Ich parasite survival

[DaveG99]

I had a 50 gallon that had 6 fish in it and all died from what I think was ich except my sand shifting goby. So after 4-5 months of running the 50 gallon I set up a 125 gallon and put all my rock in it along with some corals and about 10 lbs of sand to seed the new sand. I also added the goby. I am assuming the new tank has ich in it from the transfer of the rock and the sand and the goby. So I went and bought 4 green chromis and they have been fine with no sign of ich for the past month and a half. And then 2 weeks ago I buy a sebea clown. So far no signs of ich.

1.)Could the ich parasite not have made it over to the new tank?

2.)Or are the fish just not showing signs?

3.)If none of the fish show any signs of ich for a long time is the parasite still in the tank reproducing?

 

[kraze3]

1.) could be yes or no... im not 100% positive if gobies can be hosts for ich or not, ill see if i can find out.

2.) could also be yes or no due to question 1. Also ich is only visible during one stage in its life cycle so they could be infected. Also there is a good chance the ich was not trabsfered because it would have had no host. If the goby cant be a host or if it can
and it fought it off then the ich would be gone.

3.) some say ich is present in our systems at all times and it only takes over fish when they are stressed or sick from something else. Others say it needs to be introduced for our fish to get it. There is no deff answer either way

All in all if your not seeing any signs I would assume your fish are fine. At the same time watch them and keep an eye out for any signs. I wouldnt be worried until I saw deff signs of ich.
Hope that helped some

Good Luck!

 

[kevin2000]

My 02

Sounds like your not qting your new fish additions .. if so then you run the chance of introducing ich from your new fish. Kinda of a Russian roulette thing.

As far as ich from the old tank ..... some fish develop full immunity from ich ... some partial imunity. If your goby developed full immunity then that tanks probably clean of ich and any sand or rock transfers would be no problem. If the goby had partial immunity then ich may have continued to live within the old tank at a nominal (unnoticable level) .. in that case transfering the fish, sand etc. would likely result in transfering the ich.

Its good news that none of your fish are showing signs of ich ... however ich progresses at different rates in each tank .. often dependent on the health of the fish and the potential for any fish to have some built in resistance to ich.