Has anyone found that there are some species of fish that are prone to stress and get ick easily? I seem to have found that my swordtails are. And now my fairly new pictus cat fish. anytime do I anything to the tank, I can expect to see a spot of ick on the sword tail, but we usually don't do anything, and it's gone the next day. We did just get some pictus catfish a couple weeks ago, and theey didn't develop any ich until my bf did some extensive rearranging of the decorations in the tank yesterday. They should have developed any signs of ick a while ago if we bought them sick, right? so there may be species or even strains of species that are just prone to stress, and therefore ick, am I right?
easily stressed fish?
- Thread starter mollybabes
- Start date
There are some species that are prone to stress.
There are also some species that have low resistance to the parasite Ichthyophthirius.
Not any particular connection, any more than sitting around with your hair damp makes you "catch" a "cold."
There are also some species that have low resistance to the parasite Ichthyophthirius.
Not any particular connection, any more than sitting around with your hair damp makes you "catch" a "cold."
The fish you bought could have been carrying ich and looked healthy. A low level infection in the gills is hard to detect, especially if you're just looking for a few minutes at the lfs. Many people have a low level infection (better word - infestation since it is a parasite)of ich in their tanks and don't know it. Then one day, it "magically" appears. It is either there, or it isn't and we can't always see it if it is there. Check out www.skepticalaquarist.com for good info on ich!
You may want to look into the life history of the parasite a bit more. Understand that the parasite doesn't just pop up in a tank--I could do any amount of maintenance to my tank and never see ich, until introducing it into the system via contaminated material (ie, gravel or plants from an infected tank) or with a contaminated fish. The ich parasite is visible in just one stage of infection--so an infected fish may appear healthy for several days.
There are fish which are prone to getting ich, but they must be exposed to the parasite. Stressing them weakens the immune response, allowing opportunistic infections of several kinds, but it won't create virus', bacteria or parasites.
There are fish which are prone to getting ich, but they must be exposed to the parasite. Stressing them weakens the immune response, allowing opportunistic infections of several kinds, but it won't create virus', bacteria or parasites.
My name says it all, clown laoches get really prone to ick when streesed, although mine have never had it, I had a molly who died of ick 