wesleydnunder;27260 said:
The Ich article was linked as a response to the earlier statement that ich comes from poor conditions in aquaria. Ich isn't caused by stress, but a parisite. Granted, stressed fish succumb to this disease much easier than healthy, unstressed fish.
Obviously ick is caused by ick.
However, why does it infect fish is the root issue.
Can someone explain why, even after repeated exposures to ich parasites, my fish simply do not get ick and even when I add infected fish, they have little issue with it as it goes away on it's own in my tanks?
I'm talking 30-50 tanks, 15 years worth of very simple observation that is counter to this claim. And not just myself, rather, many folks that have kept good water changes, planted tanks etc. This is not some luck or by chance observation.
I just do not buy this claim. Any exposure would allow ick to grow on fish, stressed or otherwise. And that is the core issue, not just exposure which is implied in that article.
Poor conditions is also vague, poor conditions = stressed fish, this is rather obvious.
But what is causing the stress?
Lack of water changes?
Over loading the tank?
Low O2?
Too much CO2?
Too much NH4?
Too much NO3?
Low O2 and the other parameters over short term do not appear to do so, in non CO2 planted tanks, Ick is exceedingly rare if the tank is well balanced and ran.
Same is true for CO2 planted tanks.
The devil is in the details, asking the specific question as to why fish get ick, poor conditions or stress and if so, what specific types of stress or poor environmental conditions lead to Ick.
If you have fish that have ick, you are virtually always doing something very wrong with the general care.
Would you disagree with that?
It's ironic, that folks get into diseases so much without figuring out more specifics about how the disease came about in the first place vs dealing with all the life cycles(which are important), and treatments after infection.
What I'm saying is that prevention is the best line of defense in any situation.
Yet very little effort, little discussion, little research addresses prevention.
Once a nasty outbreak occurs, say the aquarist has really neglected things for a week etc, fish are totally covered with ich, well, meds/salt are likely the only way to save the fish at that point.
Do folks wait till the dog has mange to get around to good general care?
Do we just go to the dentist for fillings instead of brushing our teeth routinely?
Maybe I have a different viewpoint about all this, but it seems rump backwards.
I'm not saying that meds/salts have no use, plants are different here, but for fish, seems like algae and fish disease have some commonalities.
And I can also take an algae infested plant, add it to a well run tank and the algae, even with exposure, does not get established in the tank and no infection occurs.
Same deal here.
Algae, like water molds, have plenty of life cycles, germination signals are the key as well as weakened state for the plants/critters.
Not exposure, there's weak correlative evidence there for both cases.
Obviously you need exposure to inoculate, but you are hardly guaranteed the pest will grow and infect to cause any significant harm.
As y'all already know, many of the fish bought are stressed to some degree. This, IMO, necessitates proper QT procedures of new acquisitions prior to introducing them to my aquaria. If a new fish has ich or some other disease, it's much easier and wiser, IMO, to treat the disease in a QT set up than in the "show" tank.
Mark
I've not QT some many fish, even ones coming in with Ick, why does it always go away? I do not even own any Formalin, malachite green, use salt dips etc, haven't for decades.
There's plenty of exposure.
No disease or fish issues however.
I did not stop adding based on principle, just never needed it any longer and stop using it.
Seems more emphasis should be on the basic care of aquariums, much less on learning about what all to add to kill disease, algae etc.
Back to the topic: UV light should kill the free swimming stages and a good micron filter will also, but I think looking at the root cause is the only real method over time.
As far as "learning more", the germination and the specific types of stress that induce the parasite is more useful for the nature environment systems and the aquariums.
Life histories are very important, the article was good in that regard. That's where you can beat these pest very often and not induce the next stage of germination.
Once the cycle stops, there's no issues.
Then good general care will prevent it from returning.
Regards,
Tom Barr
