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I went to my LFS today looking to buy some yoyos. They usually have very healthy fish kept in the best conditions. Today though, I was about to buy them when I noticed that all of the balas in a neighboring tank were suffering a SEVERE case of ich. I asked a man working there if the water running through the tanks was interconnected. He said they all shared the same water, and then opened a cabinet and showed me a large filter and an ultra violet light setup. He said all the water ran through this first and it was filtered and sterilized(by the light), and it was "impossible" for the ich to pass from tank to tank.

I didn't buy the fish just to err on the side of safety. But now I am wondering. Is it possible to sterilize water or kill ich using UV light? Haha.. I have never heard of anything like that before, all I kept wondering was that if it killed the parasite so well why don't people use it at home? Just curious about this all!

Hi,
A UV system properly installed and run according to
the manufacturers suggestions will kill the ich parasite
only when it is in the free swimming stage of its life.

Most of the time it lives incrusted in the gravel or
attached to a host.

For UV lights to be effective the water flow must be at,
or slightly below what is recommended by the maker.
For the UV light to be effective the water must be in
contact with the light for a minimum amount of time. If
the pump running the tanks waters through it is too high
a GPH (gallons per hour) the light will do nothing.
For UV light to be effective the bulb must be replaced
at the interval stated on the assembly - usually every
6 months to a year. If the LFS is not following those
directions, religiously, then the bulb won't even give
the parasite a tan as it passes through the system.
For UV light to be effective the inside of the assembly
must be clean and free of detritus. The assembly must
go through a regular cleaning routine so that the max light
is shed on the water as it flows through.

Lastly the ich parasite could easily have ridden in on one
of the fish that you see in that tank and then spread within
the tank.
LFS's do not quarantine their fish before placing them
in the tanks for sale.
Instead, they let the temperatures equalize between
the shipping bags and the host tanks, and then open
the bags and dump the new fish and water into the
host tanks.

UV light will kill just about anything living that passes
through it as long as the directions are followed.

Frank


Last edited by FRANK at 28-Jan-2005 21:18

Last edited by FRANK at 28-Jan-2005 21:19

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Tea

Well said Frank. It had me tossed for a minute but a bit of commonsense thinking I soon worked it out. It must pass through a fully working UV unit to be effective and then and then only it would have to be in the swimming stage.

The big question what happens at other stages of the ich parasite life?

Keith

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There other stage to beware is the egg stage. The white spots are the eggs. Dont buy fishes from that LFS. The ich can even be in the nets, gravel, inside normal looking fishes gills. When you see one case, there's probably more. A better idea is to use a quarantine tank. 2 or 3 weeks in the quarantine will keep all of your fish safe!

________________________________________
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Hi,
Well I'd have to dig back to recover all that knowledge
(working of first cup of coffee this morning).
However, the life of the parasite is relatively short.
The eggs, as I understand it are found everwhere, and
with the proper environment, hatch. The free swimming
critters start looking for a host. As long as the fish
in the tank are healthy, the mucus coating on the fish
protect them and prevent the youthful parasites from
obtaining a foot hold they fall off and die.

Its only fish that are stressed (severe temperature
change, pH shifts, etc.) that loose the mucucs coating
while fighting the stress, that become infected.
Once attached, the parasite digs into the fishs' body
and begins to feed off the fish.

It is the free swimming part of the parasites' life
that it is "killable" without injuring the fish.
(you can't just pull it off the fish, or rub something
on the fish to kill it.)

A properly run UV system will kill anything alive, that
passes through the system including the parasite.

I'm sure that we have some members who really know the
life cycle of the ich parasite better than I. My last
outbreak was over 40 years ago. I know that today, we
raise the temperature of the tank, and treat with an
ich medication. The increased temperature, causes the
parasite to increase its metabolism and it goes through
its life cycle faster. That way a two week treatment
of an infected tank will kill all of them rather than
reaching only those that are free swimming at the time.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

I think it is important to note that a UV system cannot remove 100% of any parasite/pests. As only a small amount of water goes through the UV sterilizer at any time. When you mix the sterilized water with the original tank water, the concentration of pests is reduced, but it will never be zero. A steady state will be reached between the rate the UV kills and the rate at which the pests grow.

Compare that with adding medication to the water, where the concentration of the meds in the tank is the same for all 100% of the water, giving the medication a chance to kill every pest in the tank. The diffeence is that 100% of the tank water is affected at a point in time, whereas the UV system can only affect a small amount of tank volume at any one time.

My lfs quarantines live bearers and some toher fish. Tehy are very good. Very detailed explantation of uvs thankyou I was wondering about them too.

Hi Tea and others,
If you can see something wrong with the fish in your LFS, please let the staff know, so they can treat, quarantine, remove any sick fish. Most responsible LFS would not knowingly offer sick fish for sale. This would seriously impact on any further sales of fish, or of you buying any more fish from that store.Ich can be quickly treated by a good fishkeeper and with the help of UV seriliser in a complete flow through system as used in most better LFS you will find that cross contamination of Ich is not possible.As the other posters have mentioned, cases of Ich come from radid changes in water temperature, A cold snap, changes of seasons, Autum to winter as now in Australia is a bad time for us.Could also be a faulty, worn out heater, some one leaving the Air Conditioner on high cool overnight, chilling the tank. Bad transport of fish in transit is another problem at times, Aircraft flying at high altitudes, cargo holds can get cool at times etc.
In Australia we try to keep our fish at a good warm temerature to try to avoid Ich as much as possible, larger tanks (more stable water temps)Air conditioners for our long hot summers need careful setting to avoid over chilling. The joys of fishkeeping. Good luck. Muss