Life cycle and triggers for ich

Hey all

Since this seems to be a never ending subject, I thought I would write up a summary of what ich is, and what its life cylcle is.

Some will say this parasite is in most aquariums all the time, but healthy fish keep it in check. It is when the hosts are stressed and weakened that ich gets the upper hand. Stress may be caused by drastic change in water temperature, ph, a spike in ammonia or nitrates.

Another trigger for ich is new tank mates being added causing the host to defend its territory. This is often why you hear someone say "I bought a fish from so and so, and two days later all my fish had ich" Well no, you wouldnt see it on your existing fish within two days. What probably happened was your existing fish kept it in check, and the addition of a new tank mate stressed it out & allowed ich to get the upper hand.

Ich can be broken down into several stage of its life cycle.

The stage where the parasite is attached to a fish is called a trophont. The trophont will spend three to seven days (depending on temperature) on the fish. This is when you see the white specks on its fins. Since the time spent on the fish is dependant on temperature, raising the temp will increase the life cycle making treatment quicker.

After the Trophont falls of the host fish, it crawls around the substrate looking for a place to attatch. Once it attatches to the substrate, it becomes hard & is now called a tomont. At this stage is begins to divide into hundreds of parasits. This usually takes 3-7 days, but cases have been found where it can take up to 28 days. This is the stage that regular vacuuming of your substrate may help.

Once the cyst hatches & releases its hundreds of parasites, they are called theronts. This is the stage they are most vulnurable. If they do not find a fish host within 24 hours they will die. This is the stage that a UV sterilizer will help control ich in your tank. Once attached it will again transform into a trophont where it will spend 7-14 days and begin the cycle again.



For reasons unknown, many fish seem bulletproof to ich, will other fish contract it if you mention the name around them.

The resistant fish are thought to be

mandarins, wrasses, and gobies.


The fish that are most succeptible are Tangs, tangs, tangs, tangs, and tangs. After that angels, clowns, butterflies, and puffers.

So now you understand the lifecycle of ich, you know the following.

1. removing one fish with signs of ich is a waste of time, as it is still in your tank.

2. Different stages of the life cycle can be fought. The swimming stage by a uv sterilizer is one. Vacuuming during the tomont stage. Cleaner shrimp to clean the fish during the trophont stage.

3. There is no way to treat and 100% eliminate ich in a reef tank. The two known treatments copper and hypo will kill any invertabrate in your tank.

 

Great clarification. If I may add 1 thing, if you remove the fish from the tank and leave it fallow 72 days the Ich will die out due to not having a host to reporduce.

 

correct!

6 weeks (42 days) is the norm for allowing it to be fallow. And it needs to be ALL fish, not just a few. Although you may never see ich on lets say a mandarin, it still may be carrying just enough to start the life cycle over.

 

About 2 years ago I had a major ich problem when I added a pygmy angelfish to my biocube. Shortly after it was covered in ich and it was spreading to my clownfish. I'd had freshwater for years and beat ich by bumping up the temp, feeding garlic marinated food, adding freshwater salt, and of course increased water changes. Saltwater is a bit of a different animal of course, so I didn't change the salt or temp at all. I took fresh garlic cloves and smashed them, then soaked them in some water with the food. I would suck that food out with a turkey baster and feed it to the fish. I would make a couple days worth of food soaked in that garlic, then start a new batch on the third day. All signs of the ich was gone within days and never reappeared, but I kept feeding the garlic food for some time. I since added a UV sterilizer and a cleaner goby - love that little guy, but my ich problems never returned even without them.


Hope that helps someone else. It was a lifesaver for me. I try to avoid medications. I suppose some fish could be sensitive to garlic, but I haven't had one yet that is. It didn't harm any of my corals either.

Here is a picture of that same angelfish, with his cleaner goby friend. Still healthy and thriving!

http://s1217.photobucket.com/albums...eaning.jpg" target="_blank">

 

Xroads, I think you need to add tangs to the list a few more times /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/smile.gif seriously. I introduced a tang to my established tank with no signs of ich and within 2 weeks all my fish had died of ich, some from secondary infections after treatment I think. I left my tank fallow for 8 weeks (which was really hard to do). I began restocking and didnt have any ich issues for months. I then finally added a tang, and within one week it was dead from ich. Since then I have tried 5 species of tang and every single one was dead within 2 weeks from ich.

I have just accepted that I can have anything but tangs in my tank. No other fish have ever shown signs of ich. This really sucks considering many of the fish I want most are tangs.

 

I know what you mean about leaving the tank empty. Where were buying your fish from? Sounds like they have bad stock or their tanks are infested with ich. That is why I quarantine everything that goes into my tank. I use copper on all new fish even though I should be using Hyposalinity I just don't have the time to stay on top of the hypo treatment.

 

Your dead on Shayna. For some reason, garlic boosts the immune system of fish helping them to fight off ich. I should add cleaner gobies to my list, they do a great job as well.

 

I have heard (Curious on your thoughts) that a cleaner goby can easily carry ich and in fact most often do. So, if you don't have an ich problem in your tank, you might want to stay away from the cleaner goby just as a precaution.

 

The garlic seemed to actually keep the ich from attaching itself to my fish. I really don't understand how garlic works, but I know there are garlic products like Garlic Extreme and Thera A New Life Spectrum, which gave me the idea to try soaking their food in garlic. I have so much to learn still about saltwater and certainly don't claim to be an expert, but it sure knocked out the problem for me! Interesting that it boosts their immune system. Garlic is good stuff for sure.

 

I havent heard that Pete, but I wont say it isnt true. The solution to that is to buy aquacultured, which would have very minimal if any exposure to ich.

 

Yeah, I think that this would be a strong case for buying aquacultured cleaner gobies.

 

Ich is such a confusing thing to me.... I have heard that ich lives in the water and stress is what can cause it to appear. It doesn't mean it was necessarily newly introduced. I wonder how it survives when it hasn't been using the fish as a host? We see it when it's attached, so that would mean it hasn't been active in the tank, wouldn't it? I see where you say in the OP that during one point of it's life cycle, it can live in the substrate for a period of time, but even then, that's less than a month, right? So I think the chances are it does come in with the newest fish addition, or the addition of the water to your tank - which is why that's a bad idea. Please tell me if I'm understanding it correctly.

The other thing I wonder is, if a fish is aquacultured then added to an established tank, does that make it more susceptible to ich since it has never before been around it? If ich is lurking in the substrate of many tanks, it seems like that could be a threat.

I've always wondered about these things, and since the topic is here, I figured I'd ask!

Shayna

 

That I cannot say for sure, but aquacultured fish are generally regarded as hardier then the wild ones.

 

All fish can be a carrier since it uses them to complete their life cycle. That is why QT'ing with a hypo or copper treatment is the way to go if the goal is to keep your tank free of ich. The cleaner goby would be nice to have since a cleaner shrimp would not last with my serpent.

I came across some articles on either RS or RC that went into great detail on garlic. I will post a new thread once I locate.

 

Shayna, take a look at this thread. There is a lot of helpful knowledge in it. All of your questions should be answered after reading this. Also follow the links to other articles to get the full picture.

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/fish-diseases-treatments/23132-marine-ich-myths-facts.html

 

Thanks xroads for the clarification. I appreciate it. That clears up some of the things I was confused about.

Tickty- thanks for the additional info, I'll take some more time to read through it all. It looks to be interesting and informative.

I can't stress enough what a difference the garlic made. It was before I used the UV Sterilizer or a cleaner goby. The garlic and water changes knocked my problem out for good. Time has proven the method in my tank. I would love to see more info on garlic to understand why and how it works the way it does.

I still think cleaner gobies are the coolest little fish! Whether they really help with ich or not, I couldn't tell you, but it's so neat to see it cleaning my little angelfish. My angelfish also loves to be cleaned. It's funny to see the angelfish go to the rock where the cleaner goby hangs out, then stop and lean sideways to encourage the goby to hop on. You can all but hear the angel saying "clean me!" That, and my watchman/pistol shrimp pair provide so much entertainment! I'd recommend them to anyone with a suitable setup.

 

Fish are acceptable to ich when they are stressed because they "shed" there protective coat?! I'm not sure exactly what its called, but the parasite can't burrow itself into the fish when it has this coat. I'm pretty sure I've read that only thing garlic does is entice the fish to eat, which then makes it healthier.

This is just the conclusion I've read about, through internet and books.

 

Tickyty, because of this I have tried several different places/species just to make sure it wasn't the fs....Seascapes, Petco, online at saltwaterfish.com, and live aquaria. No matter how healthy the tang looks or where its from, it gets ich and dies. Most the fish I really want aren't reef safe or are tangs....Frustrating!

 

I saw a new thread, so bump!