I am sure that this is the thing that you get yelled at the most on here about, but......What is your experience/perception on ICH???
Yes it is true, this is where the so called "experts" have a problem with me and I did put this on here many many times.
I am old and I have been dealing with ich in my tank, dealer's tanks and wholesalers tanks for decades and I am not a Noob, that is the last guy who posted.
First let me start with this. Ich is a paracite similar to a malaria paracite. When I was in Viet Nam I had to take an anti malaria pill every day and a big one on mondays, if I did not take that pill I was farily sure I would get malaria. The Vietnamese people didn't get malaria and they had no pills and lived in the jungle all of their lives, why is that?
Also I have been to Mexico a few times and I always get disentary and I am very healthy and never even get a cold. I almost never get sick but in Mexico I always do. The Mexican people don't walk around with disentary all day long, why is that?
Because they are immune.
So we determined that people at least can become somewhat immune from paracites.
I believe fish can also. Now why do I believe that?
As you know my tank is old and if you read this thread you know that I add mud, flounders, eels, crabs, snails, seaweed, sponge, anemones and fish from every LFS in NY and have been doing so for decades so shouldn't my fish have ich? No really?
Should my fireclown be 18 years old? Should the rest of my fish be over ten years old including an ich magnet Hippo tang?
Then why are they still alive? Here is where the "experts" are at a loss for words. They say I am lucky and one day all of my fish will die from ich. Really! When will that be? When the tank is fifty? or sixty?
I mean really!
So here is my theory (and it is only a theory) A fish has a fantastic immune system. It has to be fantastic because everything that is in the water is in the blood stream of the fish. We just have to be concerned with what is in the air but bacteria "and" paracites are almost in epidemic proportions in water as compared to air.
But unlike us a fishes immune system is completely dependant on food for it's capacity to protect the fish. We can eat potato chips and drink beer for decades and lay around doing nothing (like many people here) and not get sick. We can even re produce if we are on our death bed and ready to croak. A fish can not. There is a reason for that.
We as humans have one or two babies at a time. The baby starts out as a tiny cell and the Mother doesn't even know she is pregnant because the fetus is so tiny and didn't take hardly any energy to make it. A fish on the other hand has hundreds or thousands of babies and those eggs are all formed at the same time. If you have ever filleted a fish with eggs you will notice that the eggs could take up about half of the fishes weight. It is a huge burden on a fish to have offspring and would be equivilent to a
150lb human Mother having a 77lb baby and having one every month or two. See what I mean?
So I proved that fish are a little different from us. A fish has to be in the best condition it can be in to grow that many eggs and while it is in that great condition, it's "Immune" system is also in great condition and it will protect the fish from almost anything, but the fish must be in spawning condition for that to happen. The eggs of a fish which can be about half the weight of the fish are mostly oil. Yes fish oil. When fish are born they have a yoke sack which is much larger then the fish and it is mostly oil.
Bear with me, we are almost there. Where does the fish get this oil? Well it can make some of it but it is much easier for the fish to make oil if it has oil to start with, so what does a fish do? It eats a large portion of it's diet as baby fish or whole fish.
If you dive, watch the fish. There are fry all over the place near the base of rocks, that is where fish get food from. It is like a candy store. Ever hear that of the millions of eggs a tuna lays only 2 or 3 live to adulthood? Guess what happened to the rest of those millions of tuna? Fish ate them.
OK so I feel if we can get enough of the correct foods into fish that contain oil, they will get into breeding condition and be immune from most things including ich.
(OK experts you can yell at me know and tell me how lucky I am)
There are a few ways to feed fish correctly. Shrimp, fish fillets, squid and scallop is "NOT" the way. Those foods while all good lack oil. They are just the muscle that we like to eat, but we are not fish. Fish need the guts and the bones. The guts is where the oil and almost all the other nutrients are.
A fishes liver is about a quarter oil so a 100lb shark can be 25lbs of oil. 25 pounds. Fish oil is missing from almost all commercially sold foods because it goes bad, even if frozen.
You can feed live worms as in blackworms as I do and I also feed whole clams, or fish eggs and mysis. All of those foods contain the whole animal. Tiny fish would be great but they are hard to come by. I have spoken to "Ocean Nutrition " about that. What we need is tiny frozen whole fish about the size of mysis.
So if you can feed whole foods and if your fish start to either spawn or at least exhibit spawning behaviour, then they are as healthy as they can be and "should" be immune but I will not guarantee it. This is my theory and it works and makes sense to me.
If your fish are prone to ich, I feel IMO that your fish are not very healthy, not in spawning condition and are not eating correctly.
A guy on another forum was practically screaming at me for that statement telling me that his fish are fat and "happy".
I said to him that I had a few fat and happy friends who are now dead.:facepalm:
Remember, my theories, not yours. Noobs, go away. If any of anyone's tank crashes due to ich I will disavow any rememberance of this post or this forum in general. I never heard of you.
This post will self destruct in 30 seconds...............................................................POOF:uhoh2:
See the fry to the left of the nurse shark in the picture my dive partner took in the Caymans? That is a good portion of a fishes diet.
) and I can't help that but the stuff should be sold, not in a bottle because that is just silly, but in a bag like fish come in. Just a small bag of mud, great invention. No one would buy it but me, and I don't need it but if someone ever sells mud from the sea in a bag, buy it.
We are hoping in a few years to be able to move to the east coast. When the time comes I would love to have a tank with the local marine life. It is so much fun collecting and watching things grow. I envy you being so close to the ocean. 
