ICK in my new tank all the fish have it.

[JimBarr]

I am also having an Ich outbreak. I have learned a great deal from this thread. Thanks. Will UV filters eliminate Ich? How long will this take if it does?

 

[douggiestyle]

from what i have gleamed at this site as well as others is uv can help prevent but cannot cure ick. as far as a time period i would look at the life cycle of ick as a determining factor. remember that the article claims that even when left untreated ick can not survive indefinitely in the tank. that after so many life cycles it will peter out on its own. the main question is will it kill your fish in the process. hopefully not. this is my case, i believe that i have ick in my tank currently but that it is not hurting my fish. they are very healthy. soon the ick will die out on its own. at least according to the article that is linked to earlier in this thread. personally i have never discovered ick before in one of my tanks be it fresh water or salt water so i have no experience. that is until now.

you may wish to start a new thread on this topic.

 

[steve-s]

If you are refering to aquired immunity in which the fish develope a resistance to the theronts trying to find a host, then they will not be elimated. The cycle will continue as long as a fish host remains to become infected. The life cycle is therefore not broken only it's ability to reproduce enmass is restricted to a less noticable few.

UV's can be an effective aid but are by no means a cure. They can help reduce the amount of free swimming theronts thereby speeding up the eradication when combined with an effective cure such as hyposalinity or chelated copper. UV's will also not prevent the problem either only reduce the number of theronts.

Treating the fish in a seperate QT will ensure all fish no longer carry any trophonts to later infect any new additions to the tank. Remember that any new fish you add will not have this higher resistance to the parasite and will easily become infected. The higher numbers of theronts could then also make it harder for the previously "conditioned" fish to resist the theronts....

Cheers
Steve

 

[douggiestyle]

"Burgess and Matthews (1994) were attempting to maintain a viable population of C. irritans which could be used in later studies. To maintain the parasite populations, they needed host fish in order for the trophonts to feed and continue the life cycle. Each host fish was only used once in a process of serial transition such that none of the hosts would die or develop an immunity. While the procedure worked very well and enabled them to maintain populations for some time, the viability of the populations decreased with time and none of the 7 isolates they used survived more than 34 cycles, around 10 to 11 months. They suggest this is due to senescence and aging in cell lines is well recognised in Ciliophora.

The presence of aging cell lines in C. irritans suggests that an aquarium that has been running for longer than 12 months without any additions is unlikely to have any surviving "Ich" parasites, yet another exception to "Ich" always being present."

Quoted from "ATJ's Marine aquarium site-reference-marine "ich"

 

[douggiestyle]

i am now pretty sure that i misdiagnosed my fish disease. i believe that i erred in believing that all the fish had spots. actually only one did, my yellow tang. i am pretty sure that he had some kind of virus that precipitated from the stress of being in a new tank. he was new when the white spots appeared. i believe that the white spots that i thought i saw on the other fish where my imagination, plus a little help from how the light reflects off there scales. i forget the name of the virus but will look up again and post it.