Deinonych
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:thumbsup:
Also, comparing a parasitic infection to a viral infection is specious at best.
Ok now I am completely confused about ich
- Thread starter kenpau
- Start date
:thumbsup:
Also, comparing a parasitic infection to a viral infection is specious at best.
Exactly.
kenpau
New member
I just find it strange that out of 18 fish the hippo is the only one to display symptoms. All fish (except the tang) have been back in the DT for over a month now, plenty of time for ich to appear on at least one fish.
kenpau
New member
Very interesting post Erica, definitely food for thought. I completely agree that there are way too many variables to be conclusive about anything with ich. We just don't know enough about the parasite.
With my TTM, chances are I did something wrong, but then out of 18 fish, 17 are showing no signs of ich.....so maybe it's not ich.
If it's Lymphocystitis then it may go to show that the TTM method is not stress free on fish, especially the more sensitive species.
Also (and don't judge me here) I went fallow for 3 weeks the second time around, no signs of ich over a month after reintroducing my fish. Now I'm not condoning a 3 week fallow period but that is barely enough time for ich to complete it's life cycle, so what does this mean? Different strains? Who knows but again I agree there are way too many variables to be conclusive about anything with ich.
Maybe not. The hippo, along with Achilles and the powders, are incredibly susceptible to ich. Magnets .... canaries .... It's entirely possible your other fish may never show symptoms. If I were you, I'd treat the hippo in QT, get it cleared up, observe for another month; then, assuming your display remains clear, reintroduce it and see what happens. You'll know pretty quickly whether the display has ich.
kenpau
New member
Is it possible for a fish to have ich and never show symptoms? The hippo isn't going back in my display, I'm treating it in my QT and then it's going back to the LFS. I do intend to add a Yellow tang though, and although the zebrasoma genus is less prone, it's still a tang! So I'll see what happens.
I suspect the answer is yes; but all I can say for sure is that it's possible for a tank to contain the ich parasites and have asymptomatic fish.
Bent
I got nothin'
Very true.
kenpau
New member
If this is the case then how to we know any fish have ich? You may think there is no ich in your tank but one fish is a carrier, so then you go through TTM/Quarantine with a nice new Achilles Tang, put it in the display and it will still be exposed to ich.
I guess it would be similar to a human having Malaria but never showing any symptoms of the disease, just being a carrier and spreading it about.....scary thought, like a zombie movie kind of thing!
I've never cycled my QT, I do use filter media but make regular water changes as dictated by ammonia/nitrite levels. The ammonia in the tank this morning is extremely low, I tend to do water changes in my DT once a week and twice a week in my QT.
I made the point earlier in this thread that while 'it is clearly possible to have an ich-free tank, I suspect that most tanks have it lurking somewhere'. It may take a suceptible fish to reveal the parasite. This is also why I have changed my approach to Qt from one of passive observation to active, prophylactic treatment.
kenpau
New member
Well I agree on all counts with you here, as you said before, there are worse things than ich that we're trying to keep out of our display.
There's the misconception from some people that ich is always present in our tanks, this misconception may be because fish can be 'silent carriers', so it's not necessarily the water/rock/sand that is the constant carrier but a single fish.
So next question.......if fish really can be constant carriers, do fallow periods work? Obviously in some cases they will, but in cases where there is an ich carrying fish present, once the carrier is reintroduced to the display, ich is back in the display. This may be what happened in my case, I went 73 days fallow, then introduced a Hippo tang that had been through TTM and it got ich, so perhaps one of my existing fish is a carrier.
So in this case the 'frowned upon' method of feeding up fish and letting them deal with it themselves is my only real option, as I don't know which fish is the carrier as none are displaying any signs of ich. It's either that or euthanise all fish and start again, which obviously isn't going to happen.
I will give an example. Back in 2013 I was QTing a quartet of Bartletts anthias. Was subsequently unable to resist buying a purple tang and made the poor decision to add it to the Bartlett tank. PT soon, predictably perhaps, showed spots. I quickly removed it to HT. But what to do about the anthias? I chose to observe them for a further month. Showed no symptoms so I figured I'd dodged the proverbial bullet. Subsequent to adding them to my display, hippo started showing spots periodically (though no other fish did). Those are my facts; interpretation yours .....
BTW, by 'no symptoms' I don't just mean spots, but the kinds of behaviors one might expect from either skin or gill irritation (flashing, swimming in front of pumps).
BTW, by 'no symptoms' I don't just mean spots, but the kinds of behaviors one might expect from either skin or gill irritation (flashing, swimming in front of pumps).
I am not possessed of any scientific evidence; my views are simply lay-speculation
. I do not know if it's possible for a fish to be an asymptomatic carrier of ich in the long term. Can it 'en-cyst' for longer periods of time waiting for a suitable host. I'd think probably not otherwise fallow tanks would never work. I've never fallowed a tank, but if I did, I think I would employ more 'active' treatments than TTM. Latter doesn't work for me anyhow, because I travel too much for my job.
kenpau
New member
Hmmmn, that's interesting - and discouraging If a fish can 'carry' dormant ich then it calls into question most (all?) ich treatments because as I understand it they all attack the free swimming stage. Maybe Steve can offer a dose of common sense and insight here .....
Maybe it's just that the recommended approaches to treating ich mostly work, but that nothing is ever 100% and u-know-what happens
If a fish can 'carry' dormant ich then it calls into question most (all?) ich treatments because as I understand it they all attack the free swimming stage. Maybe Steve can offer a dose of common sense and insight here ..... Maybe it's just that the recommended approaches to treating ich mostly work, but that nothing is ever 100% and u-know-what happens
kenpau
New member
Hmmmn, that's interesting - and discouraging
Maybe it's just that the recommended approaches to treating ich mostly work, but that nothing is ever 100% and u-know-what happens
I think that's what it boils down to, fallow periods, TTM, hypo, copper all work provided you don't have a fish that is a carrier, if you do......Well there's not much you can do except keep a healthy stress free tank, which is what we should all be striving to do anyway
Hmmmn, that's interesting - and discouraging
Maybe it's just that the recommended approaches to treating ich mostly work, but that nothing is ever 100% and u-know-what happens
Tank transfer does not attack the free swimming infective stage, it eliminates ich by obviating the back end of the life cycle such that the infective stage never exists. However all other treatments do work on the infective stage. The possible exception may be chloroquine phosphate which may attack other stages of the life cycle including the infective stage.
