"Gill Passman" wrote in message
...
Reel McKoi wrote:
That's impossible with a heavily planted 55g tank and a lot of speedy
tetras. What we can't understand is WHERE did the ich come from?!?!?!?!
This isn't supposed to happen. If a oocyte didn't live over for several
weeks somehow, then it came from the frozen food I just bought for them a
few days ago. :-(
==============
The ich came because it was already present in the water column or lurking
in the gills of the fish but not showing itself......healthy fish can have
ich but not succumb or show any symptoms....there has to be a trigger.....

Nothing unusual happened in the tank except the Clown Pleco dying and the
new frozen foods I picked up. There were no ich to be seen on the dead
pleco. I didn't check the gills.

Now the most common trigger is stress.....it could be turf wars, water
quality, introduction of new fish (which aren't necessarily the ones that
get the ich)....or any number of factors....but I very much doubt it would
be frozen food if you study the life cycle of ich...

Which I have done ad nauseum..... that's why I was so shocked to see it
appear as it did. Anything that encysted in the gills would still fall off
and turn into hundreds, in days. At least a few of the others would be
susceptible. Apparently not all websites agree.

There are a number of ways of treating ich in freshwater fish....including
meds (half dose with loaches), raising the temp and adding salt (might
make your plants suffer but better than losing the fish) or the bare tank
one which involves moving the fish between tanks to break the cycle of the
free floating stuff which reinfects.....

How would anyone know using this switching method if the ich isn't *again
hidden* in someone's gills??? And the stress alone of chasing and moving
the fish daily is more stress than anything else.

I've tried all apart from the move from tank to tank with varied
success.....until I got ich in my marine tank and then you are talking
£100s in wipe out of fish if you don't control it.....the marine folks
take a different stance although without dotting the i's and crossing the
t's it is one I've tried with a certain degree of success in my freshwater
tanks.....but the result in the sal****er was just amazing....

First, you need to look at what might be stressing the fish.....provide
more cover or resolve the issue by removing the stress factor - try
reducing the lighting to give them more resting....and the key factor when
treating marine fish and I tried this with FW with a lot of success but
not the magic ingredient is to get them to eat well - high protein
diet......add a little garlic to their frozen and feed this daily.....this
not only apparently helps the appetite but also increases their ability to
cope with stress and promotes the slime coat which will protect them
against things such as white spot/ich....

Good info but they're eating well and are already on a high protein diet.
They're not overcrowded, get their water changes on time and have plenty of
hiding places in the plants. They get a large variety of food, both frozen
and dry. They're not near any source of noise, flashing lights or a high
traffic area. The only thing new or different was the new packages of
frozen food.


Well.....I'm not 100% convinced but I do have a Regal Tang swimming around
completely cured with no meds and no infection of other fish.....I know
marine is different to freshwater but the theory behind it all sounds good
to me.....

Gill

Thanks for the info Gill. They're all tolerating the AquaraSol well, it's
not a harsh treatment, so I'll continue on with that.
--

RM....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
rec.ponder since late 1996.
Zone 6. Middle TN USA
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