quarantine after ich?

"Dick" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 3 Jun 2005 23:05:18 +0100, papalulu
wrote:


Dick Wrote:
On Thu, 2 Jun 2005 23:38:50 +0100, "Gill Passman"
gillspamattaylorpassmanspam.co.uk wrote:
-

"sophiefishstuff" wrote
in
message ...-
this is a query in the aftermath of a sad story - a month or so ago I
bought five baby (very baby) botia striatas and two female dwarf
gouramis. They'd come from a shop with a common filter system (and I
only have one spare tank) so I kept all seven fish in the same tank
to
quarantine them, and treated with protozin at half strength as a
prophylactic. a week later, two striatas were dead. I kind of assumed
(after discussion with some loachy people) that they were very small
and
undernourished from transport and that it had all been too stressful
for
them. Next day, the other striatas were spotty. Sigh. To cut a long
story short, on Monday morning I found the last striata dead (I have
a
feeling it was the protozin that killed him in the end, not the ich
which had I think just about cleared up).

My query is, how long should I wait before adding the gouramis to the
main tank, which contains a male dwarf gourami some rasboras and some
(slightly random) kuhlis? One gourami had two spots a couple of weeks
ago and has shown no signs since, the other has been consistently
clear.
I'm extremely reluctant to add them at the moment, as this is the
first
time I've had a disease in a tank and I would hate to infect the
kuhlis,
not least because one is rare in the hobby (I haven't even managed to
find a photo of another one on the net).

any advice will be very gratefully received.
--
sophie

www.freewebs.com/fishstuff
(under construction. ish.)-

If the Gourami are clear and you treated my guess is that they are over
it -
if you want to be sure leave it a few more weeks whatever you are
comfortable with - keep up with gravel vacs and water changes to make
sure
that you get any residual spores - a little salt and higher temps might
also
help. IME some fish gain a resistance to Ich but it depends on whether
your
existing tank fish have this resistance - problem is you won't know
unless
you try (not a good idea). But one thing to bear in mind is that Ich is
a
water borne infestation. So if you move the fish don't add any of the
tank
water to your main tank....some people empty into a bucket and net
them, I
net them out of the bag because I only have small volumes.....I learnt
from
bitter experience never to mix store/infected water with mine
(fortunately
only in terms of hard work clearing the tank of Ich introduced via
their
water)

The first analysis of stress or other infection might be true on the
other
fish....but it has been noted that stress is a major cause of fish
becoming
susceptible to Ich....shipping or other movement of fish is most
certainly
stressful. The symptoms can be hidden as the Ich can just exist in the
gills
rather than you seeing the more typical signs. If your LFS already had
Ich
spores in the water (which is very likely IME) - it was introduced with
the
water....

Wishing you all the best
Gill
-

Hi Gill and Sophie,

I have had only one experience with Ich. I get all my fish delivered
by overnight mail. I received an order of 6 Clown Loaches. At the
time I only had a 75 gallon tank. The instructions said to float the
bags in the tank with the lights off, so when I first saw the fish,
they had been in the tank for a couple of hours. They were all
covered with Ich. I had no medication and had to order over the
internet, so it was well over a week before I could start medication.

This long story is a build up to the formation of my Ich opinion.
During this time I had about 50 fish of various species exposed to the
Ich and the Ich had time to cycle thus infesting the tank. Not one
healthy fish got Ich from these infected Clowns, thus I have the
opinion that healthy tanks with healthy fish are not going to get Ich.

dick
Gill and Dick are correct in that a healthy fish seems to resist Ich.
But the stress of moving fish may weaken its immunity!
I once purchased half a dozen Cardinal tetras from a local store. The
next day they all had Ich two days after I had lost them all, None of
the other fish were affected then or since. I did return to the store
for a refund the same week and noticed the tank that held several
hundred Cardinals only days before, was empty. I don't buy from there
anymore.
I also now use a UV clarifier on my main tank and quarantine new fish.

Steve

If I read what you say correctly, Gill, you and I are in total
agreement. The Cardinals were probably sick when you bought them. I
received a shipment of 6 Clowns that were sick on arrival. Checking
with the vendor he confirmed that the fish had come from a tank of
infected Clowns and were shipped by mistake. The tank had been
marked, but one employee was careless.

What we call "stress" has its own symptoms such as hiding out and loss
of color. I am torn between calling it an illness or a condition that
robs the system of energy normally available to fight illness. I have
received close to 100 fish via overnight shipments. Other than the 6
Clowns which were known to be sick, all the rest have been healthy. I
think we all would expect those fish felt stressed.

As humans, we are constantly warned that "stress kills," but we jog
and run for health all the while stressing our motor system. What is
more stressful than having a "Royal Flush" and everyone is bidding the
pot higher! I have lived a very stressful life including surviving
the stress of owning a fast food store in a minority neighborhood
during the "Watts" riots. I spent a week sleeping on a freezer top
with a shot gun at my side while local people mounted patrols to keep
the riots from spreading to their community. Lots of stress, but I
didn't get sick.

I have had doctors recommend treatments which I ignored as I disagreed
with their assessments and was glad I did. I have seen individual fish
get sick and die while their companions have no problem in the same
tank. I just don't think we yet know enough about "illness" to do
much more than try various approaches and hope/pray we or our fish,
get well. I will claim some expertise at survival although I am only
70. My dad died of a blood clot at the age of 51 during a very good
part (happy) of his life.

dick

As a general rule I would say that stress in itself would not cause an
infestation of a parasite such as Ich (this is just IMHO of course). The Ich
needs to be there first - stress or other factors may weaken the immune
system making the fish more prone but Ich does not just suddenly appear
because of stress - something puts it there in the first place. With my bout
it was me putting in water from the LFS - strangely enough the fish that
went in with the water never showed any signs at all nor did most of the
tank fish (just 4 Clowns - since recovered). In Sophie's the fish came with
it and she sensibly quarentined (now got a dedicated tank myself for just
this purpose - tucked away in a cupboard so I don't get tempted to fill it
like the last one)

Stress and disease or ill health in humans is a complicated thing. I had one
of those 24 hour blood pressure monitors attached around 3 weeks ago. When I
got the read outs every instance of high blood pressure could be related to
a stressful incident within the day - after I actually got to relax
(watching the fish and a glass of chardonnay) it went down to managable
levels. Certainly in the industry that I work in stress is one of the major
factors of people being off sick. Maybe some people have a better ways of
coping with it. Maybe stress just makes us all (fish included) more prone to
succumbing to illness - who knows.

Now if stress does cause illness in fish I'm about to be in big trouble
having just torn down and rearranged the caves in my Malawi tank searching
for a missing fish (which I didn't find)....but right now I'm not too
concerned that that will happen. In fact everyone seems quite calm for a
change - lol

Gill