Is Ich always in the aquarium?

[8 in the Corner]

Carl,
I have had people tell me that the ich parasite is always in an aquarium and can start an outbreak at any time if the conditions change to their liking. Is it possible to get an ich outbreak in a tank that has been set up for a year or more without adding any new fish.

Then I have heard that the life cycle of the parasite is only 7 days. If this is true, how can the parasite be in the tank all the time if it doesn't ever show up on a fish. Don't they need a host fish to survive? If it dies after 7 days, none should be alive after a few months, for sure. Unless, of course, it goes into a hibernation of some sort.......

You are very knowledgeable on diseases and parasites so I value your opinion. What is the bottom line truth here concerning life cycle and presence in a tank.

John

[goldenpuon]

Ich doesn't just appear out of thin air so there is not always ich. However, due to how common it is, it is in most aquariums but the fish are healthy immune systems normally keep it from appearing. That's why when they are stressed, ich can seem to come out of nowhere. I'm sure Carl can add to what I said, especially since he's done experiments with fish diseases.

[Carl]

This is a good question that I can give only an incomplete answer too.

The first part of your question I can answer quite objectively and that is Ich is NOT always present.
I have conducted tests (and read others as well) where by I killed off any Ich (if there was any depending on the control group) and then subjected the fish to many stressers than commonly bring on Ich such as sudden temperature drops with NO resulting Ich outbreaks.
It is important to note that the Ich protozoan cannot live outside water and if dried, its cell wall would collapse permanently destroying this single cell parasite so this point also makes migration of Ich from anything other than transport via infected fish impossible. This also goes for marine Ich (Cryptocaryon) which I almost never had problems with in tanks where all fish were carefully added and there were no previous outbreaks.

The second part of the question I can only answer anecdotally, as I have no firm evidence of how Ich can lie dormant (although there are some studies with Marine Cryptocaryon and Oodinium that can shed some light here)

First, the life cycle can vary greatly, generally due to temperature.

Second, as per temperature, I have noticed that when I have used the temperature method of killing an Ich outbreak that the Ich can return when the stressers are in place, which points (albeit inconclusively) that this only stops their reproduction, which is why it is generally medications (or even bleach which requires a tank "re-start") that fully eradicated Ich in my experiments.
My anecdotal thoughts here are that the trophozoites (which are the most drug resistant, except for bleach, bare tank) can somehow lie dormant until conditions are right, where as the tomtit stage cannot live more than a few days without a host.

Third, as per many studies of marine fish with the similar Cryptocaryon that many fish have this disease in an inactive trophonts that only becomes active when fish are in an enclosed and stressful environment.
Personally this third though does not hold up under scrutiny as most infected marine fish will have an outbreak when placed in a closed environment if they are a carrier and that in the open ocean the currents carry away the tomtits.

So for me the first two thoughts are my best but inconclusive answer.

BTW, thanks for the kind compliment, it means much to me based on your own experience.

Carlf

[8 in the Corner]

I gave you an exalt on that one, Carl. ;D It was a very thorough and informative block of information. I hope everyone reads it.

I have used the heat method exclusively for many years now and always had good luck with it. But, I had an ich outbreak, in a 55g tank, a couple years ago that had not had a new fish put into it for, at the very least, 6 months. It was the only tank out of 20 (at that time) that was infected and the only new fish were in other tanks at least 6 feet away from it.

Needless to say, I was very perplexed as to where the little *&#@"\>%'s came from. The only possibility that I could come up with was that it was transferred to the 55 on a net that had been used on a new fish (which I can only surmise, must have been a "carrier") and then had not been properly dipped :-[before I used it in the 55 to catch some fish for an auction.

John

[Carl]

Nov 3, 2008 0:28:32 GMT -5 8 in the Corner said:

I gave you an exalt on that one, Carl. ;D It was a very thorough and informative block of information. I hope everyone reads it.

I have used the heat method exclusively for many years now and always had good luck with it. But, I had an ich outbreak, in a 55g tank, a couple years ago that had not had a new fish put into it for, at the very least, 6 months. It was the only tank out of 20 (at that time) that was infected and the only new fish were in other tanks at least 6 feet away from it.

Needless to say, I was very perplexed as to where the little *&#@"\>%'s came from. The only possibility that I could come up with was that it was transferred to the 55 on a net that had been used on a new fish (which I can only surmise, must have been a "carrier") and then had not been properly dipped :-[before I used it in the 55 to catch some fish for an auction.

John

Thanks John/8!
I typed my answer in a hurry, so my grammar was not too good (which it often is not unless I proof read at least 4-5 times) so I am glad you understood what I was saying.

One outbreak of Ich in many years is a pretty good record in my view!

Based on what you stated, I think 3 possibilities exist for your Ich outbreak:
(1) The new fish did carry the disease into the tank and it lay dormant for 6 months, since you are very careful with your fish acclimation, the new fish was not likely stressed upon acclimation which is where Ich outbreaks often start (based on other posts of your acclimation methods).

(2) A contaminated net is a possibility as you noted.

(3) Although I cannot argue your success with the heat method (which I have preferred to use when I can monitor it daily, although many of my clients I treated for Ich I did not have this luxury), what I noted in my tests is that the heat method (& even some medications) allowed for Ich to return when stressers were applied.

A bleached or dry aquarium that was seeded via the fish food cycling method were my control groups BTW (I normally used the aged media method for cycling, but I did not want to take the chance that ANY Ich was accidentally transferred this way).

Carl

[8 in the Corner]

So, the bottom line is, that the possibility does exist that ich CAN always be in a tank (in a dormant state) because you never know whether any fish you put in there has been exposed at one time or another to the parasite and is carrying dormant ich....

Bleaching or drying out a tank will only kill known bacteria, parasites, fungi, etc. that have been in there already. As soon as you drop any fish in there, you are taking the chance that it is carrying something.

OK, all you youngsters, don't read the following. Kind of like unprotected sex...

John

[jonv]

Good analogy there John. I think you have spoken many times in the past about the use of the quarenntine tank too. My guess this can be your protection in terms of new fish additions. I would have to think logically here, that if I am keeping Ick out of my main tank, and any new additions say, spend 2-4 weeks in isolation, I could keep any and all Ick out of my long term stock tanks. I'm pretty sure you mentioned the usefulness of this in the past, and lately I'm not sure if we have brought up the use of the isolation tanks in here.

I personally would advise, anyone that is more frequently buying or adding new fish to employ this. I will admit, I'm not quite too good at this myself, but at the same time too, part of why I don't have like my 20 up and running for that, is I get static from the other half here about having too many tanks at one time ;D

I do spend quite a bit of time checking and observing my tanks, so if and when I see anything out of the norm looking in the fish, I spend more time looking and taking notes about what's going on. Carl also advises treating individually sick fish which has it's advantages and disadvantages I think this would be a good topic to speak about.

Advantages, as I see it for treating individuals:

1. Unless you are very adept at knowing what's afflicting a fish, taking out a sick fish and treating it gives you a decent probability of preventing the spread of what it is to the whole community.

2. Isolating and treating a sick fish increases the odds of that fish pulling through.

3. You can increase the effectiveness of your medication treatments by doing this. Taking a single or a couple fish that are afflicted with any pathogen, and isolating them to a smaller tank allows you to modify the concentration of the meds vs. the concentration of the meds in a much larger tank.

4. It allows you to make closer and more detailed observations of treatment progress.

Disadvantages of isolation as I see it:

1. Without knowing how long any fish has been afflicted or the potency of the pathogen, you may have this continually spreading in the tank from fish to fish. In a large tank with a highly potent pathogen, it might be too late to prevent spread to the whole community.

2. In larger tanks, catching and isolating individual fish can be very very challenging. I personally have found, trying to net any one fish out of my 180 is NO easy thing to do by far. Often times, they find places to hide in the numerous decor and I have to take everything out of the tank, as I do in water changes, just to net a single fish, be it a sick one or a holding female, which is why I usually wait until water change time to do things like this, and that leads you back into the issue of number 1 above.

3. You may possibly end up with more afflicted fish in a large tank then you have isolation or holding tanks to accomodate. You'd then have to shuttle in and out of your isolation tank, if you only have 1 of those, and that time it takes to treat and return, might cause the deaths of those in the waiting list.

4. A secondary issue to number 3 above is this. Sometimes you may have a pathogen hitting your stock at randomness. You might have a stock of fish, that is various in size and compatibility that in a large tank, works out just fine, but once you compress the size of the tank, doesn't work out at all. For example, where I have the Nimbochromis Venustus, a larger Hap type, and say a Pseudotropheus Flavus that's of juvenile size, trying to put these two in a smaller isolation tank could just as well result in the male Nimbo eating the flavus as this species does this in the wild. In the larger tank, the smaller fish has more places to seek cover from a fish that stalks others and the reason why it's possible to stock these two togeather. In the smaller isolation tank, you wouldn't want to group these two, if sick at the same time, thus causing the need for multiple isolation tanks.

These are just a few of my thoughts and I don't personally think there really is any right or wrong generic answers as each person has their own stocking and tanks etc... that clearly, the solution that will work the best is going to vary from keeper to keeper and from affliction to affliction. I guess I'd have to say, conversing with the more experienced at treating things, like Carl, Bill and 8 is very helpful in getting solutions. In our small group here, we have one advantage of continual talks and posts so knowing our specifics isn't hard to know. Over time, as our group grows though, this will be a bit more challenging but I look forward to that challenge.

[Carl]

Nov 3, 2008 12:22:58 GMT -5 8 in the Corner said:

So, the bottom line is, that the possibility does exist that ich CAN always be in a tank (in a dormant state) because you never know whether any fish you put in there has been exposed at one time or another to the parasite and is carrying dormant ich....

John

The operative word is CAN as you stated.

One point I like to "drive home" not necessary to you and other regulars at EA but to the casual reader is that Ich does not simply appear from nowhere, which unfortunately I have read in many places on the internet (and from customers questions in my previous maintenance business) that this is the view of many in the aquarium keeping hobby.

Also as you noted that everytime you add a new fish (or the intial fish) you run the risk of adding Ich into your tank.
HOWEVER in my tests I performed very careful quarantines and dips before adding fish to the clean test control tank which never had an Ich outbreak even when fish were subjected to harsh conditions so as to bring out any potential ich infestation.

Unless you are very adept at knowing what's afflicting a fish, taking out a sick fish and treating it gives you a decent probability of preventing the spread of what it is to the whole community.

This is almost always a good idea, however in infestations of Ich, Velvet or similar parasitic infestations this will not remove the disease from the tank.
In bacterial and fungal infections this is often the best idea unless the disease has gone systemic.

Carl

[bikeguy33]

as to jonv`s reasoning on tank treatment vs. isolation tanks, i would have to more often agree with the treatment of the tank as a whole for the simple fact that most afflictions to fish are at least in part contagious and many are water bourne. also, many meds are very costly and cost alot to treat alot of water. the only time i treat individuals are in cases where certain medications will harm a species or two in the tank. a great example is oodinium treatments being large in copper as an ingredient. it is tough on fish like cats and plecos .....not too mention corals and anenomies. but in a case like this, i would remove those animals into an isolation tank and treat the main tank, as well as treating the isolation tank with low doses of copper or another med.

[murdock6701]

I'm confused here.....earlier Carl mentioned that Ich cannot survive without water because it causes the cells to collapse - if this is the case, how could it be rejuvenated by an old net or an old unused tank? I know there's a lot of opinions out there but this one draws my attantion

[Carl]

Nov 3, 2008 21:31:30 GMT -5 murdock6701 said:

I'm confused here.....earlier Carl mentioned that Ich cannot survive without water because it causes the cells to collapse - if this is the case, how could it be rejuvenated by an old net or an old unused tank? I know there's a lot of opinions out there but this one draws my attantion

Let me clarify my friend

An old dry net CANNOT pass Ich to another tank, where as a wet net that was very recently dipped in another tank that has Ich trophozoites present can pass Ich.

Carl

[goldenpuon]

I think ich can be dormant. Maybe at one part of it's lifecycle, it live on nets even with no water, like brine shrimp eggs can survive being totally out of water for years. It's just a guess. I'd also imagine since I haven't heard about ich being like brine shrimp that it coudl probably only survive on a net a few days or a week at most. I am honestly not sure but this is the best answer I've got. Maybe someone else can fill me in.

[goldenpuon]

Whoops, I was posting while you were. For answers, please look above. lol

[jonv]

All in all on this subject though, even if it can lie dormant, or how it's passed, I think a huge point John (8) has brought up, and I know in another forum couldn't stress enough is simply using a holding tank and basically treat any new additions before adding to the main tank. I don't think anyone can argue against that doing this, would really make a ton of headaches, posts, and issues disappear entirely. I would advocate doing it as I believe in this process very much though I'm a bad follower of it admittedly.

[goldenpuon]

I do exactly the same with most of my new fish though i should be doing it all the time. I don't do it when I switch tanks with the fish I have had a long time though if they seem fine. That normally works except Nemo in this case....

[Carl]

Nov 3, 2008 22:00:33 GMT -5 jonv said:

All in all on this subject though, even if it can lie dormant, or how it's passed, I think a huge point John (8) has brought up, and I know in another forum couldn't stress enough is simply using a holding tank and basically treat any new additions before adding to the main tank. I don't think anyone can argue against that doing this, would really make a ton of headaches, posts, and issues disappear entirely. I would advocate doing it as I believe in this process very much though I'm a bad follower of it admittedly.

This is a key point!!!

I too do not always have this luxury either, especially on my service route, however I still performed a very careful and slow introduction that included Methylene Blue in the original fish bag while in the acclimation process. Often I transported fish from my store with MB as well (even now when I bring fish up from LA I use MB in the bag during the 36-48 hours they spend in transport).

A reputable source for your new stock is also important for disease prevention.

I point this out in this article:
Aquarium Disease Prevention; Section 9

Carl