# Fishing is hard... from now on 100% careful on disease prevention



## corpusse (Jan 3, 2011)

I managed to get ich from a non qt coral so I've been trying to remove my fish so I can treat them. I have 15 fish in my 180 gallon reef along with another couple fish already in QT. 

I am using a critter keeper as a trap and managed to get my Naso tang really easy. In the next few hours I caught a single chromis and a wrasse. Unfortunately the wrasse was so freaked out he almost knocked himself out banging into the acrylic. Hopefully he recovers. Using a couple of round dog pools that hold about 20-25 gallons for tank transfer. They are real shallow but offer some swimming room. If I cant catch all the fish by today I will have to drain the tank. Fortunately all these fish are well established and the few ich spots on the Achilles have gone away but obviously the entire tank is still infected. I have been quarantining my fish for years but inverts and corals only go through dips or short qt periods. Now that this has happened that's over. All corals and inverts will be now quarantined for 72 days prior to introduction to my tank. 

The hardest part of this is finding somewhere to keep my fish in the mean time. Once the TTM is complete I plan on putting the Naso and Achilles in my 90 gallon garden eel tank. Only 3 feet but at least it has live rock a skimmer and tons of macro for them to eat. The eels are going to be so scared. The rest of my fish are anthias, wrasses, clownfish ect. I will move them to my 55g QT tank and hope the sponge filter and water changes can handle the bioload for a couple of months. 

It's going to be hard having the tank fishless but the fish will just be a few feet over to the left and I will know my tank is 100% ich free and will remain that way. Long term the challenge will be only adding stuff every 72 days. I think I will have to redesign my frag tank from one tank to separate tanks I can separate from the system. An added bonus is all other pests will no longer be able to make it into my system since they will likely show themselves in the 72 day qt period. 

You can never be too careful.


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## corpusse (Jan 3, 2011)

I got it from a coral 100% I have not added any fish in months nor snails. I've also had to give up on catching the fish. My red velvet wrasse went absolutely nuts in the trap and gave himself brain damage. He died shortly after I took him out. 

I will wait tank transfer the Naso tang and single Chromis that I caught this week and next weekend I will drain the tank, take out all the live rock and net the rest of the fish out. In the past I have tried draining the tank and wrasses killed themsleves on the rocks. Nets have a bad rep but honestly I can't think of a safer way to do this. The good news is no fish are showing spots including the achilles but he was just showing the other day for the first time so obviously it's in the water. This couldn't be more of a pain but once I am done I will know the tank is disease free. I'm honestly debating just breaking the entire reef down and treating it as one big frag tank. I have clove polyps on much of my rock I need to rid myself of as well as a couple of aiptasia. The long term goal is a disease and pest free reef.


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## loonie (Mar 29, 2008)

corpusse said:


> I got it from a coral 100% I have not added any fish in months nor snails. I've also had to give up on catching the fish. My red velvet wrasse went absolutely nuts in the trap and gave himself brain damage. He died shortly after I took him out.
> 
> I will wait tank transfer the Naso tang and single Chromis that I caught this week and next weekend I will drain the tank, take out all the live rock and net the rest of the fish out. In the past I have tried draining the tank and wrasses killed themsleves on the rocks. Nets have a bad rep but honestly I can't think of a safer way to do this. The good news is no fish are showing spots including the achilles but he was just showing the other day for the first time so obviously it's in the water. This couldn't be more of a pain but once I am done I will know the tank is disease free. I'm honestly debating just breaking the entire reef down and treating it as one big frag tank. I have clove polyps on much of my rock I need to rid myself of as well as a couple of aiptasia. The long term goal is a disease and pest free reef.


Not a easy task, good luck with the cleaning up. I feel if QT all the fish, change some 50percent water might do the job, just my 2cents suggestion.


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## twobytwo (Oct 25, 2014)

This might help you move your last fish... I had to take fish out of a tank recently. After catching most with a trap, there were a few that got smart and wouldn't go anywhere close to the trap. I didn't want to drain the tank, removing all the rocks and risking the corals; this is what I did - 

I got a sheet of light diffuser from home depot. the same kind some guys DIY frag racks from. I took out only half the rocks from one side of the tank and just enough water to keep them wet in a brute container. Now, cut down the light diffuser to the width and height of the tank. If you have smaller fishes you may need to overlap the sheet and offset them a little. Somehow coax the fish to the "open" side of the tank and drop in the light diffuser into the middle. Slide it across and eventually you'll have your fish trapped in a small section at the end, easier to scoop up.

Hope that helps you not have to drain everything!


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## reefjunkie86 (Feb 5, 2015)

twobytwo said:


> This might help you move your last fish... I had to take fish out of a tank recently. After catching most with a trap, there were a few that got smart and wouldn't go anywhere close to the trap. I didn't want to drain the tank, removing all the rocks and risking the corals; this is what I did -
> 
> I got a sheet of light diffuser from home depot. the same kind some guys DIY frag racks from. I took out only half the rocks from one side of the tank and just enough water to keep them wet in a brute container. Now, cut down the light diffuser to the width and height of the tank. If you have smaller fishes you may need to overlap the sheet and offset them a little. Somehow coax the fish to the "open" side of the tank and drop in the light diffuser into the middle. Slide it across and eventually you'll have your fish trapped in a small section at the end, easier to scoop up.
> 
> Hope that helps you not have to drain everything!


This works very well, I used this trick to catch a maroon clownfish that was being too bossy.


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## corpusse (Jan 3, 2011)

twobytwo said:


> This might help you move your last fish... I had to take fish out of a tank recently. After catching most with a trap, there were a few that got smart and wouldn't go anywhere close to the trap. I didn't want to drain the tank, removing all the rocks and risking the corals; this is what I did -
> 
> I got a sheet of light diffuser from home depot. the same kind some guys DIY frag racks from. I took out only half the rocks from one side of the tank and just enough water to keep them wet in a brute container. Now, cut down the light diffuser to the width and height of the tank. If you have smaller fishes you may need to overlap the sheet and offset them a little. Somehow coax the fish to the "open" side of the tank and drop in the light diffuser into the middle. Slide it across and eventually you'll have your fish trapped in a small section at the end, easier to scoop up.
> 
> Hope that helps you not have to drain everything!


I got lots of eggcrate I will try this on Saturday. The good news is the fish are not covered in ich so I have lots of time, they are also healthy fish I've had for years or months not new arrivals so another week is not going to kill them.


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## corpusse (Jan 3, 2011)

So I've managed to catch all the fish less one anthia and leopard wrasse. I don't know how the anthia avoided me as I took 90% of the rock out of the tank and caught several of his friends just by lifting the rock out of the water. It's possible she previously died. I didn't want to leave my corals and rock out of the water too long so I will do the whole thing again to catch the leopard wrasse tonight or tomorrow morning. I have the majority of my fish in kiddie pools which I already used to tank transfer my Naso and one single chromis. They are riding out the fallow period in my garden eel tank. The Naso looks massive in a 90 (she's a little over 6" and my hope shes a he fades everyday). Achilles is in my 55g hospital tank being treated with copper as he's the only fish to actually show any spots. They are long gone and I will treat him for about 3-4 weeks then observe. 

I really don't know what I'm going to do about these fish after the tank transfer the pools are black and it's very hard to find the fish plus they are super shallow so I worry about jumpers I have eggcrate and screen on top of that but it's not very easy to do head counts. I will probably have to get another tank to keep them in for 40-60 days depending on how long it takes to get the last 2 fish out. 

Sometimes I really wish there was a fish hospital, somewhere I could just drop them off for 72 days and they could swab them at the end to show me there for sure is no ich.


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## deeznutz (Aug 21, 2013)

In all the years of having fish tanks ich was always present and seemed to just come and go without any issues. My achilles was always the first to show signs and with extra seaweed feedings and a bit of garlic, it seemed to fix itself.

In my most recent tank, when ich hit I carried on just like I have. But this time, I lost most of my fish after about 3 weeks. In two days I lost 10 fish. I'm so into q tanks now and I feel your pain.

Good luck


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## reefjunkie86 (Feb 5, 2015)

Hey deez any chance you can explain your equipment and routine?


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## corpusse (Jan 3, 2011)

This is the first time I had ich in about 8 years maybe more. I always qt my fish but rarely qt corals / inverts.

I tore the tank down again yesterday as many corals were looking stressed and I had to catch the last fish. Got the leopard wrasse and the missing anthias is gone. Which is weird because even if she was killed in a rock slide you'd think I would have found her. I checked the overflows the sump and the floor just in case. November 7th is when I can put my fish back. I only lost the one wrasse who killed himself in the trap and the mia anthias. Still none of the fish less the Achilles showed any kind of spots. He's doing fine now as well. Just going to be a long wait.

From now on when I buy new corals or inverts they will go in my frag tank for 72 days. If the frag tank had stuff added I will be adding two 10g isolation tanks. I will run them as mini reefs with live rock for filtration. In addition to my 55g qt and backup 10g I will be added two more 10g qt tanks which I will use to tank transfer all small and medium fish. They will then spend 58 days in either my frag tank, one of the 10g "reefs" or 55g qt depending on the circumstances. This should allow me to 99% ensure no more ick gets in my reef and my achilles lives for decades to come.


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