? about uv light and ick

Curiously I rarely have ever had disease or parasites such as ick
Water changes, good care, current, reasonable stocking, good food etc.

So I have not used salt or MG for decades.........plants also seem to prevent ick, I've added ick infested fish, moderately so, not covered and about to die...........to planted tanks and watched them recover without treatment of any sort.

A good habitat for your fish= Healthy fish= best defense

Seems to hold much more true for plants and fish than all the baloney in the world about algicides and fish tonics, snake oils and cure alls.

Yet much less discussion, much less effort and consistency is placed on the basics of aquarium keeping for some reason. Seems some folks still believe a pound of cure is worth more than an ounce of prevention.

Why?
Because it's what folks want to hear, not the truth or the root cause.
Folks get lazy and slack off. Folks see an issue and use a pill rather than general environmental improvement.

I get folks haggling with me all the time over not doing water changes and the basic work that goes along with the hobby. Yes, it can be done but there are trade offs and folks do not think those trade offs apply to them, they think they can find ways around it and get all hard headed.

Well that is fine, but when you kill your fish, do not say I did not tell you so, and statistically speaking, most will kill some fish by avoiding it, everyone I know that's done this has..........

Just a matter of time.
Best to stay on top of things, make things simple and easy to care for, much better than salting the water.

Disease is very much like algae in this regard.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

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.

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