Possible New Cure for Ick?

"I may try this ginger treatment next time around to see how it goes"


Planning on having more Ick outbreaks? :( :p :p :lol: :rolleyes:

John
 
No if it works I will use it if it donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t with in the first couple of days I will switch back to what I have been doing. I just want to see if the kent stuff is actually worth the money is all.


What Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m doing works 100% of the time.
I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t know if it is water quality, garlic extreme, coral vital, raising the water temp, substituting the garlic extreme will be the only change. Jut a little experiment. It may change my opinion that the way I treat ich being the best and the only way. If it works or not I will post my findings. If and when my fish ever get ich again.
 
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"What Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m doing works 100% of the time"

You're kidding right?

If it worked 100% of the time you wouldn't need to keep doing it......would you.

In my current reef tank I have QT's all 30+ fish in hyposalinity and I have never had ONE ick outbreak.
Now that's what I call 100% effective. :D



JOhn
 
I only have one question after reading the entire thread...

Haven't seen a recent update from Cratylus, why is that?

I'm curious about the outcome with his ginger quasi-experiment.
 
I emailed him yesterday, asking for his results, good or bad. Hopefully he'll return with a comment soon.
 
Originally posted by[name removed by request]
hypo-salinity is very stressful and can kill the fish.
Click to expand...
Is this opinion or do you have some supporting evidence?

Woo and Chung (1995) demonstrated that emporer angelfish could acclimatise to salinities as low as 7ppt with no stress or any other physiological problems. In fact, serum analysis showed that their physiology is essentially the same as any brackish water fish.

Given that hyposalinity treatment relies on a salinity of 16ppt, I don't know how you can support the above statement.
 
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Having waded throught this thread and other threads on UR.com about unorthodox cures for itch, why is it that they work for some and not others?

I have just introduced a regal and kole tang into my aquarium, observing them two days after their introduction into the tank i noticed white spots on both fish. Here we go I thought, later the same day the kole tang had noticeably more white spots.

Bugger i thought, my 1st outbreak, guess what I did to cure it? Nothing, I monitored the fish and guess what? It cured them.

Possible new cure for whitespot. Watch them carefuly and it will clear up.

Sorry for being cynical, to be certain of any treatment 1st there has to be a proper diagnosis, second there has to be a systametic treatment coupled with a control. Anything else is hocus pocus and snake oil.

Alternative medicine is full of claims as to the effectiveness of one treatment or another, faith healing, hypnosis, acupuncture, etc. Often, not always (im guessing that some of the alternative cures actually work in a proveable, repeatable way ) upon proper investigation there is no foundation to the claims, ie the treatment cannot be reliably repeated.

I hope that ginger works, i hope theres life on other planets too. Despite those who claim to have been visited by aliens, seen them etc, i do not believe that there is anyt good evidence proving their exisitence or the benifits of feeding ginger to cure itch.

Glenn
 
By the way the good intentions and initiative have been shoot and given the amount of negatively expresed criticism I have read in this post, I would not blame Cratylus if he no longer posts any up dates and keeps any findings, positive or negative to himself.
 
ditto

ditto

it wouldn't help if you guys are all pessimistic about the matter.

those of you who think that cratylus and his ginger experiment is nothing but B.S. Fine. but dont discourage people to try out the method. remember, its unproven, so it could go either way.

what counts is if it helps sick fish, people and their money. its not "scientific basis" and all those reasons.

for cratylus, keep up the good work man. if it truly works, you could very well be saving a lot of people their time, money and the fishes too.
 
Re: ditto

Re: ditto

macg said:

what counts is if it helps sick fish, people and their money. its not "scientific basis" and all those reasons.
Click to expand...


But thats the point. There is no reason to believe that it helps sick fish, people and their money.

And I think it is important to be skeptical, especially where anecdotal evidence is concerned. If we weren't everyone would be making con men (not saying anyone here is one) rich by buying ionic bracelts, insta diet pills, psych surgery, and magnetic healing bands - not to mention the slew of ich 'cures' currently on the market.
 
Re: Re: ditto

Re: Re: ditto

Lefty said:
But thats the point. There is no reason to believe that it helps sick fish, people and their money.
Click to expand...

for the scientific community (which i am part of) and eventual mass application, yes. did cratylus encourage everyone to try out this method? no. he simply shared what he did and is doing to the rc community.

taken into consideration that this is a forum, and that opinions/skepticism is not at all unallowed, there is still that "Respect" we should always consider.

i am not writing this to support the ginger method although i have used it and have had success on different setups. i am simply after the practicality of the method. why question success? if it works, even unscientific, should it be not used? just my 2 cents.
 
Re: Re: Re: ditto

Re: Re: Re: ditto

macg said:
for the scientific community (which i am part of) and eventual mass application, yes. did cratylus encourage everyone to try out this method? no. he simply shared what he did and is doing to the rc community.
Click to expand...


I agree. I had little issue with what he posted. My issue is the jump others made to 'its a cure'.

why question success? if it works, even unscientific, should it be not used? just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...

Because there is actually no way to tell if there is success. Actually there is evidence that it is not a success. When people do nothing but feed heavily for ich, it often goes away as well. Same with almost all the other ich cures on the market. Sure they work, but so does doing basically nothing.
 
I'll try to be a little more scientific.

I'll try to be a little more scientific.

I'll do a some what scientific test. I have a Atl. Blue Tang Juvi and Red Sea Sailfin Juvi that I got 2 weeks ago on the same day. As of last week I noticed the first sign of ich. I have scooped them both out of my reef and taken samples and put them in the good old microscope (scales, slime, off lips, and gills. I as of yesterday started feeding the AB tang fresh garlic finely minced in his diet and the RS tang ginger not as scientific as with controls but I am using the microscope. Hopefully the RStang from that side of the world won't get better from ginger from there medicine and the AB tang won't get better from mommas home cooking garlic, onions, and vermouth. And as for the guys with the bonghits at the beginning of this string maybe that will be the next new treatment for ich.
 
macg said:
taken into consideration that this is a forum, and that opinions/skepticism is not at all unallowed, there is still that "Respect" we should always consider.
Click to expand...
I just spent the last 30 minutes rereading all the posts in this thread and I saw no disrespect being directed towards Cratylus. I did, see, however, see lots of posts from people who were ready to accept that ginger is the new cure for marine "Ich". I also saw a number of posts from people advising caution as the method was not proven, which seems to be a very reasonable response.

I applaud Cratylus for raising this and for thinking of it in the first place, but also warn people to be cautious. Not because I don't think it works, but because there just isn't sufficient evidence that it does. Even the improvement that Cratylus reported with the purple tang may have simply been timing and the trophonts were about ready to drop off. And, no, I am not being pessimistic, I am being realistic and thorough. Even if Cratylus reports back that the tang is now cured, we still won't know if it was the ginger or simply the fish developing an immunity.

These sorts of reports are always very interesting and are often the way that new methods get discovered. However, until the method is proven, I don't believe we should be throwing out methods that have been proven, such as hyposalinity.

How would it be proven? First of all, we'd need to understand what the ginger is doing, so that an appropriate experiment could be devised. Possible hypotheses could be:

1) The ginger helps the fishes immune system so they can acquire an immunity more quickly.
2) The ginger gets into the blood stream of the fish and directly affects the trophonts when they ingest body fluids of the fish
3) The ginger in the water kills the trophonts, tomonts, tomites or theronts directly

And there could be other explanations. 1) would be very difficult to test without a lab and would involve serum analysis. 2) should be reasonably easy to test as a) the trophonts would drop off the fish sooner and b) they would be dead. Similarly, 3) would be fairly easy to test as you could do it in vitro.

Other questions that would need to be answered are:
* Are there any short or long term side effects?
* Does it work equally on all taxa of bony fish?
* What impact does it have on invertebrates, especially corals?
 
Re: Sorry to be so Ignorant...

Re: Sorry to be so Ignorant...

Figgy said:
But what exactly is Ich? I know it is a fish desease but how do inhabitants get it? Please PM and let me know or just reply to this post.
Click to expand...
Figgy,
Marine "Ich" is caused by a protozoan called Cryptocaryon irritans. The inhabitants get it when you introduce a new fish into the tank that is carrying one or more trophonts (the parasitic stage). After a few days the trophonts drop off and reproduce in the substrate for 3 to 28 days (normally 6-10 days) when the theronts (infective stage) seek out new fish to infect.

Just adding one fish with one or more trophonts can result in all the fish in the tank becoming infected. This is why it is a good idea to quarantine all new fish for at least 6 weeks.

See: Marine "Ich" for more information.
 
ATJ said:
I just spent the last 30 minutes rereading all the posts in this thread and I saw no disrespect being directed towards Cratylus. I did, see, however, see lots of posts from people who were ready to accept that ginger is the new cure for marine "Ich". I also saw a number of posts from people advising caution as the method was not proven, which seems to be a very reasonable response.

I applaud Cratylus for raising this and for thinking of it in the first place, but also warn people to be cautious. Not because I don't think it works, but because there just isn't sufficient evidence that it does. Even the improvement that Cratylus reported with the purple tang may have simply been timing and the trophonts were about ready to drop off. And, no, I am not being pessimistic, I am being realistic and thorough. Even if Cratylus reports back that the tang is now cured, we still won't know if it was the ginger or simply the fish developing an immunity.

These sorts of reports are always very interesting and are often the way that new methods get discovered. However, until the method is proven, I don't believe we should be throwing out methods that have been proven, such as hyposalinity.

How would it be proven? First of all, we'd need to understand what the ginger is doing, so that an appropriate experiment could be devised. Possible hypotheses could be:

1) The ginger helps the fishes immune system so they can acquire an immunity more quickly.
2) The ginger gets into the blood stream of the fish and directly affects the trophonts when they ingest body fluids of the fish
3) The ginger in the water kills the trophonts, tomonts, tomites or theronts directly

And there could be other explanations. 1) would be very difficult to test without a lab and would involve serum analysis. 2) should be reasonably easy to test as a) the trophonts would drop off the fish sooner and b) they would be dead. Similarly, 3) would be fairly easy to test as you could do it in vitro.

Other questions that would need to be answered are:
* Are there any short or long term side effects?
* Does it work equally on all taxa of bony fish?
* What impact does it have on invertebrates, especially corals?
Click to expand...
Excellent post ATJ.
 
I think not

I think not

After trying to study these fish one more time I realized there is no way these fish will live through this. I think the tried and true method will work best.
 
john f said:
"What Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m doing works 100% of the time"

You're kidding right?

If it worked 100% of the time you wouldn't need to keep doing it......would you.

In my current reef tank I have QT's all 30+ fish in hyposalinity and I have never had ONE ick outbreak.
Now that's what I call 100% effective. :D



JOhn
Click to expand...

Since I found how to treat Ich in my reef tank successfully I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t worry about QTââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s.
The last time my fish got ich was wen I added a clown tang that had ich, all the fish got ich in my tank. I treated the tank the way I always had when this happens and the ich was gone in three days and never came back, itââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s been over three months at this time. The ich is gone it will only come back if itââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s introduced by adding another fish with ich..


I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t see a problem with QT ing a fish and treating with hyposalinity.
But if a fish is in a weakened state and already in a reef, this may be too stressful in this situation.

Letââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s say if some how all your fish in a large reef tank got infected how would you treat this?

How would you get all the fish out of the tank?

What we need is a way to treat the fish in a reef tank that works.

That is what I think everybody wants.

Is there a treatment that has been proven to treat ich in a reef tank?

Also has anyone had success treating ich in a reef and not afraid to share their findings?

What if someone has had success treating ich a number of times and just wanted to share what they had found to help someone else trying similar tactics.
Why are these people crucified for only giving up information about their findings and what they had tried?

What should be done is to take in all the knowledge that can be gained from all hobbyists that are finding new ways to keep reef aquariums and fish.

Thatââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s what Reef Central is about.
Itââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s not here for someone to be able to say look how smart I am.
Or I am the authority on aquariums and I know everything because you donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t.
No one can know every thing.
Otherwise they wouldnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t spend all day and night wasting time planted in front of their computers.
:cool:
 
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