Lets talk about Ich

[antonsemrad]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9092850#post9092850 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by thriceanangel
There has to be a biological predator of the Ich parasite that keeps it in check. Everything has a predator unless its at the top pf the fod chain. Seems to me if someone could figure out what microbe eats Ich, they'd save countless fish, and line their wallets too. I know cleaners will eat some, but something has to nab it in the free swimming stage. Has anyone looked into this?

What about corals? A reef tank with alot of corals and good water flow seldom have problems with ich. Think zooplankton.

I suspect that cyst stage of the parasite is long live, longer than we may think because most parasitic cyst stage are meant for protection of itself from unfavorable environmental i.e. lack of food or transmission.

Is this true? I, Too, think along the same lines when it comes to trying to keep ich out of a reef tank.
But according to some, (that know more than I) ich is constantly stressing the fish without it being visable to us, and that it is quite possable to keep ich out of the tank, if you keep that in mind from the begining.

 

[Paul B]

I mean even if I am perfectly healthy I can't stop mosquitos from biting me.

You can't stop mosquitos from biting you but I know when I was in Viet Nam we had to take anti malaria pills every day. If we did not we got malaria. The native Vietnamese people got bit by the same mosquetos but they diden't get malaria. Malaria is a paracite like ich and those people have an immunity. If you have ever gone to Mexico and gotten Montezuma's revenge from the water as most Americans get you will wonder why the Mexicans who drink the stuff every day never get it.
You can build up an immunity from paracites.
Paul

 

[ddoering]

Ok, this is a combo post, so here goes:

Philwd - do you have a link to that post/study about the parasites dying off after so many generations? I'd like to revisit it and it might be interesting reading for other people on this thread.

gophia - everybody has 3 types of herpes... remind me to avoid women from Montreal If everybody already has these viruses, why do kids still end up getting chickenpox? I think this is a bit of an overstatement on the prevalence of herpes... many people may carry multiple strains of herpes, but I don't think it is that rampant. Also, there is a difference between carrying it and being a vector that can pass it on. Viruses can be crystallized and remain viable pretty much forever, they aren't really alive so as long as something doesn't destroy them, they are still around. Parasites are easier to get rid of in an environment because all you have to do is interrupt the life cycle somewhere, and they die out.

jmicky41 - I believe part of the immune response in fish is developing a thicker mucus layer, which can prevent the parasite from being able to latch on and bite. If you could grow a thicker skin you wouldn't have to worry about mosquitos biting you Maintaining this thicker mucus layer comes at a cost in terms of energy to produce it, so if there is no parasite in the environment, the fish will then stop producing the extra mucus and then become susceptible to infection again. They aren't developing anti-bodies like you would for a viral infection, but it is still an acquired immune response which makes them resistant to parasitic infection.

firewill65 - things to keep in mind that I think are mentioned in this thread. Is the time you are leaving your main tank fallow (without fish) from when you put in the live rock and live sand and any other thing that my contain resting spores/cysts of the parasite a long enough time for those cysts to all hatch out and then die off after not finding a host?
The quarantine in a separate tank, are you planning on doing this 6 weeks in hyposalinity? Are you going to dose copper? Many people have fish that show no signs externally that may still be hosting parasites, so just keeping it separate for 6 weeks to monitor for an outbreak is no guarantee it doesn't have some parasites which will then make it into your display. I think this is the main problem with quarantine, developing an effective quarantine procedure to make sure no parasites get in. A lot of people are of the opinion that it is more hassle then it is worth because they can't guarantee no parasites are getting in, and so chose to focus on maintaining healthy fish who can fight off the parasites on their own.

Paul B - but the point is... you are still getting bit by the mosquitos which are an external parasite in the environment. The malaria parasite which is carried by mosquitos the native people may have immunity to, but they still get bit by mosquitos.
People can develop an immunity to a parasite, but how do you keep from getting bit? Our immune response doesn't have a way to prevent getting bit... but fish can create a thicker mucus layer on their skin to keep things out. Imagine if we could excrete deet in our sweat... that would keep us from getting bit.

thriceanangel - well, marine ich is a ciliate protozoan from what I've read... what do we keep in our tanks that eat protozoans as a main part of their diet? In the ocean zooplankton eat protozoans. I thought corals mainly ate zooplankton prey items, so tanks with lots of corals may actually be more likely to have everpresent ich since the corals would be keeping the protozoan's predators in check. Then again, healthy systems with lots of corals also usually do a lot to try and encourage zooplankton to feed their corals, so they would also be breeding things that eat protozoans accidentally Some people try to culture ciliates as a food source for larval fish and larval crustaceans. So I would think breeding populations of shrimp, and lots of pods would be good to keep "ich" in check.
Anybody know if sponges or clams or some other "filter" feeders prey on protozoans?

Also, maybe skimming can kill the free swimming parasite stage of marine ich, but it would also be killing the zooplankton that feeds on the protozoans... so maybe overskimming helps ich survive in aquariums by cleaning out the predators.

Just my 2 cents.... or 1.50 as it may be.

Doug

 

[thriceanangel]

maybe thats one reason new tanks get ich far more frequently. The tank could be otherwise stable, but without a growing reproducing established pod population, there aren't enough predators to keep the ich at bay. Seems like when a new tank gets Ich, ALL the fish get it and many die. When an established tank gets ich, it subsides and the affected fish dies or recovers, but it's not as much an entire tank event.

 

[superedge88]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9097985#post9097985 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by thriceanangel
...Seems like when a new tank gets Ich, ALL the fish get it and many die. When an established tank gets ich, it subsides and the affected fish dies or recovers, but it's not as much an entire tank event.

Good theory, though I have seen the same type of thing happen in large Fish Only systems that are regularly treated with copper.

 

[Paul B]

DDoering, I don't understand the analogy. We can't stop mosquetos from biting us and we could not stop lions from biting us either but the point is, if the mosquetoes bite us and there are no effects then who cares if they bite us?
If ich attaches to fish but does not affect the fish in any way then why care?
There is ich in my tank and it has been there for almost 40 years but if I don't see it and it does not bother the fish why would I care?

 

[thriceanangel]

superedge88 I don't get your last post. Are you saying FOWLR or just FO. And if you are, then how mature were the tanks, and what have you seen in them... That a mature tank has less mortality concerning ich? Or the opposite?

 

[ddoering]

Hi Paul,

The reason you would want to stop the parasite from biting you is to prevent the parasite from using the bloodmeal to create a whole new generation of parasites to bite you tomorrow. This is to prevent the nuisance of getting bit, and also to prevent the parasite from breeding to where it gets to be in plague proportions. Its like fleas. A dog getting bit by one or two fleas is not an issue. Let the fleas take up residence in your house and soon your dog will be chewing its fur off and you'll be getting bit all over as well. Even though I'm not worried about getting a disease from the flea bites, I'm not inviting them to live with me.

Also, getting bit by the parasite can lead to secondary issues. In the case of mosquitos this could be malaria, or west nile. In the case of the fish in your aquarium, getting bit by the parasites can lead to secondary bacterial infections. Healthy fish can handle getting bit by the occasional parasite because the damage done by small amounts of bites is something they can recover from, and their immune systems can handle and prevent the secondary infections.

Ok, I'll play Devil's Advocate on this one and respond to the following:

"If ich attaches to fish but does not affect the fish in any way then why care?
There is ich in my tank and it has been there for almost 40 years but if I don't see it and it does not bother the fish why would I care?"

First, you started this thread talking about how you have Ich and your fish live healthy lives, but you see problems with new additions and also see your current fish succumb to Ich when they are dying or when they get stressed (carpet diving). You state you have lost a lot of fish to Ich over the years, but you don't see the entire tank getting wiped out and usually your fish recover.

So you do see ich, you know it affects your fish, and you do care.


You yourself don't practice quarantine procedures, but you warn others that they should quarantine.

You also mention that this is a favorite topic of yours.

All the above being said, I would question your logic on some of your assumptions:

1) Your healthy fish succumb only when they are dying? Do you think that the Ich in your system is hastening their demise along? If ich was not present in your system, would these same fish have lived another 6 months, or a year?

2) You state that if a fish lives a week in your tank, it usually lives a long life. Maybe you have such success with your fish in your display being healthy in spite of the Ich because you are pre-screening for robust individuals. If you ween the population of weak individuals out at the beginning, the remainder will live long healthy lives.

3) Why is this a favorite topic of yours? What are you trying to get out of the exchange of ideas with people on this board?

Do you think that people go to too much trouble quarantining for ich when it is something that if you practice good husbandry to keep your fish healthy will pay better dividends?

Do you think the quarantine procedures people use are not good enough to really prevent the introduction of the parasite, so why bother? Or are you demonstrating that people may have ich even though they don't think they do, and are trying to educate people so they can look into figuring out a better quarantine procedure that would really work?

Cheers,
Doug

 

[firewill65]

Can someone explain the quarantine procedure to me...If I purchase a new fish, I'm supposed to keep him in a seperate tank for at least 6 weeks, right? What am I looking for in those 6 weeks? Would it be possible for the ich to be present on the new fish and never see it while in quarantine? Will ich not reproduce if there is no substrate in the quarantine tank? I'm confused...someone please simplify this for this newbie! Thanks!

 

[ddoering]

Hi Firewill,

If you haven't gone through the links from the thread that billsreef posted (http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=282934) that would be a place to start.

That thread has links to some articles on WWM that go through details of different quarantine procedures.

The quarantine procedure you follow depends on two things mainly:

1) your monetary resources for setting up the additional tanks for quarantine

2) your patience

If you can't afford a couple smaller standalone tanks for quarantine, then a big saltwater reef tanks is probably out of your budget as well.

Most people stumble on #2, they want to get the stuff into the display to enjoy and may cut corners on the length of quarantine.

I think the quarantine tank should be as clean as possible, a bare bottom tank (no substrate) with maybe a couple pieces of large diameter pvc pipe to give the fish a place to hide. Bare bottom is good because you can easily siphon detritus from the bottom to keep the tank clean during the quarantine period, as well as it lets you see if anything is shedding from the fish like the cysts, or flatworms, or anything else that would normally not be seen if you had substrate. The substrate would also absorb chemicals if you are treating with copper, so that can affect dosing requirements etc. Also, between times that the quarantine tank is necessary, it is easier to clean out and store if you aren't having to deal with substrate. Fish won't care if there is no substrate.

I'd really give the links to the quarantine procedures from the thread billsreef linked to, give you a good starting point to start planning for quarantine.

Cheers,
Doug

 

[Paul B]

Doug, let me try to answer some of those questiuons. Ich is one of my favorite topics because although it is a well understood paracite there are still many theories on why some fish get it and which don't.
As for my fish living longer if ich were not in my tank, I don't know. I do think my fish live out their normal lifespan in my tank in spite of ich. One lived 18 years and most of them live ten or twelve. I really think that is a good lifespan for a fish and ich may even helped them live that long by boosting their immune system but of course that is just conjecture.
I meant I lost many fish to ich twenty years ago, I have not lost any fish to ich since then unless it was covered with ich when I purchased it. The first week for a fish in a tank is crucial because of the stress and possable drugs the fish was collected with.
I tell people to quarintine because I remember when my fish were not "immune" from ich, I had a very hard time keeping them alive as we all did in the seventees.
The purpose of the thread is to see if my tank is unique or if there are many tanks out there where the fish seem to be immune for many years. I am trying to find out what it is that makes a tank immune where some tanks seem to be always having ich problems.
You are correct I do care for my fish but mostly for the knowlege I get from them. I don't name them or think they are intelligent. I eat fish almost every day. I have been at this a long time and like to learn from my own experiences and the experience of others. My tank was started before there was an internet or many books. There were no experts and I did not know anyone else with a salt tank so the tank evolved on it's own. I believe it is different than most tanks because of it's age and the fact that it was a fresh water tank that evolved into a brackish then a salt tank.
I am just trying to find the key to a tank where ich does not affect anything so I can possable tell others.
Have a great day.
Paul

ps as for quarintining I am of the belief that fish always carry ich (or some other paracite) so I used to quarintine them in copper for ten days.

 

[billr]

What an ichy subject............

 

[superedge88]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9099271#post9099271 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by thriceanangel
superedge88 I don't get your last post. Are you saying FOWLR or just FO. And if you are, then how mature were the tanks, and what have you seen in them... That a mature tank has less mortality concerning ich? Or the opposite?

Sorry it took so long to reply. I am talking about 10+ year old systems that while they don't hav"live rock" they have plenty of nooks and crannies that pods and critters can fluorish. I was just saying that I have seen these tanks still get wiped out on occasion by ich despite the pod population (thought it could be argued that maybe the "right" pods weren't present)

 

[ddoering]

Hi Paul,

OK, well if we are looking for what might be the cause, do we want to qualify what would be considered as a similar situation to you in the fish appearing to be immune or have a great deal of resistance?

To qualify for success, would you state the fish have to live through 5 years without succumbing to ich?

Do we only want to consider tanks where we know ich was present at one time, either by old fish showing ich when they die, or occasionally some fish showing slight ich and then getting better? I think we would want to rule out tanks where ich has never been observed because those might simply be tanks where there is no parasite due to dumb luck, or great quarantine procedures.

I think it is going to be very hard to compare apples to apples on this, as there are so many variables to consider to know if somebody has a similar situation.

The theory that successive generations of the parasite get weaker and weaker and then may die out or go dormant in a closed environment, this makes it harder to know if you are seeing long periods of dormancy because the parasite has disappeared from your tank, and you are then reintroducing it with new fish or possibly introducing new cysts with corals etc.

What is the longest period none of your tank fish have shown symptoms to when you have seen either an old fish die and show Ich, or one get overly stressed and show signs of ich where you haven't possibly introduced ich back into the system from previous new fish/frag etc? Not sure if this makes sense the way I mean it, but I'm curious if you are always adding to the tank and possibly reintroducing the parasite.

In the thread you mention using NSW, which is a possible source for contamination, new fish being introduced are sources for reintroducing the parasite, etc.

If there is never a really long period where you are not introducing a possible vector for reinfection of Ich, then we can't really say whether ich is able to maintain a population below visible levels indefinately in a closed system.

There would still be the curiousity of why you are so successful at maintaining healthy fish that don't get overwhelmed by parasites.

Have you ever tried to confirm if your fish do or do not have a low grade parasitic problem? One of the WWM threads said you could see the parasites if you take a slide of the fish mucus by rubbing them with a slide.

What in your environment could be helping to control the parasite? If it is always present or always being reintroduced, what keeps it from getting out of control in your setup?

Do you use a UV sterilizer?
Do you use a Skimmer? (Does all overflow water go through the skimmer, or just parts)
Do you have a DSB or at least a well populated shallow sand bed in your display that might have some cleanup critters that eat the cysts before they hatch?
Do you maintain a high flow rate that might keep the cysts in the water column to where they get skimmed out before they can divide and hatch into the free swimming stage?
What kind of corals do you maintain? Maybe these corals are capturing the free swimming stage as food items and helping control them, or maybe they are releasing a chemical in the water (aleopathy) that is naturally controlling the parasite?
Do you have a good supply of reproducing zooplankton type things? A refugium with lots of pods/shrimp hatching out that might be scavenging the ciliates as prey items?
What is your feeding regimen for the fish? Tangs are supposedly ich magnets, if you have tangs, are you doing anything specific on their diet - supplements, growing ulva/gracilaria for fresh food?

Just some things to think about... don't know how you rule one out over the other unless you could set up controlled experiments.

Cheers,

Doug

 

[Paul B]

Doug it is true that I diden't do any controlled experiments. The last time I introduced ich was last week. I purchased a large goby which developed ich a day after I put it in my reef. It was in copper in the dealers tank and as soon as it was removed from the copper it developed ich. In my reef it was completly covered with paracites and I knew it would die so I put it in copper for a couple of days. The paracites are gone from that fish and it is in my reef good as new. This week my moorish Idol showed some paracites, no doubt from the new infection I introduced with the goby. The paracites on him seem to be gone although I know they just went through their cycle and are still in my tank. None of the other fish show any disease. My fire clown is almost 12 years old and never showed any ich neither did any of my gobys which are only about two years old. The longest any fish did not have any paracites were a brutolyd eel which went 18 years and a hippo tang which was about 10 or 12. I do introduce raw NSW many times a year along with freshly collected sponge and macro algae, crabs, clams snails amphipods copepods etc. I know there is plenty of ich in there and I am curious why the fish do not get it, or if they do, why it does not seem to harm them to the point of death. I only have LPS and soft corals and no UV. I do use a skimmer with ozone and I have a RUGF.
I feed mostly frozen foods like clam, oyster, mussell, squid, sponge and all the foods that I mentioned that I collect. I also feed live black worms and newborn brine shrimp every day.
I also do not have any trouble with tangs although I don't have any now. I have had yellow, hippo, naso, sailfin for many years with no ich. I am thinking it may just have something to do with the health of the animals and the fact that they are always in breeding condition. I doubt there is anything in the tank that eats paracites but it also may be the New York NSW that has something to do with it but I have no idea what that could be.
I have no refugium and the flow rate is about average.
As to lifespan, all fish should live longer than five years and all of mine do unless there is an accident. I have not lost a fish to ich in over 20 years but I do introduce it all the time. I have discussed this with so called experts in the field and they just tell me it's impossable. That is not really an answer. There is some anomaly in my tank and I would like to know what it is. I think it may help many people in this hobby.
Paul

 

[Paul B]

Something interesting concerning ich happened to my tank last week. It goes along with my theory that if there is ich in the tank the fish will get it when they are in bad shape from an accident or some other happening that severly stresses them. I started a new thread about this today but I will copy it here since it pertains to this topic.

I almost lost everything. (I still may) Last weekend my wife and I were away on a day that was seven degrees. Our electric went out when we weren't home which is usually not a big deal but the heat also went off. My home is well insulated but when it is seven degrees it does not take long for things to cool off. My tank went down to about 60 degrees and I don't know how long it was like that.
My moorish Idol was laying on his side gasping and the copperband butterfly was not much better. I raised the temp and noticed ich starting to be noticable on the moorish Idol. I know there is ich in my tank and was always in there, especially because I put in a goby a couple of weeks ago that I had to remove to treat. Anyway, the next day I was sure I would lose the Idol since he was breathing very hard and having trouble swimming. I don't have a large extra tank so the only thing I could do was fresh water dip him in fresh water and formalin. The next day the spots were blurry looking which is the way they look after a fresh water dip. Of course he was still not the healthiest so I did it again. That was a few days ago. Today he seems fine and is eating like always. The only difference is that because of the ich he lost some of his fins due to a secondary bacterial infection that usually accompanies ich. The copperband also seems totally "cured" although I did nothing to him. Many of the smaller gobies lost some fins and one was so covered with ich that I don't know how he was swimming. They also seem fine except for some lost edges on their fins.
Lowering the temperature is one really big cause of stress and in that state fish will succomb to almost anything.
I also ran a diatom filter on the tank all week. The other strange effect is that I now have a hair algae bloom. It is not on everything but in some places it is two feet long. Really wierd, but interesting.
One more thing. I don't advocate fresh water dips for curing ich. It is only a treatment meant to remove some paracites to make it easier for the fish to breathe. It will not cure a fish. Only copper and a few other less well known medications will do that along with the fish'es immune system.
If I can nurse them back to the state of health that they were before all will be fine. I actually went out looking for new fish because I really thought they were goners.
I set up a tank with copper for the gobies but I couldn't catch any of them so they are still in there.
I also know the life cycle of ich very well and I know that they are just waiting to complete a cycle to re-infect the fish so it is a race to get the fish healthy before that happens.
Anyway, Have a great day.
:dance:

 

[Philwd]

Good luck Paul. We're rooting for you.

 

[Pyrrhus]

Paul, have you always kept gorgonians in your tank? I remember reading an article about chemicals gorgonians exude which have curative properties in fish. I believe the article was in coral magazine.

From what I remember when fish were sick they would visit a particular gorgonian more frequently, and those that did visit the gorgonian had lower mortality and fewer disease issues than those that didn't.

You have a lot of gorgonians in your tank, more than probably 99% of reefers out there. Gorgonians filter feed and are known to exude certain allelopathic substances, I think that is the difference between your tank living with ich and others not.

Unfortunately, since the gorgonians were certainly compromised by the temperature along with the fish, the ability to produce these chemicals may be limited.

Best of luck to you getting through this.

 

[Paul B]

Skip, that is interesting, I do have a bunch of gorgonians and I always had the feeling that they exude something. I don't know if it does anything for ich but I think it affects the rest of the soft corals. Since I started putting in more gorgs a few years ago, the rest of the LPS corals did not look so good. I may start just putting in more gorgs because I am kind of partial to them anyway and they grow fast. I just like the look of them.
I have to look up that ich thing, If you find it, let me know.
Paul

 

[Angel*Fish]

Paul -

First, I'm sorry about your recent accident, I hope there is minimal damage.

Second, I just have to say that your posts on this thread are some of the most intelligent & sensible posts I've ever read here on RC.

Third, pyrrhus beat me to the post about the gorgonians - when I saw your pics, I immediately thought of that article. ...I may remember incorrectly, but I think it was by Ellen Thaler -- I like her because she's willing to publish her anecdotal observations instead of conservatively waiting until there have been 10 studies proving it first. I personally have never seen any of my fish hovering about my gorgonians as she described, but I do have what appears to be the same gorg and it also looks similar to some of yours.

Fourth, gorgonians aside, I think you are on to something. Nobody ever dies of ich in my tank. Except for several problems I had when the tank was new. Note: I was not new, just the tank. And ummm....I don't usually quarantine, I isolate, but usually in the same system.

Fifth,
Your statement... "If you do any diving you will see very healthy looking fish, quite different than most captive fish. They are more alert and their scales are clearer. Fish in a tank are always stressed..."...is key, IMO, the vast majority of reefers
do not have a clue what a healthy fish should look like and behave like. Which leads them to keep fish under conditions of high stress leading to>>>>>>disease, of course.

As for the gorgonians if they do release something that helps fish, maybe it's a substance that calms them down, reducing their stress level as opposed to something that actually kills parasites/pathogens. That would be nice IMO, because it is inhumane to keep animals in situations that stress them literally to death. Tons of reefers are doing this without a clue. (If I have to tell one more person not to keep a flame angel in a 20, I will s-c-r-e-a-m.)

Bottom line - there are so many factors, and they make your point difficult to prove, including the possibility that the combination of all these factors may be "the thing". Still I think, I agree with you there is a also a "mysterious" X factor we haven't identified yet.

One of my gorgonians