NewbyReefer
Member
I have a Ich outbreak in my DT and I'm pulling the fish to QT them. So do I have to pull all the crabs, snails, and shrimp, and put them in there own QT thing or will the ich still go away after 8 weeks?
Can Inverts Carry Ich?
- Thread starter NewbyReefer
- Start date
Exactly correct.
Curious George
New member
I have been working on ich as well. I spoke to a marine biologist/fellow hobbyist this morning on the phone and he said that ich can feed off of the "suction cups" (whatever that means) on an urchin. He said that it has been recently discovered and I know he was dumbing down the conversation to me in lay-men terms to explain it.
Just leads me to ask the question, with all the other stuff in a reef tank, I wonder if there are other anomolies that have yet to be discovered and reason to believe that the parasite can remain active without a fish host.?
Just leads me to ask the question, with all the other stuff in a reef tank, I wonder if there are other anomolies that have yet to be discovered and reason to believe that the parasite can remain active without a fish host.?
If this is true, it would mean having to remove all urchins from a DT during a fallow period. Or, like you said, if there are other non-fish exceptions you'd have to remove all of them as well. That would turn going fallow for Ich into an even bigger nightmare than it already is. One QT for the fish, one for the inverts. Ugh! And what about the QT period for inverts when you first buy them? How long does Ich stay active on a sea urchin? No offense, but I hope for all our sakes your friend is full of **** :sad2:
Curious George
New member
Yeah, I didn't mean to alarm and by no means claim to be an expert. I know there is a lot of BS out there and advice is taken with a grain of salt.
But I know John pretty well. He spent a long time off the coast of Florida and is real familiar with the marine life there. Urchins were one of his "Things"--I do know that much.
On another topic, I have read about a strain of "Ich" that was found in Japanese Ponds with an SG of 1.007. I thought that was interesting--all be it an exception to the common knowledge that Hypo is a cure.
I guess what I was getting at is that Ich seems to very opportuntistic and even worse, extremely adapting to its environment.
But I know John pretty well. He spent a long time off the coast of Florida and is real familiar with the marine life there. Urchins were one of his "Things"--I do know that much.
On another topic, I have read about a strain of "Ich" that was found in Japanese Ponds with an SG of 1.007. I thought that was interesting--all be it an exception to the common knowledge that Hypo is a cure.
I guess what I was getting at is that Ich seems to very opportuntistic and even worse, extremely adapting to its environment.
I know that f/w and s/w Ich are two totally different parasites. I also know that they can't live in the each other's environment, which is why hypo is considered an effective treatment for s/w Ich. I would consider 1.007 SG to be "brackish" and the only Ich that could survive there would be the f/w variety (Ichthyophthirius) since 1.007 is below hypo (1.009). Unless there's another another type of Ich, a "brackish Ich", I'm unaware of.
It would be interesting to know up to what SG f/w Ich can live in. 1.009? Or is there a range in which neither f/w or s/w Ich can exist?
Curious George
New member
^^That is a good point and makes sense in my mind= you have ich in your tank running SG 1.025 and drop to 1.009 to wipe out that strain of ich.
Similar to the difference between SW and FW ich with very little in common other than they both suck.
Similar to the difference between SW and FW ich with very little in common other than they both suck.
MrTuskfish
Team RC
I'm not sure your friend is correct. I've seen more than one well-researched report that concluded that SW ich (Cryptocaryon Irritans) cannot live without fish. Many parasites are host-specific and all inverts have a "meaty" part where an ich parasite could feed. I'd love to see some research on this subject. A Parasiitologist (there are such things) at a big SW aquaculture facility explained this to me years ago and I've forgotten the reasons, but remember the study.
