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I agree - there's not reason to treat your tank for ich until you see it in general - unless you KNOW that these fish have ich in the free-swimming stage and then I would treat them in quarantine.

It's fairly unlikely that ich specifically will become resistant to drugs. Bacteria multiply (and thus mutate) very very quickly. Ich is a bit of a different story. Not saying it's impossible, but I don't think it's as much of a concern as some people seem to.

Also, antibiotic resistant staph and other bacteria come more from misusing antibiotics than from overusing them. Sure, it's pointless to treat with antibiotics when they're not needed, but if everyone took the full course of antibiotics as recommended there would be many fewer resistant strains.

So, as an off-topic public service announcement: If you're prescribed antibiotics (or using them on your fish) follow the directions and use them as long as you're supposed to even if you/the fish feel better right away!

"Cup, It has long been my understanding that the main reason to raise the temp was to purposefully make go through its life stages more quickly. So that it enters the stage where medicine or salt or whatever you are treating it with will kill it. "

Not entirely true. Salt does not kill the parasite; it promotes osmosis between the fish and it's enviornment. This is why I prefer this method of treatment among others; it allows the host fish to heal itself by rebuilding it's slime coat and allowing greater gas exchange in the gills, ridding the host of pesky and rather harmful gill infestations.


"But, I think that it is the heat that kills the organism in the free-swimming stage, I don't think that it makes the lifespan so short as to not able to find a host."

Exactly. This is why heat treatments are generally ineffective, as the ich will return given the sightest provocation. Some toms will still make it to attach onto tank inhabitants/decor. Ich has a dormant form; actually two, which are impervious to temperature, permanganate, formalin, and copper complexes. However, copper meds, despite their detrimental effects on assumedly treated fish, kill of the free swimming toms far to fast to delegate a reaction from the parasite. Similarly, the slime coat prevents the dormant cysts from entering the skin of the host.

Cup, It has long been my understanding that the main reason to raise the temp was to purposefully make go through its life stages more quickly. So that it enters the stage where medicine or salt or whatever you are treating it with will kill it.

Basically, temperature determines how long the organism stays in its cyst stage. At tropical tank temperatures this is a few days. In a koi pond in spring this may be up to a month. When it bursts, the free swimmers, the stage where ich is vulnerable to medication or salt or whatever, must find a host to survive.

At 68 deg F, they lived for 55 hours. I am sure that the higher temp means lower lifespan, but I cannot believe that it would ever get below 15 or 20 hours. Plenty of time for some of the hundreds or even thousands to find a host. I do not think that higher temps cause the organism to get through its stages too fast to find a host -- there is plenty of time to find a host. But, I think that it is the heat that kills the organism in the free-swimming stage, I don't think that it makes the lifespan so short as to not able to find a host. Even then, given that hundreds to thousands of free swimmers come out, a few will find a host in just a few minutes nevertheless. And then, there are the strains that survive at this higher temp. Their lifespan is long enough to find a host without getting stressed and die because of the heat.

Temperatures in excess of 86 degrees do not kill the protazoan (almost as if it were written in as a part of my job description, I am constantly having to treat said infection, for it pops up all the time at my LFS), rather, it is to my understanding that once temperatures go near or past 90 degrees, the cyst stage will die as a result of increased metabolism before attaching itself. However, those cysts that arent released and the organisms that have already burrowed into the gills, among other places on the fish, tend to go into a dormant stage. Thus, temperature alone is only a minor relief to the problem and may take quite some time to rid the fish of spottage, as this further stresses the fish. The only true cure for ich is for said fish to develop a strong slime coat, preventing parasites from entering the skin. Also, you are completely correct- I was a bit hasty in my previous post, and, in fact, there are several strains of ich circulating around (but not enough to warrant fear of immunity), not species.





Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 07-Jul-2005 17:05

Sham: yes, ich is not a virus or bacteria, but it is a protozoa. When its offspring break out of its cyst, there are hundreds to 2000 that come out. The life period at tropical temperatures is 3-4 days, so it has a pretty quick reproductive cycle. The chance of mutation here is not to be ignored. I do not think that the leap here is too great at all.

Yes, protozoa are not bacteria, but I am trying to draw analogies here. Ich is a single celled organism like a bacteria. There are open debates on whether virus are even alive. But, they are all single celled and reproduce fairly quickly. It is the quick reproduction rate that may allow quick mutation and hence aquired immunity possibilites.

Now, Cup, it used to be well known that ich would be stressed and die at 86 deg F. Look through a few of the hundreds of posts that are in the emergency section, and you will still see it often mentioned as a cure. Or pick up some older aquarium literature. I think most ich does become stressed at higher temperatures. Being a single-celled organism, it does not respond to stress nearly as well as a multicellular organism, like fish. However, there are reports of a strain being studied at the University of Oklahoma that survive well above 90 deg. If you get it hot enough, you can kill it -- but most likely at the expense of the fish as well.

Finally, I don't want to get into semantics, but be careful of your use of the word species. As far as I have read, all the studies are on Ichthyophthirius multifiliis with different strains or subspecies. We would clearly recognize a St. Benard and a chihuahua as very different animals, but they are the same species just with very different characteristics. Just subspecies of the dog. In the same way, different subspecies of ich can show different characteristics, yet still be the same species. I am no expert, but I have not read about the different strains being named different species.

Anyway, I am sticking to my feelings that treating for ich or any disease without confirming it is fairly irrepsonsible. The chance of mutation and drug-resistance is too great in my mind. And the attitudes of too many fishkeepers are wrong -- too many people looking for a magic bottle as opposed to looking for the cause. Cup is very right that the water quality issues start like 95% of these things. To wit, and knock on wood, I have never had a case of ich in my tanks ever. It is most likely not going to change, but there are very few other animals where you can just buy powerful medicines without a vet's prescription. To get the most out of these medicines, we need to use them responsibly, so that the medicines continue to be effective for a long time to come.

I think we're missing the fact that ich is not a bacteria. It's not even a virus. It's a parasite. You are not using antibiotics. Parasites do not mutate as fast as bacteria or virus and the ich medicines I have used have been extremely effective without stressing the fish. There has been 1 occasion I treated a tank with rid ich plus before symptoms showed. Everytime I get threadfin rainbows they get ich so when I got 4 over the internet I just went ahead and treated them. Usually if I get a fish nearby and ich shows up unless the fish really look stressed I don't treat. When put in quality water in a healthy tank my fish have recovered without ich med. However rams are sensitive and I would be certain to put them in a cycled tank in a quiet area until I knew they were healthy. The ones I lost were due to being in a tank in a high traffic area along with an ich break out.

Firstly:

high temperatures of 90 degrees do not kill the protazoans. Once the water hits 90 degrees, the life cycle of the ich increases multifold. In some instances the metabolism of the organism speeds up to the point where the ich does not finish developing in the cyst stage. Ich treated with temperature quickly returns if the inhabitants are restressed.

Secondly:
There are several species of ich, not just one. All are similar in morphology, but it is not beyond the realm of imagination that one species could tolerate comparatively higher temperatures.

I don't think that there is enough congealing of separate ich populations for a collective immunization to occur.

Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 06-Jul-2005 13:45

stariel, I agree that if all the doctor's recommendations were followed and a little more responsibility had been used, the situation would not be where it is now. Nevertheless, that is where we are now. In many, many ways people who only treat the ich until the spots fall off as opposed to treating though the entire life cycle are doing the same thing as the people who do not finish all of their antibiotics.

I just wanted to give an example of what can happen. And as regards to ich, these newer strains seem to me to be pretty obviously responses to the common treatments. Why else would ich have developed strains to survive over 90 degrees F? Or even tougher to answer, why would ich from the wild develop a strain that remains on the fish rather than drop off and make it vulnerable to medications. There is no driving force in the wild to do this -- no medication attacking it in the wild. The strain that stays on the fish is a response to treatments.

There are several more examples. One is that the genetic map of the influenza virus made several years back is basically useless today. The flu that is going around now is significantly different genetically than what was mapped. And, I think most of us know that the health workers have to guess which flu strain will be most prominent in order to make enough vaccine.

Ich or the flu virus may not mutate as quickly as bacteria, but its rate cannot be ignored, either. It is clearly changing in response to ways we are treating it now. So, once again, unnecessary treatments only help it along the way of developing resistances.

It should not matter whether or not ich can survive in given temperatures or develop an immunity to a certain med (meds shouldn't be used anyways, as they achieve somewhat of a similar affect to fish chemotherapy). What many aquarists don't understand is that ich, when left on it's lonesome, is easily overcome. Given the fish in question has a healthy slime coat, there is little need to worry about the ich. Unless I have serious outbreaks, I never treat the fish. Turn off the lights, leave the tank for two days, and the ich should dissappear, so long as no one is stressed. The ich protazoan does not kill the fish. Rather, it breaks down the slime coat, leaving the fish suceptible to a multitude of secondary diseases. Let the fish rest, maybe a bit of ammo lock, stress coat, and melafix or another good aniseptic, and almost all light infections should go away. Only in already heavy gill infestations will you need to break out the salt.

I bought some new fish today and was told by the guy at the LFS that i should treat the tank for Ick right away, even if my tank showed no signs of it. Is this true? Thanks.

I somewhat know the guy so it wasn't a case of trying to make a sale. I think he was implying that the store has had problems with Ich and he thought that i should medicate to prevent it from popping up. I bought 2 Bolivian Rams and 5 Julii Cories.

Last edited by Brian1216 at 06-Jul-2005 09:26

thats a irresponsible advice for ur lfs...they probably just wana make extra bux by asking u to buy ich meds thats not necessary at this time...why fix sumthing thats not broken???

When I was reading through this thread I was looking for someone to give the answer that came to my mind as soon as I saw the question.

Callatya, I think you are right on.

It is also my opinion that the LFS guy knows something that he didn’t tell you about. Have you been to this store a few days before you bought the fishies and looked at them? You might just have bought your fish at the end of them treating for Ich already. BTW, what fish did you buy?

Ingo

---

Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

OK, thinking outside the realms of standard moral behaviour, I would have the ich medication ON HAND, as I suspect the reason he has told you this is that either your fish were in contact with a fish with ich or have just come out of quarantine.

I wouldn't dose, but i would keep the drug nearby, as ich has a habit of striking at about 5pm on a friday or saturday night when all the shops are closed

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Brian1216

I have never heard of anything like that in 30+ years. Next time you go back ask the reasons why and where the infomation came from.

Sounds like he spotted someone new to fish keeping and saw sales.

Keith

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It cannot be overemphasized not to casually use medication due to the acquired immunity.

Let me give you an example: Staph infections many years ago was considered a fairly minor infection. Penicillian knocked it out pretty quick. Then penicillian didn't work as well, so they started using stronger and stronger anti-bacterials. Today, there is a strain (or several strains) that are immune to all the known antibacterials. Several people die from this every year. The rate of mutation of the bacteria is far greater than the rate of discoverey of new medicines.

How does this apply to your tank? As was said above, by adding unnecessary medicine, all you end up doing is culturing strains that are resistant to the medicine. End result -- if you need the medicine in the future, now it won't work -- the strain is resistant after all!

Ich is dangerous enough without breeding resistant strains. It used to be widely known that raising the temperature above 86 F was enough to stress and kill the ich organism. But today, there are strains that can survive well above 90. There are also strains that do not have to drop off the fish to reproduce. These are scarry enough without adding drug resistance to the mix.

have to agree with sneaky-pete on this one...

It would be like treating you for bronchitis and you not having it...it's not going to do anything but possibly build up an immunity to the drugs being used...and very likely causing more stress on an already stressed fish (stress from being relocated)

That and he could be trying to just sound good and sale more of a product

heidi

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle

Noooooooooooo
Never treat a tank for any illness not present.
It just causes problems.
If the fish dont have ick, dont treat for it.
What a weird guy.


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