Is Ich really present in every batch of saltwater?

[Lasse]

I have never heard if fish can develop parasite immunity to ich. Not all things can develop immunity to parasites and some never do - surely this has been studied, but I have never seen results for ich.

In fact - there is vaccines developed in the fish farm industry. Here a review from 2022

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Pickle_soup]

Many different wholesalers and collectors - I should say, there was surely ich on fish coming in, but with the copper quarantine, it never manifests itself into active disease for us. The 2015 case was a group of deep sea fish from Curacao. I was worried about dosing them with copper (I shouldn't have been!) and they developed severe ich. I hit them chloroquine, but that didn't work so I ended up using copper, but since the infection had a good head start, I lost a couple fish.

Jay

Thanks Jay

 

[Pickle_soup]

The Other Way to Run a Reef Tank (no Quarantine)

The other way to run a reef tank (No Quarantine) I was asked by my friend Humblefish to start a thread on my practices of running a tank with no quarantine, hospital tanks, medications, dipping or almost anything else. It is "not" just to take a fish from a store and drop it in your reef...

www.reef2reef.com

Lot of reading but some real life experience here with reefing

It's an interesting watch, but he has a key quote there: "If I had to start with dry rock and artificial seawater I would kill those fish"...well that's how most people start. So to apply his method, even he says so, would wipe our tanks out. I think it is very unrealistic to try to present his model as a standard. I think the best alternative we have is copper and fallow tanks.

 

[Lavey29]

It's an interesting watch, but he has a key quote there: "If I had to start with dry rock and artificial seawater I would kill those fish"...well that's how most people start. So to apply his method, even he says so, would wipe our tanks out. I think it is very unrealistic to try to present his model as a standard. I think the best alternative we have is copper and fallow tanks.

I think anyone who has developed reefing knowledge with time knows the significance of live ocean rock versus dead rock . I just like his natural approach to everything. I think we all know tanks that are to sterile are not healthy. I stand by my belief that ich gets into every tank at some point. Whether it becomes a problem depends on the health of your fish and your overall biome in your tank. Basically what Paul says and tests by putting ich covered fish into his system.

I do think modern methods for ich control can be effective also as Jay states and you reference also.

 

[Pickle_soup]

I think anyone who has developed reefing knowledge with time knows the significance of live ocean rock versus dead rock . I just like his natural approach to everything. I think we all know tanks that are to sterile are not healthy. I stand by my belief that ich gets into every tank at some point. Whether it becomes a problem depends on the health of your fish and your overall biome in your tank. Basically what Paul says and tests by putting ich covered fish into his system.

I do think modern methods for ich control can be effective also as Jay states and you reference also.

We will just have to disagree on the key point of ich getting into the tank. As you said, diet does help them fight off possible infections, as many fish die not from ich, but secondary infections. One thing that can't be discounted, is the damage ich does to the gills of fish. Fun discussion thou.

 

[jda]

r2r tip of the day: when @Lasse posts an article, be sure and read it. The important thing from this one:

I have a lot of thinking to do. My approach to introducing fish might be right, but the reasons might have changed a bit. For a few decades I have contended that a diverse ecosystem in the introduction tank allowed made the tomonts fight for their lives while fish got healthy enough to fight off the ich. While I still believe that this is mostly true, I might now be under the opinion that this also allowed the fish a therapeutic level of the parasite to develop immunity.

Now I need to figure out if fish can get immunity to marine velvet.

 

[Lavey29]

r2r tip of the day: when @Lasse posts an article, be sure and read it. The important thing from this one:

I have a lot of thinking to do. My approach to introducing fish might be right, but the reasons might have changed a bit. For a few decades I have contended that a diverse ecosystem in the introduction tank allowed made the tomonts fight for their lives while fish got healthy enough to fight off the ich. While I still believe that this is mostly true, I might now be under the opinion that this also allowed the fish a therapeutic level of the parasite to develop immunity.

Now I need to figure out if fish can get immunity to marine velvet.

I have 2 fish that never caught brook in my tank alive 2 years later now. All others died quick when my tank was young. Luck or immunity?

 

[homersimpsonlikesfish]

Many different wholesalers and collectors - I should say, there was surely ich on fish coming in, but with the copper quarantine, it never manifests itself into active disease for us. The 2015 case was a group of deep sea fish from Curacao. I was worried about dosing them with copper (I shouldn't have been!) and they developed severe ich. I hit them chloroquine, but that didn't work so I ended up using copper, but since the infection had a good head start, I lost a couple fish.

Jay

Interesting. Please tell me more about quarantining fish in copper. Will this product from API work?

Or will this one work better?

 

[homersimpsonlikesfish]

Many different wholesalers and collectors - I should say, there was surely ich on fish coming in, but with the copper quarantine, it never manifests itself into active disease for us. The 2015 case was a group of deep sea fish from Curacao. I was worried about dosing them with copper (I shouldn't have been!) and they developed severe ich. I hit them chloroquine, but that didn't work so I ended up using copper, but since the infection had a good head start, I lost a couple fish.

Jay

I found your instructions on quarantining new fish! Thanks!

Current Quarantine Protocol

2023 Quarantine Procedures Jay Hemdal David Scarborough Protozoans (Cryptocaryon/ich, Amyloodinium/velvet) and Metazoan trematodes/flukes are by far the most common parasites found on newly acquired fish. A carefully managed quarantine process can effectively eliminate these parasites before...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[homersimpsonlikesfish]

My ten gallon aquarium is still cycling and the only thing that is "alive" is a piece of live rock from Petco. Can Ich stay alive without a living host or do they die off if they cannot find a fish to stick to?

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

My ten gallon aquarium is still cycling and the only thing that is "alive" is a piece of live rock from Petco. Can Ich stay alive without a living host or do they die off if they cannot find a fish to stick to?

If you leave the tank fishless for 75-80 days, any ich will die.

(Edit: I hope Jay will correct my timeframe if it's too long... The "old way" was to run fallow for 76 days, I believe)

 

[homersimpsonlikesfish]

If you leave the tank fishless for 75-80 days, any ich will die.

(Edit: I hope Jay will correct my timeframe if it's too long... The "old way" was to run fallow for 76 days, I believe)

So in the mean time I can add hermit crabs and shrimp because they can't get Ich?

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

So in the mean time I can add hermit crabs and shrimp because they can't get Ich?

Correct. They are not hosts.

 

[The_Paradox]

If you leave the tank fishless for 75-80 days, any ich will die.

(Edit: I hope Jay will correct my timeframe if it's too long... The "old way" was to run fallow for 76 days, I believe)

Next person with a significant case of Ich should stir the sand and send off for a PCR test at day 45 and day 90 assuming any place has the library. If I were a betting man, I would bet there is still Ich in the tank past day 90 just not enough to effect anything even remotely healthy.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Next person with a significant case of Ich should stir the sand and send off for a PCR test at day 45 and day 90 assuming any place has the library. If I were a betting man, I would bet there is still Ich in the tank past day 90 just not enough to effect anything even remotely healthy.

According to this and other studies, Cryptocaryon irritans can become dormant at temperatures below 60 degrees fahrenheit. (In this article "Tomonts can stay alive for 4–5 months at 12 °C."

Transcriptome analysis of dormant tomonts of the marine fish ectoparasitic ciliate Cryptocaryon irritans under low temperature - Parasites & Vectors

Background Cryptocaryon irritans, a species of obligatory ciliate ectoparasite, can infect various species of marine teleost fish. Cryptocaryon irritans that fall to the seabed or aquarium bottom in winter can form “dormant tomonts” and wake up when the temperature rises the next year. Abundant...

parasitesandvectors.biomedcentral.com

According to this study, Cryptocaryon irritans can enter a dormant phase in "a hypoxic seawater environment (1.4–1.7 mg/L O2)" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0044848617315892

For reference, "Fish require dissolved oxygen levels between 5-6 ppm (parts per million) to grow and thrive. Low dissolved oxygen levels (>3 ppm) become stressful for most aquatic organisms, and extremely low levels will not support fish survival at all. ". https://atlas-scientific.com/blog/dissolved-oxygen-in-water-ppm-for-fish/

(And that's just from a 20 minute search...)

 

[Lasse]

According to this study, Cryptocaryon irritans can enter a dormant phase in "a hypoxic seawater environment (1.4–1.7 mg/L O2)" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0044848617315

C. irritans cyst in the sediment. 1.4 to 1.7 mg/L O2 refer to the oxygenlevels around the cyst - the level in the pore water with other words.

Fish require dissolved oxygen levels between 5-6 ppm (parts per million) to grow and thrive. Low dissolved oxygen levels (>3 ppm) become stressful for most aquatic organisms, and extremely low levels will not support fish survival at all.

This part refer to the water column where the fish are

Do not compare apples and pears! The oxygen concentration can be below 1.7 mg/L there the C. irritans cyst is (in the sediment/gravel) but be 5-6 mg/L in the water column (there the fish are) in the same aquarium.

I have said before - there is no general role about how long time a cyst can be in the sediment. If the sediment/gravel is anoxic (in a sediment/gravel with lot of bacteria activity - low oxygen concentrations can occur rather near the surface of sediment/gravel) 74 days fallow can help in some cases, can be to long in some cases and too short in other cases. The 74 days is build on ONE study back in the eighties .

Sincerely Lasse

 

[The_Paradox]

According to this and other studies, Cryptocaryon irritans can become dormant at temperatures below 60 degrees fahrenheit. (In this article "Tomonts can stay alive for 4–5 months at 12 °C."

Transcriptome analysis of dormant tomonts of the marine fish ectoparasitic ciliate Cryptocaryon irritans under low temperature - Parasites & Vectors

Background Cryptocaryon irritans, a species of obligatory ciliate ectoparasite, can infect various species of marine teleost fish. Cryptocaryon irritans that fall to the seabed or aquarium bottom in winter can form “dormant tomonts” and wake up when the temperature rises the next year. Abundant...

parasitesandvectors.biomedcentral.com

They were looking at gene regulation in a very short time span but it does suggest how they survive in cold weather months. The 4-5 month number comes from the wild which I thought was just excepted since we see Ich is saltwater ponds even after winter.

 

[The_Paradox]

Correct. They are not hosts.

I think this is how people get in trouble. I tend to agree no known invertebrate can be a host/carrier but they certainly can be fomites.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Interesting. Please tell me more about quarantining fish in copper. Will this product from API work?

Or will this one work better?

The API product is best used for freshwater fish only. The Kordon product is described as a chelated copper and has the same dose as Coppersafe, so it might work. However, I've done all of my work with Coppersafe and sometimes Copper Power.

Jay

 

[Jay Hemdal]

So in the mean time I can add hermit crabs and shrimp because they can't get Ich?

As mentioned, they won't catch ich, but they can carry the resting stage on their bodies. If you move a hermit crab or shrimp from a tank with an active fish disease, they can carry that disease to a new tank.

Jay