On Oct 12, 6:37 pm, "Pszemol" wrote:
"Big Habeeb" wrote in ooglegroups.com...
You know its funny to read about these ich outbreaks - I was under the
impression that ich had a very difficult time surviving in salt, this
belief even further cultivated because I never had a problem with
outbreaks in any of my sal****er fish only tanks...but constantly had
ich issues in my standard freshwater setups.

Parasites we are talking about are known in freshwater and
sal****er environments. They are killed by sudden changes
of salinity, and one of the method of curing infected sal****er
fish is freshwater dip for some short time (until fish starts to
show signs of clear and heavy discomfort).

Ich in a reef tank is not curable with chemicals. Chemicals would
kill all your beneficial live rock dwellers. So it is even more
important to quarantine when you have a reef tank...

Preaching this I have to admit that quite recently I added a piece
of live rock into my old, stable setup running without ich for
many YEARS and I got instant ich infection on my tang fish.
Knowing how difficult is to cure ich in a reef and how deadly
it can be to the fish I had to get 2 skunk cleaner shrimps.
(Lysmata amboinensis)
They are beautiful to look at and also a perfect biological
weapon in a battle agains ich. They pick the parasite from
the fish and eat it, so I could recommend these little buggers
for you as a kind of "ich insurance". It was quite amazing
to watch this fish like a kind of doctor curing my fish and the
fish willingly subject itself to the procedure... However it
was not as spectacular as in the "Finding Nemo" movie... ;-)

This does not free you from the duty of keeping quarantine tank
since ich is not the only the problem introduced with new fish.

Pszemol,

Yah I know there's other bad stuff, which is why I am setting up the
quarantine tank - I think my surprise was more in general that ich was
an issue (not that I needed to keep a Q tank) - One of the solutions
I'd used with a decent amount of success in battling ich in the past
was adding a small amount of sea salt to my freshwater tanks....not
enough to even impact the spc gravity particularly, but it seemed to
do a good job of battling off the nasty ich...in most cases even more
so than the recommended chemicals (and I prefer not to use chemicals
anyway). I guess I didn't realize that it was the change in salinity,
not merely the PRESENCE of salinity which did the trick. While I've
done alot of reading, I admit that much of what I learned about
keeping freshwater tanks was learned through trial and error...so
while I generally got to the right solution, it wasn't always
necessarily for the right reasons, apparently. As with anything else,
it's a learning process.

Meanwhile an update on the tanks. The cichlid tank is gone...its been
broken down and put away for the moment. The filter is goneski (way
WAY overdue), and all the other assorted items have been cleaned,
sanitized, and prepped for new life as a quarantine tank. The big
tank, the 72g jobbie, now sports around 86 pounds of live rock (added
an additional 16 pounds this weekend to make it a bit more full), and
is cycling nicely. I've started to see some ammonia going up, albeit
slowly, and I'm just letting it be. Very excited to see that it's
starting to do what it's supposed to do. Had a long chat with the
local fish shop (the one I really trust) over the weekend while
staring at his 30 year old coral (its a leather of some kind, but is
now TREMENDOUS) and discussed various livestock options etc for when I
am eventually ready to add. Most likely the first live coral going
into the tank will be a leather or two and a brain...be decent enough
for a start. Pretty, and according to the LFS, fairly hardy choices.
We also did approach the topic of anemones and whether or not they are
advisable for the beginning reef keeper. From what he's saying, a
'bubble tip anemone' is a solid choice...hardy, easy to breed, and
will plan nicely with the other corals/fish that I anticipate adding.
I dont want anyone to get paranoid: I am not going to be dropping all
this stuff in immediately, and am not rushing to put ANYTHING in. I'm
just starting to plan on what the next steps will be once the cycle is
done and the tank is ready to handle some livestock. I know I still
have a ways to go (at the rate the ammonia is going up, I'm figuring
another 2 weeks or so at least), but it's nice to spend some time
thinking about what I want the tank to look like when I AM ready to
get it really 'going' so to speak. In the meantime, I love the look
of the live rock already, particularly now that I added extra and it's
not so sparse in the tank. I've also added 2 powerheads recommended
by the LFS as being very low heat, but good outflow, and they're
tucked nicely into holes throug my live rock configuration.

Over all I'm starting to get pretty excited about the project. It's
taking pretty much all the patience I have in my big fat body to not
jump the gun...and I've been stopping by the LFS at least every other
day to go drool over the various corals etc that I will eventually be
putting in.
Mitch