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About two years ago I was interested in a studies that was done on trying to control parasites (Ich & Velvet) that had devastated fish farms ending up losing tons of their livestock due to outbreaks. In their attempts to look for other methods to rid the parasite they tried to flush the parasites with fresh sea water, keeping in near darkness & the transfer method, in their open water containers (a short summary of the study). Although they weren’t completely successful they did find that near darkness had decreased there loses and continued to do this, reporting later that this one farm never had the parasite (velvet) outbreak again. I will post back tomorrow with some articles on this study if your interested?

After I read these articles it occurred to me that it totally made perfect sense. At that time I had a porcupine puffer in a QT that had a mild case of ich when I purchased. I couldn't understand at that time why when I left the puffer for the day it was fine (no lights) but when I came back later in the day (lights on for hours) the fish was completely covered to the point of no return!

Since then I have tested the theory, putting sick fish in large Rubbermaid containers (called the transfer method) with near darkness and found it to be true as a means of control until treatment. As the studies continue to argue if parasites (Ich & Velvet) are indeed a parasite or a form of algae. My thoughts are that the parasite goes towards the light to find a host. I found that you can control velvet & or ich outbreaks for months by ridding the parasite of light. Either way I would not use it for a long-term solution for control by any means, I question long term what state it puts the fish in, but it can help buy you some time while you set up a stable Qt tank.


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