ICH - Can You Live With It? Plan of action/opinions needed (did everything right)...

[laga77]

Where does this statement come from and what methodology was used to arrive at this conclusion? I've seen it stated as fact on here more than once and it is kind of like proving a negative. Where's the study?

Here I will post this link again. Go to #14. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2213228

 

[ThRoewer]

I live with it in my tank and it hasn't been an issue for me in several years. That said, I avoid fish like Hippos and powders that are known to be very sensitive to it.

FWIW, you're not the only one I know that has experienced this same scenario. I will just leave it at that.

Same here, though I avoid all tangs - period!

Yours isn't the only "did everything right and still got ich" tank. I think it happens a lot more than we like to think. You probably won't ever know how it got in, and I'm pretty sure that a lot of people who claim that their tank is ich-free are full of it. Not all, but a lot. People with strict qt also tend not to feed cheap food, and stock mindfully, so who knows? It's total speculation.

My qt is way more about catching brook / velvet / uronema etc. than ich. But I don't see any reason not to do easy stuff like ttm, if you can keep it low stress. I think a lot of fish die from qt stress and we just chalk it up to them being weak and are happy they didn't infect the dt when actually they would've been fine if they were put straight in.

I really don't think there's any right answer, except that all those "ich blaster exxxxtreme" potions at the lfs are scams.

+1
the 72 days fallow will kill it is a rather unsubstantiated myth that is just based on one scientific observation which by no means precludes longer times. To my knowledge there has been no exhaustive testing that would justify such claims, yet it is preached like the word of God.

I'm pretty sure there are ich strains that can hang around for much longer than 72 days - I would wager a bet that there are some that can lay in wait for a year until next years monsoon season stirs up the mud again and weakens the fish enough to be susceptible for a new rounds of infections.

I also don't think this is all by statistics or chance. I rather think that an ich cyst might actually be able to detect if there's a fish in its vicinity and only pop then. Others may react to changes in temperature or dissolved oxygen as it may indicate a storm. Should this be true, it may make all fallow procedures pointless.

IMO, if you absolutely want an ich free tank you need to sterilize it reliably and then only add fish that have been through TTM at least twice. Any coral with exposed skeleton or hard base may bring it into your tank. Same goes for shrimp and crabs, thought they should be clean after a molding.

Aerosolized water droplets containing ich has been shown (in the scientific literature) to enable infection of adjacent tanks. I recall it was something like 1-2 feet these droplets can traverse... However, ich cannot live without a host, so the idea that ich is floating around everywhere in the air is nonsense (unless there is an infected tank nearby).

The aerosol transmission, while certainly possible, would likely require a heavily infested tank with a lot of very sick fish. Otherwise the odds for a parasite making it into a droplet and then to another tank are rather small.
The reports of these occurrences came either from an ich research lab or a fish farm where I could imagine this to be a realistic problem. In a home setting, unless the tanks are right next to each other and use airstones for circulation, I see it as a rather remote possibility, especially if there is no big outbreak in one of the tanks.


As for the original question:
My system has ich in it for sure and I rather immunize my fish so they can handle it than have totally clean fish that may get overwhelmed easily should ich one day make it into the tank

 

[jmm]

Here I will post this link again. Go to #14. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2213228

Thanks for the link. I read it and I admire the work and conclusions. However, the author of that post lists studies on Atlantic salmon and juvenile turbot. He admits experiments have not been run on reef fish. He states a precautionary principal is the reason for not feeding foods that contain terrestrial lipids to marine aquarium fish. I agree that, since there are many other foods available that it would be easy to not use these as food in your aquarium. I probably wont.

However to say that all terrestrial sourced plants are harmful to all marine fish is a presumptive extrapolation and is not scientific (as are the studies mentioned). I'm not disputing the work done, just being skeptical of the conclusions extended beyond the scope of the experiments.

And I don't really want to hijack this thread that started out on something else.

 

[skp]

I'm not even sure if ich is a guaranteed killer. I feel it's more of an outside sign of a highly stressed or sick fish. I highly doubt a big fat happy fish would die from ich alone. It might lower the threshold of how much stress/sickness a healthy fish can take though.

I don't think it's a guaranteed killer too but I saw that it only takes one weak fish for the ich to take advantage of and then explode in population and cause even healthy fish that are the least prone to ich die from it.

 

[nuxx]

I don't think it's a guaranteed killer too but I saw that it only takes one weak fish for the ich to take advantage of and then explode in population and cause even healthy fish that are the least prone to ich die from it.

True :fun2:

I guess it all just goes back to keeping your fish as healthy as possible and keeping stress low in your tank.

I have a feeling that even in a completely clean tank say a 125 gallon system with 6 tangs QTed with TTM/Copper, you're going to have health/death issues more so than a larger tank with 6 tangs and ich present in the system.

 

[nuxx]

Ok so some massive stress in the tank the last few days.

Started a little over a week ago with the Crosshatches not eating as much.

That transitioned to the Crosshatches not coming out at all and also the super male Flame Wrasse never coming out or eating either, along with badly nipped fins.

I knew the Yellow Bellied Blue Tang was a terror, but this pretty much made up my mind to pull him.

5 hours later...

The chase was long and the Yellow Bellied Blue Tang was beyond stressed. I guess today or tomorrow we'll see if ich was really in the system with that much stress being put on the tank yesterday.

This morning everyone was out and about and eating in the display...

 

[andregarcia_73]

I have a 240gal and have lost it all to ich. I started over and got myself an emperor aquatics uv as well as medicated foods etc. I swear by this stuff

And i aslo use vita chem by boyd as an additional vitamin/supplement. This has worked wonders for me. I have 3 tangs no ich one is a blue hippo and i plan on adding a yellow belly as well. I also have a few wrasses and some eels. Hope this helps

 

[andrewkw]

So did you ever confirm you got ich again? Hope this is not a hijack but your thread reminded me a lot of my own situation although I am not as stringent as you..

I'm starting to think I have it in my system again. I ran it fallow for 72 days, tank transferred my fish, treated the only one who actually had visible spots with copper and put them back in. I now see 4 spots on another fish.

Between tearing the tank down and catching the fish I killed 3 fish and lost a few corals and lost 0 due to ich itself so I'm thinking of just leaving things for now (still have to confirm it's back). When I upgrade tanks or move I'll treat them again since I will have to tear it down at that point unless fish actually start breaking out.

Full disclosure I did add corals since that were not qt'ed for 72+ days. Like you I lost corals waiting in fallow and bought some nicer pieces I did not want to see waste away. In addition I waited until recently to tank transfer my leopard wrasse despite the fact he was exposed to ich months ago due to the hassle of needing several small sand containers. The other fish went back before him, so if this is indeed ich its more likely they got it from him then the 2 pieces of coral I have added since that did not go through extended qt.

 

[nuxx]

So did you ever confirm you got ich again? Hope this is not a hijack but your thread reminded me a lot of my own situation although I am not as stringent as you...

I don't think I had it...

Tore the tank apart to get the Yellow Belly Blue Tang out and chased the fish for hours. He was breathing harder than I've ever seen.

Days later no spots on him or in the display.

 

[nuxx]

Of course added a Achilles and a few other tangs after a few weeks of paraguard + prazi and 5 weeks of Cupramine at .5 and I think I see a spot on the Achilles haha...

They've only been in the tank for a week and a half and there is still some aggression (nipping, tail slapping), so it might just be a small wound... but with it being an Achilles I'm 100% more worried.

Before the new tangs, no signs of anything from the time of this thread.

I don't see any flashing or scratching through.