Marine Ich discussion

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a_free_bird73

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Jun 13, 2002
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Who is to blame!

I am racking my brain here on what went wrong.

Aquarium: 50 G with live rock and a couple of corals. Zero ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and has been since the start (after cycling that is). It is not filtered and not skimmed but the water is always clean and I do 5% water change weekly. The tank has been running since Januray. All fish added are quarnatined for 1 month in a 10 G tank.

I had a green chromis and a bicolor angel. The green chromis has been there for almost three months. The bicolor has been in the 50 G tank for three weeks and 4 weeks before that in the quarantine tank. Yesterday I saw a few white spots on the bicolor (that was not a good morning). I took both fish out, gave them a fresh water bath for 3 minutes and then put them back in the quarantine with a couple of gobys that i had there and added a dose of copper sulphate. This morning I found the bicolor dead with no white spots on his body, but the other three are fine.

Where the hell did the white spots come from and why did he die?. I recently (couple of weeks) got a batch of saltwater from an LFS and later I found out that he had an outbreak of white spot. Could he have recyled his saltwater and sold it as a freshly premixed? Have you known an LFS to do that? or Am I trying to blame someone other than my self!
 

mogurnda

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Apr 29, 2003
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My recollection is that cryptocaryon (marine ich) cysts can live for a long time in the tank, waiting for opportunity. Opportunity would be something like thermal shock or some other stressor. Then the fish suddenly get a good case of ich. Any big drops in temperature lately?
Although I have been lucky, and avoided ich for years, my recollection is that it takes longer to kill fish. With the caveat that cryptocaryon often hits the gills first, causing heavy breathing and stress before you see spots. My theory, which will probably be shot down in the next post is that all the sudden changes, plus the copper, might be the culprit.
Is the fish store to blame? Dunno. If the tanks were infested, then there may have been enough of the free-swimming stage to have overcome healthy fish, but it seems unlikely.
 

kreblak

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Mar 13, 2003
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Ich can enter your tank in a variety of ways. It is possible that there was always Ich in your tank, but that the green chromis' immune system was strong enough to fight it off, so you never noticed any white spots.

The protozoan that causes SW Ich does most of its damage before the white spots appear. In fact, the visible white cyst is only a brief part of it's life cycle. Prior to encysting, the parasite is a free swimming, ciliated protozoa. It begins attacking the fish's gills and other systems before it is ever visible. Once it has fed sufficiently, it encysts, and you see the characteristic white spot. It them matures for several days, until dropping off the fish to the substrate, where it divides into 200-600 new protozoan parasites. The cyst then ruptures, and the new protozoa have 18 hours to find a new host or die trying. They are susceptable to medication ONLY during this period. Once they encyst, they are more or less impervious to medication (though FW dips do work on cysts). The reason Ich is so friggin pervasive in an aquarium is because the fish cannot swim away from the parasites like they can in the wild, and all it takes is one protozoa to start the cycle all over again. In the ocean, the odds of an Ich protozoa finding a host are something like 1 in a thousand. In an aquarium, the fish are enclosed with the parasites, and the percentage of parasites who find a host skyrocket. All of those Ich attacking at once can be deadly, especially if they are concentrated in the gills.

Ich is a fact of life for the SW aquarist. You did nothing wrong. In fact, you have done everything right based on what you wrote. I challenge anyone out there to say they have never encountered Ich. It is everywhere. The sad fact is that Angels are delicate fish. You did everything you could, but the Angel just couldn't hack it....don't beat yourself up over it. There is good news in that Ich is sort of like chicken pox. Once a fish gets it and recovers, they have something of an immunity to it. That is not to say they will never get it again, but they do confer increased resistance to it.

Keep treating the tank aggressively. If your showtank has invertabrates in it, I recommend you visit www.drsfostersmith.com and check out NO-ICH MARINE. It is 100% reef safe, will not harm invertabrates, contains no copper, and is highly effective against SW Ich. I have used it against white spot Ich and black spot Ich, with excellent results. Just remember to continue treatment for at least 4 weeks after you can no longer see any sign of Ich. ALL IT TAKES IS ONE TO RESTART THE CYCLE!
 

VoodooChild

Kissin' the Sky
Dec 17, 2001
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Did the product work for both? Black ich and white ich are two very different things and I was wondering if it was that broad of a treatment.
 

kreblak

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Mar 13, 2003
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Yep, I used NO-ICH on the black spot first, and those worms didn't care for it one bit! I had to double the recommended dosage, but when I would turn off the filter and let the water sit undisturbed for an hour or so, you could see the little beasties twitch and spasm as they tried in vain to escape the medication. I ended up losing the tang, but the black spot was significantly reduced after 9 days of treatment.

White spot and Velvet are what NO-ICH was designed for, and it works very well against those two diseases. You just have to be persistant with treatment, as it is not as effective as copper, but can be used with inverts in the tank.
 

a_free_bird73

AC Members
Jun 13, 2002
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Melbourne, Australia
Having gone through the sequence of events, I would agree with the conclusion that the bicolor died from stress/shock induced from my handling (and I am really kicking my self for that). I was on way to work and in a bit of a rush, so did not think straight..

I took the water from the tap not from my freshwater aquarium (Chlorine), did not check the temp, did not adjust the pH. Since he had already had white spots, I would say that his gills were sensitive and the chlorine did permenant damage to them. Of course by the time I put the Chromis in the fresh water bath, there was no chlorine left so that explains why he is doing fine.

Oh well. Still don't know what started it though. There was no temp shock, I did not do anything out of the ordinary nor he showed any signs of distress or discomfort. He was a pig and picked on everything in the tank (including eating one of my small snails and two bivalves). It is a shame because he was one of the best speciemens I have seen over an 8 months period. The positive side of this is that now my corals, algae and other creatures are saved from their misery.
 
Hi,

You've an idea of the life cycle from above. I'd add that the parasite dies without a host. They do not host on corals, so you can effectively starve a tank of ich. This is what I recommend. You do so by removing all fish from an infected tank and treating them. The most effective treatment is hyposalinity, as has been shown throughout the years. While the fish are undergoing hypo, the tank is starved of any hosts. Cysts do not remain dormant for indefinite periods of time. There is a definite timeline to all stages of their lifecycle.

There is no trick to maintaining an "ich-free" tank. You simply cannot introduce specimens whenever you get the urge or see something you "have to have" at your lfs. If you rid your tank of ich, it cannot magically reappear. It must be introduced into a marine system.

We did a lot of testing for the company, Ruby Reef and they have some really good products. As mentioned above, the directions are critical. This is because Ruby Reef's ich treatment, Kick-Ich, targets the free-swimming tomite stage of the ich lifecycle. The product is completely reef safe (I did way more than the "maximum" doseages specifically in challenge to this claim, and it is an absolutely true assertation).

We had to go and "get" infected fish, and when not treating as per the entire treatment, ich certainly reappears. Only after a complete dosage period did we target the present tomites, and those ensuing tomites as the trophont cysts burst.

Ich is so easy to bring into a system. Free swimming tomites are invisible to the naked eye and can absolutely be brought in even by introducing water when acclimating, say crabs, or other inverts. While it is true that inverts do not play host to ich, the water they come in can be your "Trojan Horse."

We never, ever let any water come in from a foreign source. Inverts are always acclimated in seperate tank so that any tomites have no host.

There are different ways to acclimate fish, but if you don't specifically treat for ich even when a new fish is in quarantine, you can inadvertantly bring in the parasite. Many people have a continuous cycle of the parasite, without ever noticing a problem. This is because it only takes one successful tomite to burrow, host, then fall off and release hundred of new tomites after maturing. This "invisible" but ongoing lifecycle is what leads many to incorrectly assert that "ich is always present." No, it can be present but it is certainly not magical nor does it defy its biological lifecycle. ;) It may be a bit of work to eradicate it, and it certainly takes self-control to not risk introducing it... but in the long run we find it worth it. I do believe our yellow and PB tang appreciate our dilligence, as well. ;)

I would not recommend going through the trouble to starve a marine reef if you know you are going to "give in" and buy anything and put it in without the proper (albeit long) process required to not introduce the parasite. Trust me, I wish I would just "risk it" every now and then when I see so many new fish I would love to try (and I even have the room!) But knowing I would risk exposing our 5-year old yellow tang keeps me in check. ;) Best of luck to you; read up on the parasite, understand its lifecycle - and make a decision if it's something you want to rid from your tank. Many people prefer to take their chances and do everything to minimize an outbreak; they accept ich in their tank as a "normal" part of the hobby. That certainly allows for more impulse and variety - it's just not my personal choice.

Also keep in mind that many chemical treatments actually contain chemical irritants which cause the fish to shed their epidermal layers (thus ridding embedded cysts). This is the so-called "sliming" effect, and there's no doubt that it can be effective in some cases, but I don't like those odds. I also don't like to unnecessarily burn the fish in such a manner as to cause them to shed epidermal layers.

If you are interested in hyposalinity (or anyone else, for that matter) do a search for TerryB and his article detailing the process. He's the most experienced and knowledgeable person I know on the subject. He also tested product for the same company as I did, and he finds hyposalinity to be a superior treatment in regards to its effectiveness. There are many strains of the ich parasite, some far more resiliant than others. This might play a fact in regards to product treatment. No strains appear to survive hyposalinity. Good luck to you, HTH! :)
 
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