Practical Aquarium Significance: What does all this mean to an aquarist? As can be seen from the previous discussion, body slimes are eminently important to fishes. Stress to the fish can and does occur by affecting body mucus amount or viscosity, and vice versa.
Aquarists should be especially careful when netting their fishes. Commercially, we never touch fine scaled fishes with our hands. If a fish drops to the floor, pick it up with a wet net or towel and try to preserve the integrity of the animals slime layer.
Metallic ion medications among other types act as proteinaceous precipitants, making the fish produce more slime as irritation increases. Concerning the fishes, the copper ions (as well as malachite green) sold as marine and freshwater ich remedies act as an irritant to the skin and gill membranes of fishes, which in response produce copious amounts of mucus to protect these tissues.
If disease organisms are present on the gills and skin, the mucus produced engulfs the organisms. When the mucus is sloughed off, the disease organisms are lost as well.
Under high dosages or prolonged treatment with such medications, a loss of fish livestock results from direct uptake of medicants and mucoid production so great as to impede gaseous exchange by the gills and skin. Much of these free metal ions can be found even in fresh tapwater. Some water treatment products are designed to make aquarium fishes more slimy to protect against such irritation.
