Who's had Ich with no treatment and tank survived?

[VSpeck]

no i added nothing. from everything ive seen ich is in all tanks all fish have to be exposed to ich at one point or another in the ocean right it cant just be a captive disease (correct me if im wrong.) ive seen tanks where temp fluctuates and ich pops up on fish that have never shown signs before then. from what ive seen all fish have it and it can come up if stressed. some fish are just more proned to get it. im sure it has been in my tank since the first fish even though it didnt show signs. my tank han never been treated and the fish are still alive so i would say it might still be in there i recently added a 6" imp. angel he was healthy and eating when i bought him and stayed stress free through proper acclimation and good tankmates and it didnt show up on him. now if the other angel and tangs beat up on him im sure it would have showed up but thats where proper stocking and husbandry comes in. as all of us are i am still learning as i will for the rest of my life so if im off sorry, just speaking my opinion from my experience

 

[guyguerra]

Thanks for the reply. I believe that what you are saying is correct. It would be great to hear from others who have experienced this, and to know if their results are similar.

 

[cecilturtle]

My point exactly V...I don't believe ich is a captive disease. But just like an individual can come down with a staph infection, so can a fish come down with disease. If your tangs scapel cut the angel or your larger angel hit his gill area or bit his eye would he then not be more prone to infection? I believe this process is similar to a dog who developes sores and is attacked by fleas. The fleas will go away on their own but the sore needs to be dressed and healed. A healthy dog with a healthy coat fends off fleas. You can have decay in your sand, coral, liverock or fish.


On a side note, something else I have found interesting...how many of you ever had a cut that reddened once subjected to tank saltwater? Quite the opposite when subjected to real sea water I think. In fact, I have had cuts heal faster once subjected to the ocean water. So is disease/ich really as bad in the ocean as in our closed enviroment with our manmade saltwater? Dunno.

 

[Sk8r]

Mine is a new tank, so it's a new problem: I'm sorry to have had it turn up, but I tend to think if your stuff came from anywhere but a pure tank (and a fish store or a breeder is probably not in that category) it gets to your tank by fish, it gets there in drops of water that rode in with the snails or the shrimp that ordinarily aren't qt'd---in other words, it's going to be there, sooner or later, and if a fish is susceptible or stressed, he'll get it, probably not fatally unless he's already on the skids. Fixing the water, fixing the diet, making sure the system is well-buffered to be sure there's no additional irritation, all these things are valuable, imho, and sure, if I had infinite room and a big setup, I could move fish from tank to tank, but I'd never be sure a stray ich-whatever didn't come with. In the other, older tank, which I had for oh, about 8 years, the ich occurances were relatively few---we fought bad water in that city, finally improved it by installing the same system the zoo used (like ro with a huge carbon cylinder) and the incidence went way down. I've isolated fish for treatment back when I kept freshwater fish, and my experience was more often that taking the fish into a relatively barren tank and medicating was pretty well the kiss of death: I didn't have many survive. When I started just fixing the water and trying at best a net dip, with immediate return to the more textured environment of the tank, the survival rate was higher. Whether it was due to the properties of a net dip vs a thorough long-term medication or not, that was my experience---again, freshwater. IMHO, freshwater ich cases are a bear. Saltwater ich seems to be easier to deal with from the git-go.

 

[Triggerfish]

when i left the fish on their own to battle the ich after 9 months of failed eradication attempts..the ich got worse..began to infect the eyes and gill areas...
resulted in cloudy eyes and white patches around the gills..the fish were twitchy and it was evident their health was diminishing.
i also believe, it may have caused my bangaii to get a severe bacterial infection in one of the eyes ,that resulted in the loss of the eye.

i don't know..seems i have the strain from hell.

 

[chocolates mom]

Guyguerra, I tried No Sick Fish twice on the Coral Beautys (which I consider no treatment.) I am confused because my remaining fish have been subjected to ich twice and are doing great. I am really having problems deciding if I should transfer them to QT or not. I did find a new LFS that treats their fish with copper. I might buy another fish, QT him and then move him in if he is ok? I don't know yet what to do. If he has already been treated with copper for 2 weeks maybe he will be ok?

 

[cecilturtle]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7156079#post7156079 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Triggerfish
when i left the fish on their own to battle the ich after 9 months of failed eradication attempts..the ich got worse..began to infect the eyes and gill areas...

If you have not added any fish in nine months then either your parems are way off, you're tankmates are stressed or you have a grounding problem.

 

[Paul B]

I know ich is in my reef and has been in there since the seventees. I don't ever see it unless a fish is about to die, usually from old age, then the fish will develop a full ich infection and die. Some of those fish were over 10 years old. Ich is living happily and infecting my fish as is does in the sea but for some reason it never gets to epidemic proportions. Occasionally I will see a couple of spots on something but it always disappears in a couple of days.
Of course the tank was an ich magnet when it was started. I believe now after so many years either the animals have developed an immunity or the tank has reached a point where since it is so old it is so much like the sea that there is very little stress. The fish are always in breeding condition which captive fish very rarely are. If your fish are not exhibiting spawning behavior much of the time, they are not as healthy as you believe. Healthy fish want two things, food and a mate (if only temporarilly) I believe very healthy fish do not get ich and thats why I never see it unless a fish is otherwise unhealthy or too old.
I add new animals all the time and much material from the sea. I have not quarintined for about 25 years but in most tanks you should not put anything in there without quarintine. You will know when your fish are immune but until then quarintine.
I feed all fish with a baster and they get fresh frozen or live food every day along with vitamins. All of our fish should live at least 10 years but most of them live longer. If they are dying sooner from some other malady (except jumping out) they may not be as healthy as they should be.
Just my opinion.
Paul

 

[Triggerfish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7160226#post7160226 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cecilturtle
If you have not added any fish in nine months then either your parems are way off, you're tankmates are stressed or you have a grounding problem.

that was part of the problem,,i had 4 qt going at once and was adding fish/corals without proper quarantine timeframes. my methods were way messed up.

 

[taflaw]

Re: Who's had Ich with no treatment and tank survived?

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7140963#post7140963 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by guyguerra
So, my question is "who has left their tanks untreated after seeing signs of Ich, and what was the outcome"?

If you refuse to treat your fish for whatever justified reason you come up with, then the most likely result will be death. If you see Ich on the skin of your fish, the parasites will most likely also be attacking places you can't see, like the gills etc. Without treatment, the fish will also experience breathing problems, loss of appetite, abnormal swimming behavior, frayed fins, cloudy eyes and other problems.

I have witnessed catastrophic fish loss in many hobbyists' tanks who basically treated Ich like the common cold and left the fish to fend for themselves (i.e., only the strongest survive). Unlike the common cold, Ich regroups constantly (over and over again) by multiplying for their next offensive. In the wild, this sort of massive reproductive phase ensures that a few will find a suitable host to continue on the cycle. However, in your home aquarium, it means comparatively massive infection rates. Without treatment, many fish will die, period. Some fish are more susceptible than others (e.g., tangs).

The more important question is how would you want to be treated if you had a serious illness, comparable to Ich, like pneumonia? Without treatment, you could easily die. However, with treatment, most types of pneumonia can be treated effectively with antibiotics. Marine Ich can also be treated effectively as well, but unfortunately, the fish can't treat themselves without your help.

 

[reverendmaynard]

^^ Feel better now?

 

[XeniaMania]

I let my fish get infected w/ Ich, only to assist them in building an immunity for it which then makes them resistant to the strain of ich living in my tank. I did a day by day documentary on another thread, my Desjardini tang built immunity within 2 days after being infected, and has since then been very healthy. There are other more "natural" ways of controlling Ich. My Midas Blenny has never contracted Ich after its first exposure either.

 

[Paul B]

As I said, my fish have been immune for at least 25 years.
Paul

 

[Triggerfish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7194273#post7194273 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by XeniaMania
I let my fish get infected w/ Ich, only to assist them in building an immunity for it which then makes them resistant to the strain of ich living in my tank.

that's interesting...

 

[XeniaMania]

I don't just leave them be. Yes, this may be my experience, but as the topic of this thread is "Who's had Ich with no treatment and tank survived?" I've always gone without treatment and at one point, I had a tank with
Maculosus Angel
Asfer Angel
Purple Tang
Sohal Tang
Semilarvatus butterfly
2 Raccoon butterflies
Pearlscale butterfly
Regal Angel
King Angel
Queen Angel
Pyramid Butterfly
Scribble Angel
All in a 100G tank.

Formula to my success is Lugols+Vitamin C. I'm not here to convince anyone that my practice is right, I'm sharing my experiences as asked by the title of this thread. I've never lost a fish to Ich, nor have I had a horrific Ich infestation, so again, just sharing my experience..

 

[Triggerfish]

oops,,yes, you are correct sir..i made a little edit above..just to leave it at that..

 

[guyguerra]

I ran this thread in two forums, hoping to get as much advice as I could. Here's what I posted in the other after a month of dealing with it.
It has been a month since I saw Ich in my large tank. I used several reef safe treatments, along with vitamins and water changes. I've always done weekly water changes so I just increased the amount of each change. My tank looks great, all the fish are healthy and there hasn't been any Ich spots in over 3 weeks. I am REALLY glad I didn't try taking the fish out. My reef is so well established now that I might have lost enough to consider giving up the hobby. I've been in this hobby for a while now and have learned many things. Since I didn't know what a QT was when I started, I had Ich immediately in my first tank which was a 120 FOWLR. Then I started a 50 gallon QT. I have tried every approach to kill Ich, and prevent Ich. My thoughts about it have changed many times. I've torn a tank down due to ich, I've done hypo, copper, reef safe stuff, and die hard QT practices. At this point I am with the crowd that believes most tanks have it, and that it can be dealt with without taking all your fish out. I'm also a life long believer that fish need to be quarantined before going into a display, and any of the proven treatments at that point are wise. But I would never consider tearing down a reef again because of Ich.

 

[VSpeck]

that's great I don't believe in tearing the tanks down for the fact that if you are a sick fish would u want to rest or have a big green net bigger than you chase you and put you in that unnatural pvc filled tank? I would like the rest but that's just me. glad everything worked out.
vspeck

 

[Paul B]

I think the problem is that there are many different types of paracites and we have many variables in our tanks that can not be duplicated. Sometimes ich will kill everything you have in a couple of days and sometimes it will just show up then leave. I don't know why, I also do not know why some tanks never get it.
I am not talking about one or two year old tanks, those are not established enough for any kind of study because they are changing all the time, I am talking about established tanks maybe ten years or older. These tanks do not seem to get ich. It may be the lack of stress in an old tank but I can't say. After my reef reached about ten years old it never contracted ich, but It did all the time before that.
Also, sometimes you do have to remove all the fish to treat them.
Some people are lucky and the disease goes away on it's own.
There are many theorys on this and so far I don't agree with any of them. I know the life cycle of ich very well and I still can't figure out why it sometimes does not affect fish when I know it's there. Some people think their fish are immune, I don't know if I believe that only because If I put in a new fish with obvious ich I can see that it is not immune because it has ich but the paracite will leave the fish in my reef and never infect another fish. Is the fish immune or is the tank? I am not talking about an isolated case in a year old tank, I am talking about dozens of fish over 25 years in a 35 year old tank. I have spoken to people who study paracites and they do not know either. It reminds me of hair algae, everyone has a "cure" for hair algae. None of them work all the time but you will always hear about snails, rabbitfish, urchins etc. I am sure we will know the secret one day but for now, do what works for you.
Have a great day.
Paul :beer:

 

[guyguerra]

This thread has given us some history of the experiences of others and what has happened to their tanks when Ich was diagnosed to be in the tank, and the fish couldn't be pulled out. This is what we are in this thread to learn. It is my hope that people will continue posting their experiances of what has happened to them when their fish couldn't be pulled from a tank for the treatment of Ich. What we need to know is the results that people have had.

The subject of Ich is as risky to bring up as religion or politics. If we can focus on only putting up posts that explain the history of your personal experience, we can each use the information to help make our own decisions as to what the best approach might be for our individual situations. If you look at my signature line below, you could change a few words and have it say " We are indeed all members of a single family sharing one source of water and fish in one huge house, and thru collective histories we can learn how to live with the source better"-Guy Guerra. Not near as intelligent or philosophical as the Dalai Lama, but he's never published a statement about Ich that I know of yet.

There are two threads that I made for this topic, and in hind sight I wish I didn't. After being a member for 1 1/2 years, I should have know better, but I was desperate to learn what others encountered in this situation, and felt like I had little time to do it. I've never emailed a moderator, but I'll see if I can, and ask them to tie them together if possible, so that we can see the history of more members. One thread is in "Fish Disease Treatment, the other is in "Large Reef Tanks".