cleaner wrasse

[justinl]

Originally Posted by my2rotties

Did this person check out stomach contents of cleaner wrasses from the oceans or an aquarium? I read ich is pretty much non existent in the ocean and manifests itself in our aquarium due to space constants and such.

the study was conducted on wild fish. I did not know that about ich, could you find where you read that and post it for us? I'd be interested in reading it. Anyways, I know full well that in captivity, all bets are off. At least some (i don't confess to know how often this happens) cleaner wrasses eat ich ectoparasites in captivity; this has been well-documented, but that's not my point. Actually I had a few points which I already outlined: ciliate protozoans do not offer the same nutritional profile as a crustacean, often there are not enough fish to feed the wrasse this alone (volume wise), and it's not going to get rid of ich due to their life history anyways.