<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7701223#post7701223 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Jeffie
You can take a healthy fish that has been thru the treatments to erradicate crypto and move him to a stressful situation(water quality stability, space, ample territory, aggression, etc.) and more then likely the fish will end up with ick again.. there's many reasons why ick gets set off. In a properly maintained healthy system you should never see it.
Doesn't mean that once you put a fish thru the treatment and erradicated the pest that it will never come back because it can.
Jeff,, wasn't it you that awhile ago mentioned the large aquarium you work for puts all incoming livestock through hyposalinity treatement and since doing so have not had any issues?
i mean why bother, just keep a healthly system and you would never see it..
if it wasn't you then i got to find out who it was that uses that quarantine method.
heck,,every time a fish is netted, and there probably isn't anything more stressful than that, ich should just appear,,no?.. many many fish i have netted 2-3 times within same day and i have never seen existence of the parasite.
part of the lifecycle is visible to the eye. as the parasite grows from gorging itself on the fishes body the area where the parasite has attached will become visible..hence the white spots that are so common.
i have been keeping FO tanks for the past 9 yrs in all sorts of conditions. NH3 levels over 100ppm for years, no skimmer, temp swings all over hells creation, salt levels up and down,
stress from:incompatibility, extreme temps in qt's that hit over 100 and another that went to 62, stuck in filter intakes, stuck in powerhead intakes(hippo tang of all fish to reference), jumping out of tank falling on floor, tank maintenance, netting, dipping, bathing, overfeeding, underfeeding, other diseases, scaring the heck out of them, you name it,,i have done it more than once.
i had one case of ich in that time that i can remember and that was a hippo tang that i had introduced..
funny thing..now that my tank water is far more stable,cleaner, less fish, i have been battling ich for 13 str8 months.
in case you're wondering,,i added 40lbs of LR that was ich infested..10 days later my fish are visibly infected.. this tank had no ich sightings for at least 3 continuous years.
there are variables that i agree with that can keep the parasite population from exploding. that's not the discussion here though. eventually if ich is in the system and unless the system is extremely large and very unpopulated you will see something over the years.
the parasite comes from the outside to inside the flesh of the fish...the lifecycle moves along and feeds off the fish then exits and forms a cycst on possibly anything. the cyst ruptures after a number of days of muliplying tomites, finds a host(non-invert) cycle begins again ..this goes on and on..
if you kill the parasite in any of it's 4 stages it can not continue to the next part of the cycle..the dang thing is dead..
the difficult part of eradication is killing all of them..
if you treat an infected fish in QT with copper for 3 weeks and do not notice the parasite for 6 weeks after you noticed the last evidence of the parasite, then you can be reasonably sure..talking 99% or greater the fish is clean. you mention it can come back,,then your agruement would need to be either.
1. the parasite can just grow from within the fish's body at any time and or...
2. the parasite can just manifest itself from the presence of water
you're gonna have to elaborate on the "once eradicated ich can come back theory" a bit.. any type of reference you can locate would be of most interest..i got to see that study for my own eyes that would totally void the need for quarantine.
also..for the argument that the gills can be infested thus not being able to see the visible indications of infestation, you will notice behavioral characteristics that the fish is infested with something in that area..
basically i can say that after dealing with this current strain for over a year, i have witnessed both the varying indications of the parasites existence as well as the physical breakdown of the fish after repeated attacks.
i have also noticed that it is not easy for an overall healthy fish to be overtaken,,they can endure multiple attacks over a few months. what i have noticed is that as the fish slowly breaks down the parasite eventually manifests into the gill area..hence this was not the 1st place of attack,,but typically the last along with the eyes. once that happens the fish will need pretty drastic intervention on the hobbysist part to help out. basically the fish slowly suffocates to death.
BTW: did i mention i am an "Ich Eradicator" and am on a
"QUEST TO BE ICH FREE" Let the quest continue....................
