So ICH management it is, I guess

[Gweeds1980]

Already mentioned that.
Also mentioned IF given the chance. They WILL attack a host. So do your best to keep them healthy. That is all you can do when ich is present in a tank.
There are plenty of fish and shrimp that take care of other marine life of these parasites. They are smart enough to let them do their business on them. You don't need to dive 300 or 10,000 times to figure out there is a balance in the ocean.
You also have to figure 80% of people do not have the money or care to do QT. I do not qt. Should I yes. Should everyone yes. Even when a person qt's down to almost the last drop of water. Something slips through the cracks.
When talking about ich with opinions or methods. They do not matter if you are looking for a cure all. There is only one and it is highly not a good one for the stress/poisoning of a fish, but it is all we have for the cure all.

Agree with this... QT is always good... I don't QT either. I have however found a 'method' that works for me and my tank, my fish are immune to both ich and velvet (except my Mata tang, the latest addition who is suffering from velvet atm. He'll pull though and be immune like the rest) and possibly brook too.

All my experimentation and reading came after my tank contracted ich... one of the problems is that we only find out a lot of the info out there after the event.

I'm a mod on a UK forum and look after the disease section... despite my own methods I would always recommend to remove fish, treat with copper or CP for 30 days or TTM followed by leaving the DT fallow for 76 days... but that's because the question is always 'how do I get rid / eradicate / cure ich'... I get quite excited when someone says 'how do I live with / manage ich' as that is absolutely possible too.

 

[Paul B]

After feeding my fish for 4 days with nothing but PE Mysis, all fishes look fine. No scratching, flashing or anything. I agree with PaulB on feeding quality food to your fish. I think I am going to move away from pallet. My only issue at this point is, one cube of frozen food is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much for my tank. So I cut the cube in half, even that is too much for my tank. So I guess I'll always have extra nutrient. Or I should really go get more snails.

I use frozen mysis for my Janss pipefish and sometimes I cut those cubes in thirds.

Rockstarta, it's not only feeding real foods with no dry foods. The foods should have live bacteria in them. I am sure mysis has some live bacteria but I would also suppliment that with clams or live worms. Fish can get healthyon the correct foods, but only live bacteria and parasites will make them immune from those things.
If fish are never exposed to parasites, they will never be immune to them and IMO that is a mistake as it is un-natural for fish to not be exposed to them as they are in the sea. Fish are never very healthy if they are not immune. Our paired fish should constantly spawn and die of old age. Al healthy fish spawn all the time, some almost every day. That is the measure of health

 

[40B Knasty]

Finally! Someone said it that there is ONLY ONE WAY to get rid of ich.
Now if you could stop saying immune to ich.
Just please don't give out false information to someone new to having ich of a cure or have them think their fish is immune. If it is not the only one known thing to cure ich. Anything else is not facts. Those are opinions and luck. In your case an experiment.
It is like if you take 1000mg of Vitamin C everyday and saying you will never get sick. Yes you have built up your immune system, but you are not immune.
Someone could say something along the lines of how their flow is so high in their tank that these parasites can not free float and attachment themselves to the fish while they are sleeping. It sounds right in theory. Doesn't make the fish immune to it.

 

[40B Knasty]

If you are looking to load your fish up with Omega 3. Look up in the Videography Forum of Reef2Reef. I did videos with Reef Nutrition Tigger pods and how to have a huge population and how to harvest 5k+ pods a week with Tigger pods fed only spirulina & the benefit of a Tigger pod being a great nutritional value for Omega 3. With only using a 5g tank, 5g air pump, tigger pods, airlines tubing, a piece of dead rock.

 

[Paul B]

Finally! Someone said it that there is ONLY ONE WAY to get rid of ich.

That is absolutely true.

Now if you could stop saying immune to ich.

Immune, Immune, Immune, Immune.
If you can show me a quarantined tank older than mine or quarantined fish older than mine, or quarantined fish that spawn more than mine, or more fish that die of old age then mine, you may have a case. Let me know when you find that.
Quarantine fish will never be as healthy as immune fish. I have the proof in what I said. Now if it is not true, show me those tanks and fish that I asked for. I am reasonable. If you find those things much of what I said will fall apart. I can also show you many of my fish with eggs through many years and show you them as babies, then teenagers then dying of old age. That is the only proof I can offer.
So prove to me that quarantined fish, where there is no ich are healthier. I have never posted on a disease thread about parasites. You can look on this forum and any other one, I am on many. I also wrote a book and I don't ever mention that my fish were ever sick there.

But I am not trying to argue with you. I believe most people should quarantine. That is until they learn something else. But certainly all Noobs should quarantine.

Anything else is not facts. Those are opinions and luck.

It is a fact that my 46 year old tank is immune and has been for 35 years. It is a fact that my fish including the spawning 26 year olds have never had ich. It is a fact that none of my fish have ever had ich even if I bought them with it.

Doesn't make the fish immune to it.

How many years of a tank with no ich would it take for you to think it was immune? Fifty? My tank will be fifty in 4 years. If I live long enough it may go 60 or 70 years, is that long enough?

Of course you can eliminate ich. But why would you want to if ich keeps your fish immune.
I bet you didn't read all those links I an Atoll posted. It's all about fish immunity.

 

[Gweeds1980]

Finally! Someone said it that there is ONLY ONE WAY to get rid of ich.
Now if you could stop saying immune to ich.
Just please don't give out false information to someone new to having ich of a cure or have them think their fish is immune. If it is not the only one known thing to cure ich. Anything else is not facts. Those are opinions and luck. In your case an experiment.
It is like if you take 1000mg of Vitamin C everyday and saying you will never get sick. Yes you have built up your immune system, but you are not immune.
Someone could say something along the lines of how their flow is so high in their tank that these parasites can not free float and attachment themselves to the fish while they are sleeping. It sounds right in theory. Doesn't make the fish immune to it.

Read up those links I posted in this very thread... immunity (not innate immunity, although that exists for ich too), a proper adaptive immune response with antigens and macrophages specifically produced by the fish to kill c.irritans exists. It is not up for debate, there is clear, peer reviewed, scientific evidence for it. A lack of evidence is proof to the contrary... that there is a weight of evidence to suggest true immunity from ich is definitive as far as the scientific community is concerned.

You are correct, there are only a few ways (3 that we know of, TTM, copper and CP) to kill ich. But by ensuring your fish are immune to it you are getting rid of the entire issue...

C'mon people... don't just blindly believe, read the evidence yourselves!

 

[rockstarta78]

I am no where near as experienced or knowledgeable as either of you @Paul B @40B Knasty @Gweeds1980 . My experience is totally anecdotal. I can't backup the results. However, what I do know is, last weekend I was really scared that my fishes were getting something nasty. I stopped feeding pallet since then, and relied heavily on Mysis with selcon and sometimes garlic. Now my fish look lot better. They don't seem to be scratching/flashing or nothing out of the ordinary. Am I ICH or whatever free? I highly doubt that! I am not going to say my fishes are immune either. But I do believe proper feeding and not relying on pallet definitely helped in my situation. I also spot dose H2O2 to battle algae. I don't know if that had any effect either. And I do think immunity against parasitic disease is very much possible. Whether fish or mammals, we all develop some sort of immunity against certain diseases. So why not parasitic immunity as well? Just my thought.

 

[rockstarta78]

btw @40B Knasty do you have a link to that POD harvest video you mentioned? I could really use some easy POD harvesting ideas.

 

[rockstarta78]

You could buy one that is a tray, it's easier to smash and break than cubes

My LFS only orders the cubed ones. I need to find a different LFS. I'll check. Thank you

 

[Josh Kraft]

My LFS only orders the cubed ones. I need to find a different LFS. I'll check. Thank you

Well, I meant something like LRS food. I'm not sure if the cube foods are available in trays

 

[rockstarta78]

Well, I meant something like LRS food. I'm not sure if the cube foods are available in trays

So I got LRS Nano for my fish. Since I don't have big fishes. They struggled with the size of clam that was in there. But I think they really like the ones they could nip. I should go get more.

 

[Gweeds1980]

My LFS only orders the cubed ones. I need to find a different LFS. I'll check. Thank you

Seriously, make your own. Simple, cheap, better nutritionally... freeze it up... chop off whatever size you want. Full of the bacteria and parasites your fish need and bursting with omega 3 so you won't need that expensive selcon any longer

Do it, do it, do it, do it!!

 

[Josh Kraft]

Seriously, make your own. Simple, cheap, better nutritionally... freeze it up... chop off whatever size you want. Full of the bacteria and parasites your fish need and bursting with omega 3 so you won't need that expensive selcon any longer

Do it, do it, do it, do it!!

Do you have any info on making your own?

 

[Gweeds1980]

Do you have any info on making your own?

Easy...

I buy whole, fresh fish (unfilleted), preferably oily ones like mackerel, sardines etc. Cut it up and stick it in a blender (bones, eyes, guts and skin, the whole lot) with as much of a variety of other seafood as you can. Fresh is best, frozen second. Just don't use anything processed. Add to that marine algae... anything is good. GHA, caulerpa etc all fine, failing that, tear up some nori sheets. Put a few omega 3 capsules in. Add a dash of RO and whizz it up til it's the consistency of lumpy porridge. Then pour into a Ziploc type bag, flatten and freeze. Then you can cut off whatever size chunk you want, defrost in a bit of tank water and feed. Trust me, you've never seen your fish feed til they've had this stuff. I have a vid of mine somewhere, I'll try to dig it out...

 

[Josh Kraft]

Easy...

I buy whole, fresh fish (unfilleted), preferably oily ones like mackerel, sardines etc. Cut it up and stick it in a blender with as much of a variety of other seafood as you can. Fresh is best, frozen second. Just don't use anything processed. Add to that marine algae... anything is good. GHA, caulerpa etc all fine, failing that, tear up some nori sheets. Put a few omega 3 capsules in. Add a dash of RO and whizz it up til it's the consistency of lumpy porridge. Then pour into a Ziploc type bag, flatten and freeze. Then you can cut off whatever size chunk you want, defrost in a bit of tank water and feed. Trust me, you've never seen your fish feed til they've had this stuff. I have a vid of mine somewhere, I'll try to dig it out...

Skin, bones, and everything go into blender?

 

[Gweeds1980]

Heres my recipe step by step... points for spotting the eyeball

 

[Gweeds1980]

Skin, bones, and everything go into blender?

Yup... just make sure its a blender that can handle ice... thatll be strong enough.

The idea is that in the wild your fish feed on every part of the dead fish... either whole or by scavenging. If we just feed them the fillets that we would eat, they don't get all the gut bacteria or skin burrowing parasites etc. It's those (Or more accurately the chemical signals they send the gut) that your fish need to be able to produce disease and parasite specific antigens.

 

[Gweeds1980]

Here we are...

 

[rockstarta78]

Seriously, make your own. Simple, cheap, better nutritionally... freeze it up... chop off whatever size you want. Full of the bacteria and parasites your fish need and bursting with omega 3 so you won't need that expensive selcon any longer

Do it, do it, do it, do it!!

I actually thought about it. Wonder if the wife will let me use her blender! Maybe I should just get my own blender from craigslist.

 

[rockstarta78]

@Gweeds1980 you don't take the gut out? My fish store usually cleans the gut when you buy fish.