how long does ick last?

marlinmero · Feb 23, 2011

i had my 95 gallon set up for about a month then put a large hippo tang and banner fish in and all was fine. then a couple weeks later i got two lions from petco and the lions died and my hippo got ick bad. i treated it with the invert safe stuff and it would go away but as soon as i quit treating it would come right back, the banner fish ended up dieing and i sold the hippo.
So the tank has been fish free for about a month now, it does have a coral banded and three tube anemones in it that are all doing great. My question is how long will the ick last in the tank with out fish? and should i treat the tank again with out fish in it before i try adding more fish?

Herefishyfishy · Feb 23, 2011

8 weeks
Let it go fish free another month and it will be fine

marlinmero · Feb 23, 2011

ah man i was affraid of that im gettin ancy. lol do you think if i treated it for ick again would that help?

krisfal · Feb 23, 2011

marlinmero said:
ah man i was affraid of that im gettin ancy. lol do you think if i treated it for ick again would that help?

No, those reef safe treatments are useless, as you experienced. you are only a few weeks away from your tank being ok, just wait it out. Or since you should be using a QT anyway, you could get something going in QT, where it should be for 4-6 weeks before adding to your tank so as to not re-infect the tank. Much easier to treat ick in the QT than to have to empty display and sit fishless.

returnofsid · Feb 23, 2011

Agreed! Leave display fishless, for 8 weeks. The "reef safe" Ich treatments are worthless. If they're strong enough to kill Ich, they'll kill other inverts in your tank, so aren't "reef safe." Instead, they're not even strong enough to kill Ich, as you've found out.

Once your display is free of Ich, be careful not to re-infest. You could put fish in your QT, right now, but not in the display.

I moved this thread to Lee's Marine Fish Discussion forum, for the best advice, from Lee.

Herefishyfishy · Feb 23, 2011

The last time I wrote almost identical advise as above all heck broke loose, not sure what changed.

Anyway, I agree 100%. Any Ich-cure in a bottle not based on copper (reef safe cures) are only good for making profits to the manufacturers. Worse, they give false sense of security and lead to dead fish.

You are doing great, hold out just a few more weeks and all is golden :>)