TTM..who started it, how is it proven?

B

BlackTip

Active member
So many people here swear by TTM as it is the only sure way to get rid of ich. I brought it up with a public aquarium curator, and he said he never heard of it. I brought it up with a successful LFS owner, and he said he doesn't believe in it.

What is the history?

Did anyone do a controlled experiment, and is there scientific proof that it actually work?

I am assuming companies did controlled experiment with copper and cupramine, let me know if I am wrong.

I am not being a smart a$$, I am genuinely curious. There are so many scientists here, and I am sure this question came up before.

P.S. What I meant by controlled experiment is someone started with infected fish, did TTM on the fish alone, isolate the fish, inspect the fish with microscope or other scientific means, and discover that ich was gone.

Thanks,
 
lol good luck trying to find any controlled experiments for most of the understood rules of the hobby. There are some, but at best most of it is extrapolated from other literature that wasn't intended for the reason it's being used.

You should probably spend a solid hour just searching in the disease forum, where there are cited literature extrapolated to explain how and why TTM works. But that's likely the best you are going to get.

Even some of the "academic" or "scientific" studies that are done that we see on RB or other sites are frequently pretty high level and not directly applicable in the context you are applying above.

I too am not being a smart a$$, I'm just sharing my observations from having an interest in this exact subject, and coming up short more often than not in the hobby. I think because of the complexity of the organisms, the ecosystem, and lack of funding on subjects directly related to hobby-level application, there just isn't much of the literature of the quality that you are looking for available to us.
 
TTM = Tank Transfer Method.

It is using multiple tanks to transfer fishes back and forth to at intervals that should break the life-cycle of the ich parasite. (short answer).
 
TTM is the tank transfer method. You can read all about it in the Fish Disease section of the forums.

I'm a noob myself, so I can't really answer the original questions, but based on the life cycle of the Ich parasite, it makes sense that it works, but as far as published tests and where it originated, I have no idea.
 
Let me give you the gist and some places to read so you can extrapolate for yourself.

It is based on the lifecycle of the crypto parasite (since ich is a parasite not a disease) . It targets the stage of the parasite where it is dormant on the sandbed and tnagentially when it is free swimming, not when lives on the fish (the white dots). It does this by the known lifecycle of the parasite e.g it spends x days free swimming and y days attached to the fish and z days dormant on the sand.

Here is the extrapolated logic: every time you move the fish you are leaving the dormant parasites and free swimming parasites behind. Each move increases the statistical probablilty that there is 0 parasite left until eventually you reach a near 100% probability (since you can never actually get 100% in any treatment).
This same logic works with the fallow period for treating a Display Tank: The longer the tank remains fallow the more likely that the parasite has left the dormant stage gone to free swimming and died for lack of a host.

Here are some links to info:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2390640
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1990809
 
^^^
Thanks for your response. I am familiar of the parasite life cycle and I have read some of articles is the past. What I was asking for is whether the theory is proven. Yes, it make sense on paper, but is it proven?
 
It is proven by years in the hobby and knowing the ins and outs of the parasite life cycle. Though by true definition no not proven as fact. It would be in the theory category with substantial evidence to its side but not definitive proof.
 
People do ttm to fish with ich all the time to get rid of it. I would be surprised if anybody then dissected the healthy fish to be sure. The thing about theories is they don't get proven, they get disproven. One would look for a fish that went through ttm and still had ich. It's like how nobody has "proven" gravity, but they also haven't observed things fly into the air either.

Large aquariums are run totally different, lots of bioballs and fowlr. They are often way behind the hobby. Carbon dosing, peroxide, kalk, and a bunch of other stuff that works really well for us is foreign to most public aquariums. It's the diff between running a zoo and having a pet dog, or how you go to a special vet for farm animals that's diff from the dog n cat guy. The farm vet isn't going to be on top of the pet game.

Lfs would rather people bought medicine and replaced their fish. Similarly, the R&D departments of major suppliers of ich treatments like cupramine don't have much incentive to use their labs to "prove" ttm.
 
CStrickland said:
People do ttm to fish with ich all the time to get rid of it. I would be surprised if anybody then dissected the healthy fish to be sure. The thing about theories is they don't get proven, they get disproven. One would look for a fish that went through ttm and still had ich. It's like how nobody has "proven" gravity, but they also haven't observed things fly into the air either.

Large aquariums are run totally different, lots of bioballs and fowlr. They are often way behind the hobby. Carbon dosing, peroxide, kalk, and a bunch of other stuff that works really well for us is foreign to most public aquariums. It's the diff between running a zoo and having a pet dog, or how you go to a special vet for farm animals that's diff from the dog n cat guy. The farm vet isn't going to be on top of the pet game.

Lfs would rather people bought medicine and replaced their fish. Similarly, the R&D departments of major suppliers of ich treatments like cupramine don't have much incentive to use their labs to "prove" ttm.
Click to expand...

That's actually a myth. Gravity is proven, which is why it's a law. The explanation of why is where the theories come in.

Not that my reply has anything to do with this conversation.

Carry on. :smack:
 
on that note I can't say if it is scientific proven, but it work for me couple of times. I brought 3 fish on several different occasions with ich from my LFS and it work everytime. Now I don't think it is guaranteed to get rid of ich, but the odds are very high it will. To me it's much safer, as with copper it has to be at 0.5ppm, not 0.4ppm to work effective, and 0.6ppm you are at almost toxic levels for the fish. Hypo-salinity needs to be at .009-.010 to be effective, anything above that, it's not working, anything below that is dangerous levels for the fish. It's hard to just them 2 options. Just my 2 cents.
 
So remember that most "proofs" in the world are statistical not physical. I can prove 100% that "a body in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an equal or greater force" aka the Newtonian laws of physics. Outside of the core sciences (e.g. chemistry and physics) we have a lot more things which are theories simply because they can not be proved outside of a certain statistical confidence level.

I see what you are looking for in that you want a paper that says this is 100% true by an icthiologist (sp?) or similar other expert. Any study though would only be statistically proving the truth behind it unless they tested every fish in the world you are not 100% proving it to be true. The science which shows why it works is the closest you get to the 100% certainty. We know that H20 breaks in to O2 and H because that is proven. Similarly we know the lifecycle of ich so we know that TTM works. The knowledge isn't perfect though which is why you only reach a statistical certainty of success and there is no "5 transfers is 100% effective" rule.

TL;DR: You are seeking a study that gives statistical truth and I do not think those exist. The Medical (aka scientific truth) exists but it not perfect enough to be a law... Call it a theory. There are many accepted truths which are theories simply because they can not be proven in a replicable test. If you have the money to do that replicable test for TTM you would be doing the hobby a service in shushing the naysayers once and for all!
 
^^^ AirForce
This is not the theory of relativity or proving the origin of universe. You make this much more complicated than what it is. I am not looking for a thesis or a NASA level study. It is a simple and doable experiment that can be done in by any marine biologist in the comfort of his own home. I know there are few marine biologist here, and I thought someone at some point could have decided to prove it.
 
BalckTip said:
^^^ AirForce
This is not the theory of relativity or proving the origin of universe. You make this much more complicated than what it is. I am not looking for a thesis or a NASA level study. It is a simple and doable experiment that can be done in by any marine biologist in the comfort of his own home. I know there are few marine biologist here, and I thought someone at some point could have decided to prove it.
Click to expand...

It doesnt need proven though. We already have the proof on the life cycle of the parasite so knowing that the ich has a dormat or free swimming state is all we need to know to state that the TTM is a worthwhile ich treatment.
 
is a microscope examination even a reliable diagnostic for ich?

I think the disconnect is you are asking for "scientific proof" but describing a pretty unscientific experiment because of a misconception of how proof works.

@bent 2 sides of the same coin. I think its more about how you frame the question. "99% of ich will die 95% of the time" vs. "ttm cures fish of ich by disrupting the lifecycle" or something like that. You're right that theories explain but I quibble with the way you put it. I dont think Einstein's relativity or Newton's gravity are all that diff conceptually
 
CStrickland said:
is a microscope examination even a reliable diagnostic for ich?

I think the disconnect is you are asking for "scientific proof" but describing a pretty unscientific experiment because of a misconception of how proof works.

@bent 2 sides of the same coin. I think its more about how you frame the question. "99% of ich will die 95% of the time" vs. "ttm cures fish of ich by disrupting the lifecycle" or something like that. You're right that theories explain but I quibble with the way you put it. I dont think Einstein's relativity or Newton's gravity are all that diff conceptually
Click to expand...

"60% of the time it works every time."

you can use skin scrapes under a microscope for a positive ID:

https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa164

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/12/mini

Cryptocaryon irritans can only be definitively diagnosed by microscopic observation of continuously revolving, pear shaped ciliates (trophonts) in fresh gill or fin clippings, or skin scrapings (Colorni & Burgess, 1997).
Click to expand...
 
soulpatch said:
It doesnt need proven though. We already have the proof on the life cycle of the parasite so knowing that the ich has a dormat or free swimming state is all we need to know to state that the TTM is a worthwhile ich treatment.
Click to expand...

That wouldn't be proof though. The above comment by CStrickland is correct. You are asking for proof which I am saying is not available nor easily created. Studying TTM would only provide statistical proof. Studying the parasite would provide the proof you are looking for. If we can guarantee a range of days the parasite remains in each stage of it's life-cycle then we would have the "proof" of the TTM.

Scientific principles work the same in the definition of proof whether it is the origin of the universe or TTM. I see where you think I am being nit-picky, but the use of "proof" is often incorrect in common parlance. For instance Birth Control pills are commonly accepted to work, but since we can not prove that in 100% of cases they do work correctly they are statistically proven to work up to 99.9(repeating)% of the time. That is the case with TTM (more or less) with a lot less money behind it and therefore less empirical data available.
 
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