Terrible Advice Tuesdays (T.A.Tues): That Tang Of Yours Is Going To Get Ich
Terrible Advice Tuesdays (T.A.Tues): You can expect a tang to get ich (cryptocaryon irritans).
The rest of the story: Expecting a fish to get a disease is the equivalent of saying, “Nothing I can do, it is going to happen anyways”, and sitting around waiting for the disease to show up. What a horrible idea.
I certainly won’t deny that tangs are more prone to ich than other types of fish. And just because a fish is prone to a disease, that doesn’t mean you should expect your fish to get a disease.
Why? There’s a couple of reasons:
- If a fish doesn’t have a disease, and isn’t exposed to a disease, then the disease can’t show up out of thin air. An ich-free tang that is kept in an ich-free system can’t suddenly come down with ich.
- Diseases, and certainly ich, can be prevented with correct quarantine procedures. Ich can be prevented and shouldn’t be expected.
Finally, if you really expect tangs to get ich, then you’d be crazy not to quarantine them and strongly consider prophylactic treating them as well. (Note: As explained in my quarantine guide, I’m not a proponent of putting a fish through a cocktail of medications in an attempt to prophylactic treat against every disease.)
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Likely did, as in the evening hours, when oxygen is slightly lower the parasites are proliferating on still and resting fish close to the substrate. Fish, which will collect new parasites all over the gills– their only ‘interaction’ site to the outside world around them and a site that allows them to shed internal gases and take in valuable gas I.E. oxygen.
Tangs, especially hippo tangs, are often observed as those most likely to ‘carry in’ a seeding ectoparasite population in an otherwise healthy tank. So is THAT the case? Sometimes true but I suspect just as often, the newly introduced fish can be ‘unfairly named’ as the carrier. That is to say, that new fish CAN represent two things- 1) a carrier of new parasite populations and/or 2) a tipping point as it can be a weak individual that also adds to the pollution rate of the system. And in addition, this individual ‘may’ be just an excellent substrate for proliferation of earlier introduced but not noticed before parasites.
I think its helpful to think of parasites as a ‘dynamic’ of a closed system and not as a ‘bug’ that gets fish like a tick or a flea on a dog. In short, it takes two to tango ( and also a messy ‘dance floor’)! you need a weak fish, a presence of a healthy parasite and an environment that favors the proliferation of ectoparasites and at the same time, discourages the resistance within the fish itself.
It is always dangerous to say what I’m about to say and I’m sure the experienced hobbyists reading this will cringe when they read it– but– it IS possible to suppress an infestation by simply strengthening the fish and giving them high water quality and stable conditions. In this mentality we are accepting that fish have their own resistance to parasites given support via osmotic support, high ORP, low nitrogen pollution and excellent balanced diet. In addition, a system that is biologically stable is one with very clear water but it is water balanced by microbes within. This type of environment is ‘sturdy’ and well populated with the right combinations of microbes and micro algae etc so as to make ectoparasites just another resident attempting to establish itself ( which hopefully it will be unable to do in any meaningful way).
I did say this is a dangerous concept for beginners as they have not yet enough experience to know when simple water changes will wear back the incidence of an accidental introduction of a stray parasite cyst on a new entry verses when it represents a deadly introduction ( like a match to a tinder) to an over crowded, newly set up, poorly maintained, high nitrAte system. In one case the simple art of nurturing water will pull the event back from the edge and in the other, parasites will spread at a breath taking rate and claim victims daily. JasPR
Hi Tom, sorry I missed your last post! I hesitate to continue our chat ! Don’t get me wrong, I do really enjoy engaging on these subjects with an expert such as yourself– its fun and I learn. But I envision this site of one of tips and suggestions and not debate. As we know, there are many sites for that.
I couldn’t agree more that a closed system is not to be looked at as the ocean is– as the complexity and ultimately, the design. is vastly different from the closed ‘box’ we house our specimens.
Yet the physiology of the fish is always the same, as is its immune response. Fish absolutely posses the ability to ‘combat’ eco-parasite and bacteria invasion. The layers of skin of both freshwater and saltwater fish is primitive in keeping with their general evolutionary limitations. Yet these basic systems are also remarkably effective at dealing with threats in their environment. So this contradiction can often give us a misleading impression of just how ‘weak’ or just how strong the immune response is to parasites. I’d suggest that in a healthy fish with a good health slime coat and dermis, and with functioning reactive physiological response, the mere concern of a single parasite cell is nothing to loose sleep over. Instead, the BIGGER picture of G.A.S. reaction and water parameters is far far more important. The key word to appreciate in parasitic observation is ‘opportunistic’. An infestation is an event as as such, requires ideal conditions– those would be stressed hosts present in large numbers and a closed system allowing for rather delicate parasitic stages to find a weak host with ease. No one pities the parasite in the wild, but if you think about it, they truly have their work cut out for them keeping a decent population ( ironic, I know!) Best, JasPR
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Hi Mark,
I was wondering if you could please help me out with my situation! My fish are starting to get velvet in my SW FOWLR tank. The 8th and last fish(racoon butterfly) that I added to my 220gallon display tank is the one that brought it in. I have an additional 50G tank available for QT to treat them with CopperSafe, but there is no way I can take out all the fish with all the live rock in there. Even if I could, there is no way I can safely put all those fish at once w/o having an ammonia cycle kick in in the QT tank.(and, the fish are too big! A sailfin tang, kole tang, racoon butterfly, foxface rabbitfish, 2 clowns, coral beauty angel, singapore angel, snails)
Only 2 of my fish show signs of rubbing/tiny white spots so far, but I am 100% sure it is velvet and will spread soon enough.(maybe not to the very strong fish but for most, and future additions)
My questions is, in my situation described above, can I put the coppersafe into the display tank? I don’t mind if the snails die, but I am more scared about the live rock dying off, is that even possible? Again, I don’t have corals or anemones. I will never plan to have a reef tank, so I don’t mind if I can never put corals or snails or crabs etc. I just dont want a nitrogen cycle to re-kick in if it kills live rock bacteria(but the bottle says it doesn’t kill beneficial bacteria)
Please get back to me ASAP Mark, I will QT from now on but I need your help in this dire situation!
Navdeep
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Need advise, reef tank with lots of coral etc and now my fish have ich. I can’t get the fish out to sick tank. Will kick ick work? Will it hurt anything? Or should I just use garlic. I thank you for your response.
Kina
Seems like my achilles get ich off and on, He has fattened up a lot (better call Jenny Craig). Is this going to continue? or will his immune eventually fight it off?
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