Quote:
Originally Posted by Magickiwi
Or buy some cleaner shrimp and let them pick the parasites off your fish.  |
Unfortunately, no cleaning organism has ever been demonstrated to actually eat Cryptocaryon irritans. The parasites bury themselves too deep in the skin of the fish for a commensal cleaner to get them off. What's far more common is that by the time people notice the pustules on the fish, they're nearly mature and ready to drop off. Then they see their cleaner shrimp/wrasse paying attention to the fish, and the next day, the pustule is gone. What has actually happened is that the trophont had it's fill, and sometime in the middle of the night while the fish was sleeping, it dropped off to become a tomont. A cleaner organism can be a useful addition for other reasons (though in some cases being constantly pestered by a cleaner fish or shrimp that you can't get away from can actually be stressful for a fish), but as far as a control agent for marine ich, they are completely useless.