Ich and a Yellow Coris Wrasse..........

[NanoReefie]

So........I've been battling Ich for the past several weeks.

I've finally drained the tank and removed all but one lone Yellow Wrasse that refuses to be caught. It dives into the substrate and hides in there for hours. I even sifted through the sand while the tank was drained to no avail.

My plan was to remove all fish and leave the tank fallow for 8-9 weeks while treating all the fish with Paraguard in a QT. This particular Yellow Wrasse has never shown any sypmtoms of Ich. My question for the experts is this; will the Ich re-appear if I left the 1 Yellow Wrasse in the DT even after the 8-9 weeks? It seems immune to Ich so far.

I have a very small 2" Purple Tang and a Flame Angelfish that I would like to re-introduce into the DT after the 2 months in QT. My fear is that they will get re-infected with Ich and my nightmare starts all over again.

I've read all about the life cycle of Ich, and technically the Yellow Wrasse "should" have Ich, but mysteriously it does not. Is it going to be safe for me to bring the fish back into the DT?

 

[eww]

Sorry to say... You will need to remove this last fish and go totally fallow. Leaving one fish in the tank is not a fallow system and therefore the ich will not die out. If you leave it and then introduce the treated fish after your 8-9 weeks it is highly likely they will just get reinfected.

 

[Bosco83]

What a little punk I imagine that would be pretty frustrating! I think you should be able to find him if you just keep trying to sift through the sand, maybe you could try something like a kitty litter scooper thing and just be very careful. I hope you put water back in for him until you find him? A small pop bottle fish trap might be your answer for this fish. Here is an example. You need to drill a bunch of holes in it though so that if you aren't around he won't die in the trap. That happened to me with my first trap and came home to a dead fish and I think it was because I didn't have all the holes in it.
Redirect Notice

 

[Holygral]

Hypo is the ONLY way to treat ick, everything else is snake oil, treat ir right once and be done with it and use a hospital tank for all new specimens for 6 weeks

 

[Bosco83]

Hypo is the ONLY way to treat ick, everything else is snake oil, treat ir right once and be done with it and use a hospital tank for all new specimens for 6 weeks

Or copper

 

[Sculpin]

I've had success with copper treating ich. Just don't do both copper and hypo at the same time or the fish will die.

And EWW is right, you need to remove all the live fish for the fallow clock to start. I lost a few fish when draining my tank. They probably got stuck in the rocks and died when I pulled the rocks out of the water to catch the difficult fish. Good news is ich can't live on a dead fish, the as long as no living fish is in your tank, the treatment clock can start.

Good luck!

 

[estanoche]

Let him settle in for a day or two - and then watch him when he goes to bed for the night - you should know exactly where he is sleeping.

When they feel you digging into the sand to pull them out they go deeper as fast as they can..... so when you stick your net into the sand to fish him out, go as deep and as fast as you can to catch him Its stressful on the fish (man they hate getting woke up like that) but if he is being a turd just do it!!!