Ich in the wild?

[Gobie]

No, I would have to hit the lottery, I would need to buy a bigger house. My 180 looks ridiculous in my living room. I always get ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œthe tank big enough?ââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ comments. :lol:

 

[boxfishpooalot]

fwiw, In my experience fish seem to scratch(the begining stages of ich) when the salinity drops rapidly, even if only very slight. When the salinitiy balances out again, they stop scratching.

Anyone experience this?

 

[zemuron114]

i see convict tangs scratchign a lot while i dive in Hawaii. I have never seen it actually on the fish though. Im a firm believer that ich is always present in a closed system.

It is hard for fish to ge ich in the wild because they have an infinitely large area to swim (relatively speaking) If they drop the parasite in one spot and swim a mile away, most likely they wont get it again...

but in a closed system there is no place to go besides where they dropped it.

Even if it is completely barren, i think the fish always carries it around, but only unhealthy fish show the signs.

just my thoughts from reading and experience

 

[jnarowe]

That seems to be a common view but I have never seen that in a book on fish disease.

 

[salty joe]

I was under the impression that keeping a fish infected with ich long enough in hypo-salinity (at least two complete life cycles), and the ich is gone.

I've read, can't remember where, doing this with all fish and QT EVERYTHING else at normal salinity, for six or eight weeks I think, a display free of ich can be achieved.

My experience has been pretty much what Gobie describes, but I don't think it has to be that way.

Running a QT like this will take patience and discipline, but I think it would be worth it.

Joe

 

[mcintosh]

TU KU "The real trouble comes from the purchase of a new fish, a healthy fish that has never been exposed."

I would like some more information on this. What is your source? The assumption is that fish in the wild do not get ich. I can say, (and a friend of mine has photo's to prove it) that saltwater "ich", "white-spot" whatever you want to call it, is common in the ocean. Tangs have it and get it constantly so your thoery that fish that have it will always have it and don't get it again"like chicken pox" would not make sense as I have seen fish (specifically tangs) that have it. Yet, when caught and subjected to stress they get it again.

"As soon as the regular tankmates meet the new one they become stressed and release this chemical like we have adrenaline and with that they release the ich into the water to find itself a new healthy host."

Again, a statement like this I would love for you to point me in the direction of where to find the tests done to prove this. I would like this information to pass on to everyone around my club.

"To avoid this I always recommend that you acclimate any new tankmates at night or in as dark of conditions as possible. Far less action for them to focus on."

I agree, most saltwater fish we keep bunker down for the night and this is normally the best time for us to add new fish that have been properly quarantined.

Youngsilver and Travis L. I believe that it has been well researched and proved that fish that have not shown signs of "ich" (ie Trophonts) after a period of roughly 40 days are "ich" free as the life cycle on ich will have completeed its due course. That is the reasoning for quarantinin at least 6 weeks all new additions.

I would definitely recommend anyone with questions on ich read the link wazbot supplied. It includes citing of information and also debunks mythinformation passed along on message boards.
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/marineich.html

 

[jnarowe]

Thank you for your post and the link. They were both very informative!

 

[Johnsteph10]

"Ich" (most commonly C. irritans) is more common in our tanks because

1. Our tanks are closed, small systems
2. The ocean is neither
3. Their are a lot of fish in the ocean, hopefully not in our tanks.

 

[Youngsilver]

i base my beliefs on anecdotal evidence from fellow reefkeepers due to the idea that there are 57 million variables in the uncontrolled experiment that my fish call home I think that the controlled experiments used to disprove the myths about different things can't completly tell me exactly what I need to know about my tank and its inhabitants.

however, I found this, which is pretty interesting scientific data:

Is "Ich" always present in our aquaria?

There is a widely held belief in the marine aquarium hobby that "Ich" is always present in our aquaria and this belief is often repeated on marine bulletin boards. There is much information in the scientific literature that contradicts this belief.

C. irritans is an obligate parasite (Burgess and Matthews, 1994; Dickerson and Dawe, 1995; Yoshinaga and Dickerson, 1994). Obligate means the parasite can not survive without infecting its host, in this case, fish. Theronts have been shown to die if a suitable host is not found within the required time. Yoshinaga and Dickerson (1994) found that few theronts (0.34%) were viable 12.5 hours after excystment and Burgess and Matthews (1994) found that no theronts were viable 18 hours after excystment. Colorni (1985) found that some excysted tomites (=theronts) were observed to be moving weekly after 48 hours. While the life span of the theronts appears variable, it is limited and all will die without finding a suitable host.

If an aquarium has no fish in it, and there are no additions of fish, or anything else that could be carrying trophonts, tomonts, tomites or theronts for a period of 6 weeks or longer, all parasites will have died. An aquarium such as this is an obvious exception to "Ich" always being present.

Many fish collected for marine aquariums will not be carrying "Ich". Incidence of C. irritans in wild fish varies widely and may be geographically related. Some authors have found few infected fish, if any, in the areas they have examined (Puerto Rico: Bunkley-Williams and Williams, 1994; southern California: Wilkie and Gordin, 1969) . Others have found that low levels of infection are not uncommon (e.g. southern Queensland; Diggles and Lester, 1996). Keeping multiple fish in holding tanks and at aquarium stores increases the chances of a fish carrying "Ich" parasites, but it is still possible to acquire a fish that is not infected with "Ich".

If new fish are quarantined for at least 6 weeks, any parasites on the fish will have gone through a number of life cycles increasing the number of parasites present. In the majority of cases, the increase in parasite numbers will result in full blown infection and fish can be treated to remove the parasites. Hyposalinity has been demonstrated to break the life cycle of "Ich" (Cheung et al. 1979; Colorni, 1985) and fish correctly treated with hyposalinity will be free from "Ich". Any fish that do not show signs of infection after 6 weeks are very unlikely to be carrying any parasites.

If fish that are free from "Ich" (either because they were not originally infected or because they have been treated with hyposalinity) are added to an aquarium that is free from "Ich", the aquarium will stay free from "Ich" and be another exception to "Ich" always being present.

Burgess and Matthews (1994) were attempting to maintain a viable population of C. irritans which could be used in later studies. To maintain the parasite populations, they needed host fish in order for the trophonts to feed and continue the life cycle. Each host fish was only used once in a process of serial transition such that none of the hosts would die or develop an immunity. While the procedure worked very well and enabled them to maintain populations for some time, the viability of the populations decreased with time and none of the 7 isolates they used survived more than 34 cycles, around 10 to 11 months. They suggest this is due to senescence and aging in cell lines is well recognised in Ciliophora.

The presence of aging cell lines in C. irritans suggests that an aquarium that has been running for longer than 12 months without any additions is unlikely to have any surviving "Ich" parasites, yet another exception to "Ich" always being present.

Whilst "Ich" may be present in some aquaria, it is certainly not present in all aquaria. Through careful quarantining and treatment, it is very much possible to establish and maintain an "Ich" free aquarium.




Does stress cause "Ich"?

Stress and poor water conditions do not cause marine "Ich", although they will lower a fish's resistance to infection and impair their immune system. If C. irritans is not present in a tank, it doesn't matter what how stressed a fish may be, it cannot get infected. In a tank where parasites are present, stressed fish are more likely to show signs of "Ich" before more healthy fish, but the healthy fish are just as likely to become infected as the numbers of parasites increase. Those fish species that are less susceptible to "Ich" or those individuals that have an acquired immunity, may show no signs and may not get infected.

Quote taken from http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/marineich.html

 

[wazbot]

That quote is from the article I posted a link to, further up the thread...
a good read, Andrew Trevor Jones (ATJ) really knows his stuff, and has the references to back up his data

 

[jnarowe]

geez, and I thought it was just deja vu.

 

[Drewpy]

i had a major outbreak of ick last spring--- removed and treated all the fish for 6 weeks with cupramine (copper) and left the tank fallow 8 weeks....
I have never seen a spot on a fish since...
Well actually i have a coppebanded in QT right now with ick--but he came with it mail order -- and he will get at least a 4 week treatment ..
I will never go through that in my display again! (knock on wood)

 

[mr.wilson]

I saw a documentary about ten years ago where they removed all of the parasite eating fish and invertebrates from a reef in the Caribbean. It took them a few days to remove what they could. Within a couple of weeks of doing so, all of the fish had either died or moved to another reef.

It goes to show that if fish can't survive without cleaner organisms in the wild, how can we expect them to survive in our tanks without them.

There are quite a few cleaner fish and invertebrates found on wild reefs. They are obviously filling a high demand, so ich is likely quite prevalent in nature. Although I don't think it is fatal in the wild.

 

[tunaluver]

and these parasite eating fish would be? i would like to know.. i dont want to have the same problems ive had with tangs in the past. i want to get a sohal tang and want him to have every chance he can

 

[mr.wilson]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6959634#post6959634 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tunaluver
and these parasite eating fish would be? i would like to know.. i dont want to have the same problems ive had with tangs in the past. i want to get a sohal tang and want him to have every chance he can

Many parasite pickers are not suitable for a reef tank or captivity in general. Some "doctor fish" are juevenile angels of the Holacanthus genus (blue, queen, french and grey angels etc.), juvenile wrasse of the coris genus (clown, yellow, and african coris wrasse etc.), cleaner wrasse, neon gobies, and sharknose gobies.

Some cleaner shrimp are skunk, fire/blood, peppermint, anemone and coral banded shrimp.

You need to select parasite eaters that adapt well to artificial foods and being in a closed system where they are exposed to the entire life cycle of the parasites that they consume.

 

[enamdjd]

I believe that a biochemist/immunologist needs to create an antibody to attack a crucial surface protein on the ich parasite. This would theoretically eradicate the pest in a closed community. If you wanted to take it a step further, it would be nice to stimulate a fish's immune system of to create an endogenous antibody to neutralize any internal forms of this parasite. This would require time and money, which I believe the present pharmaceutical companies are not willing to invest. However, it certainly could make for a great doctoral research project for any immunologist.

Dr. A

 

[jimmyj7090]

IME ick can be eradicated if done right.

Assuming were talking crypto, 6 weeks of hypo treatment will kill or at least prevent all or a very high percentage of the 1000's or whatever amount of orginisims from surviving.

I treated all my fish with hypo for about 7 weeks and kept the display fallow for about 10. That was 142 days ago and I haven't seen a single spot since.

Before that I did a similar procdure about 2 yrs ago. Again I saw no spots for many months. I added a new fish after a 3 wk QT but as soon as I put it in the display with the bright light I saw a couple of spots, caught the fish within an hour and put it back in QT. The purple tang in the display began to show a few spots about 11 days later (as I expected based on the life cycle as I understand it) Hence the more reccent treatment described above. The purple tang I had for the first treatment went to a fellow reefer and is also still clean.

In the ocean you may have a million ICK organisims but it's spread over just as many gallons of water that's moving around all the time. In the tank you have a million organisims on 20-200 gallons of water.

In nature any given fish hosts a parisite now and then and that's that. The fish gets a bug or two, then swims miles away and the parasite drops off somewhere in the trip. If the fish is weak or really stressed it could become overcome. Otherwise they don't have a problem.

In the tank all the fish are faced with a ton of the parisite with no where for the fish or the parasite to get away from each other. Thus in the tank You get fish being massively infected and killed vs a super low stage level of infection in the ocean.

The fishes abilbity to survive parasites at low stages of infection in the ocean only confers with the experience of many that fish can not be affected by the parasite much at all as long as their systems are very low stress, but that when distrubed or stressed the fish sometimes do show symptoms.

Yes fish can carry low levels of infection and survive, but IME/IMO the parasite can be eradicated so that stressful events will not bring out the parasite again at all. If the parasite is managed through minimal stress but never fully eradicated you will see reinfection after stress events, leading to the perception of fish getting ICK and never being able to lose it.

All just my opinion, but adding it for conversations sake.

jk

 

[jnarowe]

very interesting stuff though... thanks!

 

[Steven Pro]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6947535#post6947535 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mr.wilson
I saw a documentary about ten years ago where they removed all of the parasite eating fish and invertebrates from a reef in the Caribbean. It took them a few days to remove what they could. Within a couple of weeks of doing so, all of the fish had either died or moved to another reef.

It goes to show that if fish can't survive without cleaner organisms in the wild, how can we expect them to survive in our tanks without them.

There are quite a few cleaner fish and invertebrates found on wild reefs. They are obviously filling a high demand, so ich is likely quite prevalent in nature. Although I don't think it is fatal in the wild.

Both cleaner wrasses and cleaner gobies eat almost exclusively gnathid isopods in the wild, not ich. About 3/4 of their diet is these isopods, the rest being scales and mucus that come off with the isopods.