Ick

[Roly]

I have yet another question about Ick. How exactly does it get into your tank? I know that if you dont QT your fish,before you put them in your tank, they can pass Ick on. But if I DO QT my fish and I know I dont have any Ick because I havent had fish in about 2 months, Im now using RODI water AND I have a UV sterilizer, can I still get Ick?
I hear that stress causes it but my LFS tells me that Ick has to be "caught" by the fish. That Ick cant just appear. Is this true?

 

[mkgramlow]

it coul have already been on the fish or if you are re using the fish tank....

 

[steve-s]

Cryptocaryon irritans or "ich" does not "appear" through any amount of distress of the fish. It is either present or it's not. It can be eliminated 100% of the time when guarded against correctly and prevented from entering an established system. That means anything wet must be QT'd for a minimum of 6 weeks prior to entering your display system. Corals, mobile inverts, fish, macro alga's, rock and so on. It does not need fish to be transported, only to complete it's life cycle. A UV will not prevent a tank from becoming infested either. At best it will keep the population to a manageable level.

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/marineich.html

 

[BIG-G]

I was at a LFS when i saw a hippo tang that had a very bad case of ich. I noted this to some friends that were with me and i guess the guy that was working heard me say "that fish has ich" and he told me all fish have ich even your fish at home have ich. I proceed to tell him that was not the case when his assistant jumped in and told me that i did'nt know what i was talking about. This really ticked me off, this guy was trying to use this as an excuse to sell an ich infested fish. We left and did'nt buy anything and have not went back to this store. On top of all that this fish was in a central filtration system.
Ich can be kept out of any system with proper quarantine practice. But you will always find some that belive that ich is in every fish and it just takes something to bring it out. Ich is a parasite not a genetic defect. I like to think of it like this. Fleas are a parasite, but you can keep fleas off of your dog with dips and meds or just keeping it inside. But if your dog is put in the same room with a dog that has fleas it will prolly get them also.

 

[burning2nd]

then i guess it would be safe to say, that just cause one fish has ich, doesnt mean the other will have it????


i dont know never had to deal with it

 

[Ashlar]

If one of your fish has ich, assume the others do (or will). Qt'ing inverts, rock, coral, sand (basically everything _except_ fish) for six weeks and separately qt'ing fish and putting them through 6 weeks of hypo will lead to an ich free tank.

 

[Paul B]

I am also of the belief that if ich is not present in your tank, your fish can't get it. I also believe that all fish in the sea and all fish in a LFS carry ich. Thats why "almost" all LFSs and most (if not all) wholesalers use copper in the water. The reason there is a saltwater hobby is due to copper. Before liquid copper was invented for aquarium use there were very few saltwater fish for sale in the US. When you stress fish which they always are in a bag a net or a small tank, it is much more suseptable to ich infestation. I was in this hobby since it started and in the beginning we always had to keep copper in our tanks because all fish were infected and since there were no reef tanks and limited information, the fish were never in great health. We thought they were but we were mistaken.
There is always ich in my reef and it will always be there, how do I know? Because when a fish is about to die either from old age or an accident it developes ich. I have been observing this for over 25 years. My fish for the most part are immune from ich. I don't know why but I wish I did. Last week I bought a fire fish and some type of large goby. The tanks in the LFS where I got them were infested with obvious ich. The fish diden't look too bad because of the copper in the tanks. As soon as I put the fish in my reef they developed full blown ich. The firefish died. I removed the goby and now have it in a spare tank with copper. I am quite certain my other fish will not develop the disease. My tank for some reason is unique but you should quarintine your fish and if they exhibit ich they should be treated immediately. I would use copper because it works in about two days, you can use hypo but the fish may die in the course of the treatment.
For the first ten years or so I lost many fish to ich but now the tank is a reef and I can only assume that the inhabitants are much healthier and somehow be able to carry the paracite but not be affected by it.
I would be very wealthy If I knew why.
Like I said, quarintine your fish or you will probably be sorry.
Have a great day (and don't do what I do)
Paul

 

[Meche]

Cryptocaryon irritans or "ich" does not "appear" through any amount of distress of the fish.

If you had a nickel for everytime you said that. :lol:

 

[steve-s]

If you had a nickel for everytime you said that. :lol:

Actually if I got a penny for every time I heard someone else disagree with it...

 

[8mycash]

A long time friend of mine stated that ich in the wild is almost nonexistent due to so many filter feeding creatures and corals. So the question is, if the statement is true would a reef tank help or hinder the process or ridding the tank of ick?

 

[steve-s]

The instances of this parasite in the wild cannot be effectively quantified. It is most definitely not nonexistent in reef area's but nowhere near the level some exaggerate to either. In any given reef, your looking at 20-30% depending on habitat, fish species etc. Among reef fish populations it is generally much lower than a coastal fish population but in a closed system, it would have no bearing on the parasites levels. As long as fish remain and are untreated, the parasite will persist.

 

[Paul B]

Ich in the sea never kills fish. Ich only kills fish in a confined space. When the ich paracite completes it's cycle, multiplies and falls off the fish to look for another fish it rarely has any luck due to the vast expanse of seawater. In a tank the paracites are confined with the fish and the fish really almost has to get infected if paracites are present.
In a tank there is a fish within every few inches but in the sea there is a fish for every (I am taking a wild guess here) acre of seawater. Most of the sea is relatively barren of fish.
Paul

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Good post Paul. I assume though, that a coral reef is more densely populated than the open sea yet no where near what we cram into a tank.

 

[burning2nd]

(cough cough) waterchange

 

[Paul B]

Mike that is correct. A coral reef has a lot of fish but there is still maybe (guessing again) a half an acre for every fish. If you do any diving on reefs you will see a lot of fish but if you have to go down say thirty feet to a reef where most of the fish are you will see relatively few of them in the free water a few feet above the reef. Also there is vast areas of bare sand between many reefs with almost no fish. There is a lot of water down there making it hard for a tiny paracite to find a host.
cough cough even if you constantly change the water you will have ich paracites in there. They number in the hundreds of thousands in an infected tank, (guessing on the exact number again, I never counted)

 

[steve-s]

With just one infested fish you are looking at an exponential increase of 200 Theronts attacking the fish for each new life cycle of each Tomont. The maturation time being as little as 5 day, 40,000 can emerge from just the first cycle. Keeping in mind that would be ideal for the parasite and conversely not all newly excysted tomonts would make it to the Theront or Trophont stages. Still a boggling number. Just think of potentially how many there could be in a stocked community tank. :shock:

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Mike that is correct. A coral reef has a lot of fish but there is still maybe (guessing again) a half an acre for every fish. If you do any diving on reefs you will see a lot of fish but if you have to go down say thirty feet to a reef where most of the fish are you will see relatively few of them in the free water a few feet above the reef.

Very true, but when one says acre, one is talking about square feet in lieu of cubic feet or volume above. The coral reef fish hug the reef and often sleep in the same locations. This is why so many fish from the wild come in with a few trophonts attached.

OK OK, lets compromise on a little half acre

p.s. My NAUI card says certified open water diver since 1969
p.p.s Some of my best snorkling ever was in as shallow as three feet of water in a coral filled shallow cove at Lawaii Beach Hawaii

 

[auqua man]

Ok I have a question. If a tank has ick will it continue to spread until all fish are dead or can some fish survive for years after with no ill effect.:?:

Aqua man

 

[Herefishyfishy]

I have a good friend with an awesome reef and he has had a tang with ich off and on for years with little ill effect. I have known others with the same. They are Huge VERY healthy well established tanks with perfect water and minimal fish. This is quite the exception to the rule.

 

[Paul B]

Mike that half acre is a very wild guess. I, like you have been diving since the sixtees and I am quite sure you have found many "half acres" of water with no fish. Around New York where I do most of my diving I can find miles with no fish. From what I can tell paracites don't have 20/20 vision and just spread in all directions looking for a host. Most of those directions are barren water.
Steve, imagine the guy who counted those 40,000 tomonts.
Aquaman, ich is not always a death sentence. My fish have been happily swimming along with ich paracites since Jimmy Carter was president. They only show up to the naked eye (I love saying that) when the fish are stressed and fish can get stressed very easily.
It is a very easy disease to cure and you can clean a fish of ich in about two days. That is of course if you can catch the little sucker. Unfortunately, ich is an invertabrate as are our corals, amphipods, copepods and everything else in our tanks except fish so the "cure" be it copper, formalin, hypo, quinicrine hydrocloride, or grenades will kill all of these life forms along with the ich.
Mike one of my best dives was also in very shallow water just a few feet deep in Bora Bora.
Have a great day.
Paul