Who Quarantines New Fish

[Arik]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7786992#post7786992 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by m-fine
Perhaps people keep insisting that because real world experience seems to repeatedly indicate it is true no matter what some book or web page says on the topic. Perhaps it is not really DORMANT and in fact the parisites are replicating in small numbers not visible to the naked eye, but the fact remains there is considerable evidence that a tank that has had no additions for more then 6 weeks can suddenly have a visible ich outbreak.

This isn't really accurate. Ich does not have a true "dormant" state in biological terms. It is a parasite, and can only live in the prescence of a host. That is fact. When ich attacks fish, the parasites are present on the fish long before the white cysts are visible with the naked eye. This has been proven by taking smears of fish and examining them under microscopes. When fish are healthy, and in a stable environment, their immune system will repel most of the ich. However, some parasites are still present on their bodies, which is why many of our fish seek cleaners (shrimp and gobies) and scratch even when you can't see any cysts.

That is why a tank with no additions in YEARS can have an ich outbreak, even when you haven't seen any outward physical signs.

 

[m-fine]

That is exactly my point. Even if you have never had an ich outbreak in your tank, ich could still be present and pose a problem in the future if a fish is stressed or its immune system otherwise comprimised.

If every fish, rock, coral, plant, snail, shrimp drop of water etc. that has ever been put in the tank since day 0 has been carefully QT'd then you probably have a very low chance of having any ich in the tank. If you just QT the fish, or you just started to QT on a 2 year old tank then it is certainly possible that there is ich in your tank waiting to bite you sometime down the road.

OTH, I don't think ich is such a big deal. In my experience, ich only shows up when the fish are stressed, and when I have had it, it has always been curable without the loss of a fish. If you add a new fish and within a few weeks all of your fish are dead from ich, then I would think something else was seriously wrong. I personally think it is easier and cheaper to keep my display tank healthy then to properly QT everything. If I had a 1000 gal tank with a much larger fish investment I might think otherwise.

 

[ming81]

Theoretically, that sounds plausable, but if they are healthy to the point where they repel the ich, then the ich will never make it to adult to release new cysts into the water column and therefore stopping the cycle of the chicken and the egg.

 

[Arik]

They do repel ich, but only to a certain extent----they only get mild cases, which aren't detectable by the naked eye. That is how the ich reproduce, just in small numbers, until the immune systems drop of a fish and then you get a full blown infestation.

 

[D-Rod]

QT-ing right now!