Ich in mature tank
- Thread starter DeniseAndy
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Well, invite him into this thread.
I'm sure @DeniseAndy won't mind as we've already gone wayyy off topic anyway. 
robert
Valuable Member
This isn't that difficult. If insisting that information shared with the community by a person in a position of responsibilty, who routinely gives vetinary advice to novice aquarists and who refers to himself as Dr Fish is going "robert on you" - then I'll accept that.
As to your citation - which you never read but which you claim to substantiate a 72 day fallow period, and which I suggested was a cold water study. It was referencing to another study and is better described here:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/12/mini
"Protomonts adhere to the substrate, rock, or other hard surface within the aquarium and encycst forming tomonts (Colorni, 1985). This is the reproductive stage. Tomonts generally then take between 8 to 12 hours to harden. Daughter cells forming within tomonts are known as tomites. The number of tomites produced by each tomont varies with the strain of Cryptocaryon irritans from less than 200 to more than 1,000 (Diggles & Adlard, 1997) Upon maturation tomonts excyst or hatch releasing daughter tomites into the water, at which point they become free-swimming theronts.
The time frame in which tomonts may hatch can vary greatly from 3 to 72 days (Noga, 2000). The life cycle ofCryptocaryon irritans is temperature dependant so an extended period of 72 days is highly unusual and can only occur in cooler waters. At “reef-type” temperatures the tomonts take from 3 to 28 days to excyst (hatch) with the peak between 4 and 8 days (Colorni, 1985). This variance may be a strategy for survival. However, after two weeks in the tomont stage the number of theronts produced and their ability to infect are greatly reduced (Colorni, 1992)."
So lets take a look at the data for nine isolates for temperatures that we keep our fish in. I provided it earlier - but I guess you didn't read it either.
What did Humblefish say? I think it was:
But what does the data show - the average lifecycle - before ich simply self destructs is ~130 days. The median time for the "middle of the road" isolate is only 84 days, and thats with a constant source of fish lacking any immunity or opportunity to develop immunity, housed in such as way so as to ensure transmission...
Conclusion: Ich goes away on its own. - TRUE.
You want to discuss your next claim?
As to your citation - which you never read but which you claim to substantiate a 72 day fallow period, and which I suggested was a cold water study. It was referencing to another study and is better described here:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/12/mini
"Protomonts adhere to the substrate, rock, or other hard surface within the aquarium and encycst forming tomonts (Colorni, 1985). This is the reproductive stage. Tomonts generally then take between 8 to 12 hours to harden. Daughter cells forming within tomonts are known as tomites. The number of tomites produced by each tomont varies with the strain of Cryptocaryon irritans from less than 200 to more than 1,000 (Diggles & Adlard, 1997) Upon maturation tomonts excyst or hatch releasing daughter tomites into the water, at which point they become free-swimming theronts.
The time frame in which tomonts may hatch can vary greatly from 3 to 72 days (Noga, 2000). The life cycle ofCryptocaryon irritans is temperature dependant so an extended period of 72 days is highly unusual and can only occur in cooler waters. At “reef-type” temperatures the tomonts take from 3 to 28 days to excyst (hatch) with the peak between 4 and 8 days (Colorni, 1985). This variance may be a strategy for survival. However, after two weeks in the tomont stage the number of theronts produced and their ability to infect are greatly reduced (Colorni, 1992)."
So lets take a look at the data for nine isolates for temperatures that we keep our fish in. I provided it earlier - but I guess you didn't read it either.
What did Humblefish say? I think it was:
"However, the 4 years (discussed above) is just the average lifespan on your garden variety strain of ich. A given strain will die out after 100 generations or so. Given the average life cycle of ich is 2 weeks, this is how I came up with 4 years. Of course, ich could survive longer (or less) in your tank dependent upon which strain was introduced by the clown gobies. The strain discovered by Colorni and Burgess in 1997, for example, takes up to 72 days for all the theronts to be released from their tomonts. So that particular strain could theoretically survive over 20+ years in a DT if you never went fallow." (emp added - mine)
Such BS but of course the usual crew of syncophants nod on...
But what does the data show - the average lifecycle - before ich simply self destructs is ~130 days. The median time for the "middle of the road" isolate is only 84 days, and thats with a constant source of fish lacking any immunity or opportunity to develop immunity, housed in such as way so as to ensure transmission...
Conclusion: Ich goes away on its own. - TRUE.
You want to discuss your next claim?
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OK I'm a little confused where you got this table from (and all of your data, for that matter.) In a previous post, you start off talking about "Burgess and Matthews (1994)" before copy & pasting this table. But then you say it's "Data From PHD thesis"; so does that mean the table actually comes from Peter Burgess' PhD thesis (which I think was actually published in 1992 or maybe that was just the year the experiments were done?)
I would just like to find the exact source of your information (since you don't provide a URL), so I can read more to determine it's context. I think everything you are copying & pasting is coming from Burgess' PhD thesis paper. Downloadable here (but downloading very slow at the moment): https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwigp9ily4XKAhVRymMKHeydA5UQFgg0MAM&url=https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10026.1/2632/PETER%20JOHN%20BURGESS.PDF?sequence=1&usg=AFQjCNFZegBo4d_wkQMkdoLW0srs1jrpDw&bvm=bv.110151844,d.cGc
If you can verify it is, I have this saved at work so I can view tomorrow.
mcarroll
10K Club member
A) your other fish may have been healthy enough to simply resist infection. This is supposed to be normal and is how all the fish in the ocean survive day to day for the last 400 million years. [emoji6]
B) clown gobies apparently don't have much of a slime coat. (Perhaps they're missing the close proximity of nematocysts the like in the wild.). As a result that display of ich when moved to a new tank is very typical of clown gobies.
C) you also need to factor in the fish being carriers after the infection. I'm not sure there's an accurate way to do this, but it's a natural part of his immunity so you can count on it.
D) planning on maintaining healthy fish is more realistic and probably more effective than planning to maintain a sterile tank and speculating on the maximum resident time of some unidentified strain of ich. [emoji106]
$0.02
B) clown gobies apparently don't have much of a slime coat. (Perhaps they're missing the close proximity of nematocysts the like in the wild.). As a result that display of ich when moved to a new tank is very typical of clown gobies.
C) you also need to factor in the fish being carriers after the infection. I'm not sure there's an accurate way to do this, but it's a natural part of his immunity so you can count on it.
D) planning on maintaining healthy fish is more realistic and probably more effective than planning to maintain a sterile tank and speculating on the maximum resident time of some unidentified strain of ich. [emoji106]
$0.02
40Gallon
Community Member
I'm not going to get into the debate but to me the one big dislike I have in this hobby is the people who just want to have a ticking contest and just belittle someone else's knowledge, it especially is sad when it's done against someone who has been so helpful to so many and the tact or lack thereof. There's intelligent debate & there's venom.
4FordFamily
Tang, Angel, and Wrasse Nerd!
I might point out one critical difference in the ocean with ich vs glass cages is dilution. The parasite cannot overwhelm a fish remotely as easily in the wild. The fish has since left the area. The slow infestation means the fish has more rime to build resistance and the resistance doesn't have to fight off an all out onslaught of ich all at once. It's easier to fight an army of 2 than an army of 2,000,000. Honestly that's probably to scale in some cases.
robert
Valuable Member
This is true...please see https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diatom-filter-for-treating-external-parasites.212429/
mcarroll
10K Club member
As much posting that gets done, fish disease and immunity is a topic that is sorely underserved.
The discussion is unfortunately relatively monotonic.
If you aren't doing nothing or quarantining and treating, you apparently don't belong here. In parallel, you can read any scientific article about treating fish diseases and all of them without exception talk about fish health and stress and identifying a disease positively before treating. Those things are almost never a part of the discussion here. Almost never.
Personally I think you are going to have to allow for the heated discussions because a lot of people here care deeply about this hobby and there's still a fairly long way to go before people stop killing their fish in the first one to five years of having them.
Once that happens and all of our fish are dying of old age, I think we will all be in happy agreement. [emoji56]
4FordFamily
Tang, Angel, and Wrasse Nerd!
I'm quite familiar, just not sure I subscribe to its effectiveness. Admittedly though I have no experience with them.
mcarroll
10K Club member
I'm not sure efficacy is really in question (search on google scholar), but the amount of effort to maintain them may be. I think they are typically quite messy and difficult to clean and recharge.
robert
Valuable Member
"Hard mechanical filteration" is the easiest (and maybe only) way to mimic the dilution effect of the ocean in our systems. Its often over looked and does take some planning to implement. The nice part is that it is effective against all pathogens which posess a free swimming stage. It doesn't mater if its ich, velvet, a toxic algae, fluke or worm - or even if you have no idea what it is - or how it came to be in the system. It places no negative load on your inhabitants and carries no toxicity. It limits bacterial populations and reduces secondary infection resulting from any source, whether it be disease, stings, collection damage or in tank agression.
A Diatom filter is not the only effective form of filtration, but it is prehaps among the best. For ich and velvet which are physically quite large, a suitably sized paper filter would be sufficient provided the required flow and tank configuration are acheived.
If you have ich or velvet to an extent that fish die, it is an indication that the tank lacks sufficient filteration or is pooly setup for its intended inhabitants. Resolve these issues and you go a long way in preventing future problems which you have not yet encountered. Quarantine, TTM and fallow practices may forstall an infection - but they are reactionary and don't address the fundamental cause of the problem which is the lack of "dilution" present in too many of our systems.
4FordFamily
Tang, Angel, and Wrasse Nerd!
And when clogged it's safe to assume it's not doing its job which reduces its effectiveness. That was my angle. If I recall from the thread there is also question as to whether it filters out smaller parasites such as velvet and some strains of ich. If it did filter things that small, it would clog to the point where water didn't flow through it and instead flowed elsewhere or backed up and seized to work in either case depending on installation, thus rendering it useless and negating its benefits very quickly.
In other applications (if not all) the other argument is that it does not force all water in the system through it. Like UV sterilizers whereas nearly zero percent of them have flow and circulation necessary to adequately filter all of the water. Assuming there were no dead spots without significant flow and circulation, the question of where some of these parasites reside (substrate vs water column) brings up further concerns. I am aware that to the best of our understanding many common parasites move about the water column at some stage of the life cycle but again, can you guarantee a large percentage if not all of them can be captured at this stage prior to completing the life cycle?
A combination of these concerns and questions lead to my skepticism. They've been around a long time and if they were truly marginally effective I can't imagine that it has been overlooked all of this time. Stranger things have happened though- I am by no means an expert on them, that's just my logic.
Maybe they help a bit. Who knows. My next question if it is so effective what else is filtered out of what other unintended consequences occur as a result?
Also, yes I am aware that no one is contending that these filter 100% of parasites out by any means, rather that they can greatly reduce the number of them and thus mimic natural populations and reproduction. Again though, I call to question the marginal effectiveness after all of these years why isn't this a bigger deal?
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You, or anyone else, are more than welcome to start threads here discussing fish disease and immunity. Like this one: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a-discussion-on-immunity.209701/
You, or anyone else, are more than welcome to chime into fish disease threads offering advice that is contrary to what I dole out.
So long as I run the fish disease forum here on R2R, no one's opinion will be censored. The OP can simply decide for themselves whose advice they wish to take. It doesn't hurt my feelings when someone disregards my advice, as I value a person's right to choose even more than the health of their fish (and I care very deeply about SW fish.)
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