes. (would letting it dry work?) But I just want to make sure that whatever method I use, kills the ich so that it doesn't come to my tank on the rock.

I have read some people use bleach? I would be willing to do this, but if there is a way to kill the ich without killing the rock + life in it, that would be my preference.

to rid the rock of ich and not infecting your tank, they must be in a fishless tank for 8 weeks. Fallow is the 100% method of eradicating ich.

 

If you allow the rocks to dry out, they will cause a cycle, requiring you to cycle them in a bucket out of the new tank.

 

If you use bleach, you are killing everything and will have to go through methods to ensure ALL traces of bleach are gone, then once again, the rocks would need to be cycled separately before being added to the tank.

 

 

There is no quick solution to this situation.

 

Options are keeping the rocks in a bucket of sw, heater, pump for 8 weeks to ensure any parasite dies

 

Bleaching the rocks, using methods to ensure all bleach is removed, then cycling them in a bucket with ammonia and bacteria dosing

 

Drying them out, will definitely require you do properly dry them, then cycle them in a bucket with ammonia and bacteria dosing

 

 

the fastest/safest method - buy rock from somewhere else or liferock

[sr2z]

19 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Any tank with ich, brook, velvet must go fishless for 8 weeks to kill the parasites.

  

As long as there is a fish in the tank with the rocks, the parasite has a host to live off of.

  

Even if you treat the fish, if they are returned to tank before 8 weeks, the parasite has a host.

I guess that marine ich cannot host on inverts like shrimps or snails, can it?

[Gourami Swami]

10 hours ago, Clown79 said:

to rid the rock of ich and not infecting your tank, they must be in a fishless tank for 8 weeks. Fallow is the 100% method of eradicating ich.

 

If you allow the rocks to dry out, they will cause a cycle, requiring you to cycle them in a bucket out of the new tank.

 

If you use bleach, you are killing everything and will have to go through methods to ensure ALL traces of bleach are gone, then once again, the rocks would need to be cycled separately before being added to the tank.

 

 

There is no quick solution to this situation.

 

Options are keeping the rocks in a bucket of sw, heater, pump for 8 weeks to ensure any parasite dies

 

Bleaching the rocks, using methods to ensure all bleach is removed, then cycling them in a bucket with ammonia and bacteria dosing

 

Drying them out, will definitely require you do properly dry them, then cycle them in a bucket with ammonia and bacteria dosing

 

 

the fastest/safest method - buy rock from somewhere else or liferock

Thanks, guess I will try to find some dry or liferock. Unfortunately there are only a couple of dirty LFS near me at the moment, both of which have shown that they have disease in their tanks as well, and have their live rock tank acting as a sump for a system with fish in it. So don't trust the LR from them, Petco is actually much better in general, but have the recurrant problem of ich.  And as I don't drive, I can't go to any that are much farther away. So was hoping there was an easy way to rid the ich from the rocks. But I guess nothing comes fast or easy in this hobby.

Somebody would make a killing with a really nice, well run LFS in Washington DC. Huge community of reefers here, and no good LFS.

[Clown79]

3 hours ago, NanoReefer5gal said:

I guess that marine ich cannot host on inverts like shrimps or snails, can it?

It can be brought in on any surface, even through corals.

 

3 hours ago, Gourami Swami said:

Thanks, guess I will try to find some dry or liferock. Unfortunately there are only a couple of dirty LFS near me at the moment, both of which have shown that they have disease in their tanks as well, and have their live rock tank acting as a sump for a system with fish in it. So don't trust the LR from them, Petco is actually much better in general, but have the recurrant problem of ich.  And as I don't drive, I can't go to any that are much farther away. So was hoping there was an easy way to rid the ich from the rocks. But I guess nothing comes fast or easy in this hobby.

Somebody would make a killing with a really nice, well run LFS in Washington DC. Huge community of reefers here, and no good LFS.

You can just run the rocks in a bucket for 8 weeks, any parasite with no fish host, will die.

[hotdrop]

On 2/3/2019 at 9:01 AM, Clown79 said:

It can be brought in on any surface, even through corals.

 

You can just run the rocks in a bucket for 8 weeks, any parasite with no fish host, will die.

Just let the rocks go through a cycle in the bucket when everything dies without sufficient light?  Minus the bacteria on the rocks I guess