ThRoewer
New member
Cryptocaryon is often a manageable infection. I had quite a few tanks with it and never subjected the fish to treatment unless it was absolutely necessary (the majority of this was in the days when copper was really the only available/known treatment and I generally killed more fish with copper than I lost due to ich). I never had any losses due to Cryptocaryon in those systems.
Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. If you have a lot of fish to treat and not a hell of a lot appropriately sized treatment tanks at hand you are likely to lose a good number of fish due to inadequately housing and the stress resulting from that.
I also love it when totally clueless people advocate TTM in any case of Cryptocaryon. TTM is ideal as a preventative measure for new fish and as treatment for a small number of fish.
But once you deal with larger numbers of fish that are usually also larger in size TTM is not really a suitable treatment method.
In those cases you either have to rely on copper or hyposalinity.
And then there is the myth that Cryptocaryon is a gill parasite that may be hiding there - that has in fact been scientifically disproven (unfortunately science is these days just seen as an opinion if the findings don't match the agenda/ideology). Burgess found in his studies that Cryptocaryon is statistically equally likely to be found at any water exposed surface of the fish. So if you never see any Cryptocaryon on the skin it is quite unlikely that it is hiding in the gills. (The parasites that actually are primarily gill parasites are Amyloodinium, Brooklynella and of course the various gill flukes.) My own observations would largely confirm that. Even fish with rather significant Cryptocaryon infections would not really breathe much faster than normal. Only in very severe and often leathal infection stages the fish would start breathing faster.
Fish having acquired immunity against Cryptocaryon is a quite common occurrence. I had 3 Regal Angels in my 40 gallon tank (I used it as QT for them) that came down with a serious and escalating Cryptocaryon infection after the last one introduced it. The other fish in that tank, a pair of percula and a pair of Marine Bettas didn't show any infection. So I removed the Regals and treated those with hyposalinity. I refrained from adding new fish to the 40 gallon tank for a bit over a month. None of the fish I added later would get Cryptocaryon and that tank is not only heavily stocked but also with some of my rowdiest fish that bicker among each other all the time - if there was Cryptocaryon in that tank it would definitely show.
In the end every one needs to make an informed decision how to proceed and if and when to treat.
Generally ich should be removed from a system, but not necessarily at any cost. The ideal situation is to never even let it into your system, but that is easier said than done, especially if you have to QT inverts - I lost snails and hermits by the hundreds in my QT attempts with them. At this point point I'm following the procedure that the Steinhart Aquarium uses: new snails get rinsed a few times (in freshwater) and then dumped into the tank. The argument Rich Ross brought up was that parasites really don't like to encyst on moving objects.
With hermits, since they have the habit of constantly switching shells they find laying around, I'm more careful and continue to QT them.
Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. If you have a lot of fish to treat and not a hell of a lot appropriately sized treatment tanks at hand you are likely to lose a good number of fish due to inadequately housing and the stress resulting from that.
I also love it when totally clueless people advocate TTM in any case of Cryptocaryon. TTM is ideal as a preventative measure for new fish and as treatment for a small number of fish.
But once you deal with larger numbers of fish that are usually also larger in size TTM is not really a suitable treatment method.
In those cases you either have to rely on copper or hyposalinity.
And then there is the myth that Cryptocaryon is a gill parasite that may be hiding there - that has in fact been scientifically disproven (unfortunately science is these days just seen as an opinion if the findings don't match the agenda/ideology). Burgess found in his studies that Cryptocaryon is statistically equally likely to be found at any water exposed surface of the fish. So if you never see any Cryptocaryon on the skin it is quite unlikely that it is hiding in the gills. (The parasites that actually are primarily gill parasites are Amyloodinium, Brooklynella and of course the various gill flukes.) My own observations would largely confirm that. Even fish with rather significant Cryptocaryon infections would not really breathe much faster than normal. Only in very severe and often leathal infection stages the fish would start breathing faster.
Fish having acquired immunity against Cryptocaryon is a quite common occurrence. I had 3 Regal Angels in my 40 gallon tank (I used it as QT for them) that came down with a serious and escalating Cryptocaryon infection after the last one introduced it. The other fish in that tank, a pair of percula and a pair of Marine Bettas didn't show any infection. So I removed the Regals and treated those with hyposalinity. I refrained from adding new fish to the 40 gallon tank for a bit over a month. None of the fish I added later would get Cryptocaryon and that tank is not only heavily stocked but also with some of my rowdiest fish that bicker among each other all the time - if there was Cryptocaryon in that tank it would definitely show.
In the end every one needs to make an informed decision how to proceed and if and when to treat.
Generally ich should be removed from a system, but not necessarily at any cost. The ideal situation is to never even let it into your system, but that is easier said than done, especially if you have to QT inverts - I lost snails and hermits by the hundreds in my QT attempts with them. At this point point I'm following the procedure that the Steinhart Aquarium uses: new snails get rinsed a few times (in freshwater) and then dumped into the tank. The argument Rich Ross brought up was that parasites really don't like to encyst on moving objects.
With hermits, since they have the habit of constantly switching shells they find laying around, I'm more careful and continue to QT them.
Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
