are some fish immune to ick

jmc357

New member
ive had 2pairs of clowns and chromis for almost 2 years any time i try to add a new fish thy seem to get what i think is ick within acouple of days but never bothers my original fish never any luck so i havent bought a new fish in awhile until the other day tried my luck with another yellow tang again. this morning i noticed a tiny white speak
72 gallon bow
20 gallon sump
salinity 1.026
ph 8.0+-
ammonia 0
nits 0
cal 420
anyway my tanks been flourishing nicely and i hate that i cant add new fish
will post pic of tang
 
You need to set up a quarantine tank and leave your tank fishless for 8 weeks. That will solve your problem. Inverts, corals, all ok to be in there, but the parasite has a 6 week life cycle (something like) and 8 weeks fallow will starve it out. But you then need to quarantine every new fish purchase for 4 weeks before putting it into your tank. Within 4 weeks, any infestation will show up and you can treat it safely in a quarantine tank (small bare glass tank, with filter and heater, frequently tested, fake coral ok in it, or pvc pipe).

To answer your question, the open water swimmers like tangs and angels are most susceptible; the bottom-dwellers least so, with some natural defense, but in an infested tank, most anything is likely to get it.

Up at the top of this forum, marked with an *, is a thread on ich that will tell you more than you ever wanted to know.

Feeding your tang chopped garlic may be some help to him, but most of all he urgently needs to be lifted out to a quarantine tank and treated with hyposalinity.
 
I don't think I've seen any articles/documentation/studies stating that any fish are actually "immune" to ich but I'm sure some are more susceptible to ich moreso than others as Sk8r said. Sk8r, have you seen any studies on immunity to ich in fish?
 
Read this article, it has some of the best info on ich. According to a study if leave ur tank alone with no new additions for a year the ick will have played itself out due to aging cell lines. Of course that does ur tang no good as he doesn't have the immunity ur other fish have.

here is the article:

http://atj.net.au/marineaquaria/marineich.html
 
I have read that article. Curious, if anyone has personally experienced ich ultimately dying out on its own after 1 year of introduction into the display. I have read this theory in multiple sources, but i have yet to have anyone claim that they personally experienced this occur.
 
I am going to try it if I can manage to keep my fish alive that long. I tried to catch them and the only one Ive been able to get so far was my tang. The others will not go in trap and are to fast for the net so far.
 
I too am going with the live with an infested tank approach and have done so successfully for about 4 months or so now. Things you may already know, but the key to success here is: (1) maintain excellent water quality; (2) feed your fish the most nutritious food.

In this regard, regular water changes and use of carbon, GFO, etc is highly recommended. As far as feeding, I would soak food everyday in a vitamin supplement, add garlic to the mix, and if not already doing so introduce new life spectrum pellets into your feeding schedule which are highly nutritious. I also think that UV is useful here in that I feel it at least keeps the ich parasite count down in the system and helps to increase redox and overall water quality. Lastly and probably least popular here, there is one potion that I find helpful. There is a product made by Tropical Science called Marine Max which is marketed as a priobiotic tonic consisting of bacteria designed to crowd out the ich, antioxidents, and vitamins. It is by no means any cure for ich, but since I started using it I found my fish showing far less symptoms. It is completely safe to use because it consists of only bacteria, vitamins, and antioxidents. If you look around the web, you find others who have used it as a means to assist in the control (not a cure) for ich. I have been using it for the last month or so and noticed a significant improvement with far less flashing and no spotting on my fish (was getting some spots before on my pinktail trigger, who since using this stuff has been spot free and flashing only occassionally now).

Finally, I think the major hurdle is getting your fish to recover from a bad outbreak. After that, I have found that they seem more resistant as time passes, and although still infected, show less behaviorial and visual signs as time passes, perhaps suggesting that the fish immunity improves and/or the verilance of the infestation becomes less based on the idea that you can only have so many generations of a single strain, or a combination of both.
 
Hey Stuart, Good info.
Thanks, will try some of those. I have been soaking food in garlic and selcon. Just got some spectrum A+ or something like that. Will look for the Marine Max.
 
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