I have been reading over your posts as well as others on this subject. IF I get ick again, and I know I will. Please refer to "Murphy's law" for my thoughts on why.
I was hoping have sufficient flow would blow them around enough it would be difficult for them to attach to fish in the first place. If I had proper flow, perhaps it would blow the parasites into the UV unit in the basement (when I buy one which is today).
From all I had read about ick it seems to surface for no reason at times, as in your case. I wonder if it attaches internally and after time gets released into the tank in feces or something like that. Perhaps it is in fish food and stays inside the fish as well... I dunno, I'm just guessing since I have no clue.
I also hope the amount of volume in my tank might help infestations since I have 260g for the display, 72 for the sump, and 55 for the refugium. Perhaps the space and amount of water would make it more difficult for them to over take the tank. I move my blowers a couple of time daily so there are no dead or stagnant spots in the tank, just in case... I am getting two small blowers today to put in the back bottom corners of the tank behind the rock walls, to circulate whater through there since it is hard to reach for the Korzilla 700s.
Since puffers, angels and tangs are ick factories, I am pretty much hooped since these are the only fish I want in this tank. I did find my wrasse did help. Perhaps ick gets into the scales and skin in damaged or weak areas in the first place. When the wrasse cleans them up maybe they help the fish heal so ick has a harder time attaching. Again, I dunno. When my wrasse was alive and well, he was very busy and when I had the ick breakout, he was cleaning the gills of my foxface. It looked very painful but Ed stayed put for this to happen.
I had ick in a 55g with no sump so I think perhaps water volume and a small space contributed it with the spread. It hit my 55g super hard and to watch the siffering and stress was almost too much to bear. It was hell to take the rocks and everything else and leave the fish in a bare tank. I also did not have enough flow when I think about it, and that is why I am going out of my way to ensure things move all over the place.
With the size of my fish I have no idea of what I would do to treat them if this happened. I scares me half to death. Although my puffer is a VERY BAD BOY I love him to death and don't know what I would do without him in my tank. I love to see him come up to me with one eyes pressed against the glass. He makes me laugh my guts out and teases the dogs as well. I love all my fish and never want to go through this again.
After reading what happened to you, I was hoping there was a preventative way to combat ick before it happens some how. After seeing the trouble you went through, I see it is not viable, but heck if it makes me feel better... I have read that people believe ick is always present then I read it has to be brought in. Then I read it shows up for no reason at all, when people have not changed a thing. I guess I ask the age old questions about preventing it from happening at all... It seems there is nothing that can be done, but then people say it should have never happened. I have two wonderful fish coming soon, yours' and another member whom wants a big tank for her foxface. I want to do them right, as well as my own fish and never deal with ick again. If I didn't buy this huge tank at the time ick hit my 55g, it would have been a show stopper for me.
What are UV sterilizers supposed to do if they cannot catch the worst offender in the first place? It seems like we are darned if we do and darned if we don't. I think I can deal with anything else but this one was a memory I don't want to revisit again.
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Originally Posted by GreenSpottedPuffer
UV will help for sure but no its also never going to be able to make a tank ich free. The biggest problem is contact time. Ich has to come into contact with the UV to kill it and most ich will never leave the display, travel down the overflow and through the UV. Ich doesn't swim enough. It generally swims very little looking for a host and attaches to whatever it finds. In a closed system its not very hard to find a host. In most cases (where the ich is bad enough) we are talking about thousands and thousands of parasites swimming around and only a fraction of that end up finding a host but thats all thats needed to cover a fish in ich. Basically the percentage finding a host is very low but it doesn't matter because its a closed system which gives ich a huge advantage when in large numbers. Thats also the reason flow has nothing to do with preventing ich. If only it were that easy! Your not going to stop hundreds or thousands of parasites from attaching to a fish because they are "blowing" around. Sure this may stop some but imagine a thousand little grains of salt floating around in your tank with strong flow...they are still going to be hitting your fish constantly.
While we are on the subject...Cleaner wrasse, cleaner shrimp and other "cleaners" generally do nothing to stop ich either. Its cool to see a fish get cleaned but what you are seeing is the cleaner eating dead skin/scales or dead parasites that have let go of the host. Ich burrows under the skin (thats the white spots you see) and for the most part cannot be touched by "cleaners". A fishes slime coat will also unfortunately protect the parasites.
Ich is a tough one to deal with sometimes but IMO should not kill fish unless it gets out of hand. I have lost fish of course to ich over the years but never recently and I have stopped with meds. Maybe its just luck but I don't feel thats the case. Choosing healthy fish and keeping them very well fed (I swear by the Tropic Marin Vitamins) and in very good water conditions seems to give the fish a fighting chance and least amount of stress. I have seen a connection in my tanks between nitrates over 20 and ich. Again, could be a coincidence but my FOWLR used to get ich every time the nitrates went over 20 PPM. I feel strongly that even in a fish only tank nitrates should be kept down to a reasonable level or you have too many fish. I have kept large puffers, groupers, lions, ect. and know you can keep nitrates low with good husbandry and equipment.
But anyways that would be another rant  |