One thing does not magically 'become' another. If it is inanimate (lacking life, like rock or air or fire) it does not become an animal or a plant. A dead fish can break DOWN the ladder to decay, but decay cannot climb UP the ladder to generate a fish, or snail, or algae.
Simple, yes? Basic? yet we have people who walk around saying that you can develop a cold virus from being exposed to 'cold'. Or getting wet and chilled. Nope. You can crash your immune system and develop a cold after being exposed to the virus, but you do not 'manufacture' a virus when exposed to cold air.
Nor do fishes suddenly manufacture ich from being chilled or stressed. Ich is not even as small as a virus. It's a microscopic animal with a life cycle that requires fish juice to grow enough to reproduce. The spots you see on a fish aren't even the ich. They're a pimple containing many ich-lets. The pimples go away when the ich has fed, and drop off to enter the sandbed and mature and reproduce. The majority of an ich-let's life cycle is, in fact, the sandbed, NOT the fish. And it is certainly not produced by a fish getting stressed. What DOES stress do? Stress and bad water take down a fish's slime coat---which provides easy access for a parasite like ich IF IT IS IN THE TANK: keep your alkalinity at a good level.
Just remember: life generates life. Living organisms are not spontaneously generated by a completely different species. Or by conditions like cold. Or because of bad water. Viruses are genetic snippets that have jsut enough genetic bits to get 'clever' about approaching and boarding cells in the host, and hijacking those cells to do a job for them---and often a good deal of mayhem to the host. A bacterium is a whole enemy cell with all its parts, which is capable of invading a host and moving in. That's why antibiotics work on bacterial infections but do not do SPIT against a virus, which ignores the antibiotic. [There is the further division of bacteria into gram negative and gram positive types, which is a distinction important when choosing an effective antibiotic to kill it---or you can just get a 'broad spectrum' antibiotic, which hits both types.]
You are bound to learn quite a bit of biology in this hobby. Solid biology, with no resort to myth and fairyland. You occasionally have to be a vet. And a chemist. And a plumber. Step by step. You don't come into this hobby with all this in advance, but perhaps what I've written above will help you figure out who's giving you sound info in a crisis. The more of biology you can learn proactively, the less money this hobby will cost you.
Simple, yes? Basic? yet we have people who walk around saying that you can develop a cold virus from being exposed to 'cold'. Or getting wet and chilled. Nope. You can crash your immune system and develop a cold after being exposed to the virus, but you do not 'manufacture' a virus when exposed to cold air.
Nor do fishes suddenly manufacture ich from being chilled or stressed. Ich is not even as small as a virus. It's a microscopic animal with a life cycle that requires fish juice to grow enough to reproduce. The spots you see on a fish aren't even the ich. They're a pimple containing many ich-lets. The pimples go away when the ich has fed, and drop off to enter the sandbed and mature and reproduce. The majority of an ich-let's life cycle is, in fact, the sandbed, NOT the fish. And it is certainly not produced by a fish getting stressed. What DOES stress do? Stress and bad water take down a fish's slime coat---which provides easy access for a parasite like ich IF IT IS IN THE TANK: keep your alkalinity at a good level.
Just remember: life generates life. Living organisms are not spontaneously generated by a completely different species. Or by conditions like cold. Or because of bad water. Viruses are genetic snippets that have jsut enough genetic bits to get 'clever' about approaching and boarding cells in the host, and hijacking those cells to do a job for them---and often a good deal of mayhem to the host. A bacterium is a whole enemy cell with all its parts, which is capable of invading a host and moving in. That's why antibiotics work on bacterial infections but do not do SPIT against a virus, which ignores the antibiotic. [There is the further division of bacteria into gram negative and gram positive types, which is a distinction important when choosing an effective antibiotic to kill it---or you can just get a 'broad spectrum' antibiotic, which hits both types.]
You are bound to learn quite a bit of biology in this hobby. Solid biology, with no resort to myth and fairyland. You occasionally have to be a vet. And a chemist. And a plumber. Step by step. You don't come into this hobby with all this in advance, but perhaps what I've written above will help you figure out who's giving you sound info in a crisis. The more of biology you can learn proactively, the less money this hobby will cost you.
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