Ich aftermath... what to do now?

[daniella3d]

You don't get it? well that's because it is not the right way to do things. It is not when the fish are full of ich and on their way out that it is a good time to treat, it is when they arrive and relatively healthy. That's why quarantine is so important, so that one can treat sick fish either as prevention or at least on time.

Of course if the fish are dying and breathing already so fast and still suffocating, catching them might finish them off...but if they are at that point they will probably die anyway.

Fish are strong, very strong. Imagine the traveling in small bags that they have to do? Problem is that ich is attacking their gills and they suffocate. That's what kill the fish, not being handled, not being cought, not being transfered between tanks.

The second killer of fish in quarantine is bad water quality and ammonia. Those are very easily handled with products like Amquel.

Originally Posted by mrhasan

I just don't get it; how can a sick fish which is stressed already is further stressed by catching it, putting it in a small tank and doing things like jumbling between tanks, making it live in a hyposaline water or passing strong medicine like copper through its gill can help. Sure a surgery can be performed with no anesthesia but how would it feel? Maybe I am over-pessimist and rely overly on good husbandry.....

[mrhasan]

I am not taking about pre-ich QT over there but about post-ich QT; just thought about clearing it up

Yah I do have problem understanding many school of thoughts in this hobby Well if one wants to post QT the fishes and leave it fallow for more than 2 months; its their tank and they are more than welcome to do it. I did a lot (and I mean A LOT!) of studies when my tank had ich and guess what worked: let them just heal by providing them with proper care. And why is there so many school of thoughts, even with just one disease like ich? Because different things worked for different people and everyone just thinks their method is right. QTing worked for some so they promote that while old school method worked for me and hence I promote it.

Originally Posted by daniella3d

You don't get it? well that's because it is not the right way to do things. It is not when the fish are full of ich and on their way out that it is a good time to treat, it is when they arrive and relatively healthy. That's why quarantine is so important, so that one can treat sick fish either as prevention or at least on time.

Of course if the fish are dying and breathing already so fast and still suffocating, catching them might finish them off...but if they are at that point they will probably die anyway.

Fish are strong, very strong. Imagine the traveling in small bags that they have to do? Problem is that ich is attacking their gills and they suffocate. That's what kill the fish, not being handled, not being cought, not being transfered between tanks.

The second killer of fish in quarantine is bad water quality and ammonia. Those are very easily handled with products like Amquel.

[jorjef]

^^^ Wisers slow clap for mrhasan ^^^^^

[fishytime]

here's food for thought.....wildlife biologists have long known that a certain percentage of caught and released game fish die from lactic acid build up due to the stress of being caught.....why are our fish any different?.....I QTed for a while and had no better results than just putting the new fish in the display.....every time we put a net to our fish we cause lactic acid build up that could prove to be fatal.....I feel that playing musical tanks with a fish is putting it through more than is necessary......if you are observant and make good decisions buying your fish you will greatly lessen the chance of introducing something nasty....

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by fishytime

here's food for thought.....wildlife biologists have long known that a certain percentage of caught and released game fish die from lactic acid build up due to the stress of being caught.....why are our fish any different?.....I QTed for a while and had no better results than just putting the new fish in the display.....every time we put a net to our fish we cause lactic acid build up that could prove to be fatal.....I feel that playing musical tanks with a fish is putting it through more than is necessary......if you are observant and make good decisions buying your fish you will greatly lessen the chance of introducing something nasty....

I know the idea seems stressful, but the fish that die from lactic acid build up in sport or commercial fishing go through a significantly more acutely traumatic capture process than what fish in a properly designed quarantine procedure will ever experience - either being smothered half to death in a huge drag net where they are trapped for hours trying to escape, or are hooked through the mouth and pulled from the water fighting the line with every ounce of strength they have for as long as possible. Scooping fish up quickly with a net (or better yet a tupperware container with holes drilled in the bottom) isn't really comparable, even if you're doing the tank transfer method and are doing it every few days. Not QTing is a method that works fine until it doesn't, and when it doesn't the amount of temporary stress your fish were spared by not QTing them becomes a moot point because they're dead. I would never criticize someone for not doing it because it's an annoying and time consuming process (I never used to), and if you're lucky it works fine. But I also understand how quickly one can become a quarantine convert when you've had a near tank wipe-out due to parasites.

[Reef Pilot]

If you don't quarantine new fish, you are actually putting them through more stress, I believe. Besides the disease prevention, while in the QT new fish have a chance to be acclimatized to your DT water (prior to the final transfer) and new foods. They then have a chance to become healthy and strong before going into your DT.

Otherwise, if thrown into the DT immediately, they may have to face hostile existing tank inhabitants (like my yellow tang) while in a weakened state, and not used to eating the new foods. If that isn't stress for a fish (and the aquarist watching all this), I don't know what is.

Moving existing stock from an infected DT to a QT is a whole different story, though. My problem would be just in trying to catch them. So yes, I would first try to feed them well and hope their health and immune system carry them through.

But the real solution, which I keep preaching, is prevention, by QT'ing new fish. That is the best for new fish, and for protecting your DT. And it is so easy, which is why I don't readily accept lame excuses for not doing it. I have a 30g QT running all the time, with a canister filter, and water changes are done using DT waste water (from changes), so it costs me next to nothing to keep running and available when I need it. And I use it a lot, actually, sometimes for new shrimp and corals, too (no hypo for them, of course). It is a lot more work to maintain a refugium, actually, as I have done that, too.

Not QTing new fish is like playing Russian roulette with their lives. 5 out of 6 times (reality is more like 50/50 though), they might get away with it. But when they don't, the fish have to suffer (and be stressed) with ich. I just don't think that is very responsible, IMO.

[fishytime]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

I know the idea seems stressful, but the fish that die from lactic acid build up in sport or commercial fishing go through a significantly more acutely traumatic capture process than what fish in a properly designed quarantine procedure will ever experience - either being smothered half to death in a huge drag net where they are trapped for hours trying to escape, or are hooked through the mouth and pulled from the water fighting the line with every ounce of strength they have for as long as possible. Scooping fish up quickly with a net (or better yet a tupperware container with holes drilled in the bottom) isn't really comparable, even if you're doing the tank transfer method and are doing it every few days. Not QTing is a method that works fine until it doesn't, and when it doesn't the amount of temporary stress your fish were spared by not QTing them becomes a moot point because they're dead. I would never criticize someone for not doing it because it's an annoying and time consuming process (I never used to), and if you're lucky it works fine. But I also understand how quickly one can become a quarantine convert when you've had a near tank wipe-out due to parasites.

so you dont think that chasing a fish around a glass box with a net for a few minutes or for one minute several times in a couple weeks is stressfull to the fish?....I think you are vastly underestimating it, or perhaps are in denial about what we put our fish through....many game fish are hooked and released in less than a minute and still die from LA build up....how is that any different?....just cause there is no hook involved?

[mseepman]

You mean I'm not supposed to use a hook to catch the fish in my aquarium? I knew something wasn't right in my methods.

[daniella3d]

I cought a wrasse and a foxface with a small hook and they both survived just fine. If that whole thing about stressed fish dying would be true, no fish would ever reach our tanks. Ever tried to catch a wrasse from a reef tank? took me 3 minutes with a hook.

After all, most of them are cought with nets in the ocean, put in small buckets for days, sometimes weeks, then shipped for many hours in small bags.

If they survive that then the only thing that can kill them are parasites on their gills and skin, or attack from other agressive fish.

Originally Posted by fishytime

so you dont think that chasing a fish around a glass box with a net for a few minutes or for one minute several times in a couple weeks is stressfull to the fish?....I think you are vastly underestimating it, or perhaps are in denial about what we put our fish through....many game fish are hooked and released in less than a minute and still die from LA build up....how is that any different?....just cause there is no hook involved?

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by fishytime

so you dont think that chasing a fish around a glass box with a net for a few minutes or for one minute several times in a couple weeks is stressfull to the fish?....I think you are vastly underestimating it, or perhaps are in denial about what we put our fish through....many game fish are hooked and released in less than a minute and still die from LA build up....how is that any different?....just cause there is no hook involved?

I never said it wasn't stressful. I'm sure it's very stressful. I'd find a giant net descending from the sky and taking control of my physical position in the universe pretty stressful indeed. Though if I had any real moral concerns about the moment to moment acute level of stress a fish was under, I probably wouldn't have a tank. However, I'm not convinced that fish have much by ways of a deep, subjective emotional experience so other than the moment in which they are trying to not get eaten (caught) I don't think they think about it much. However, fatal lactic acid build up is a specific issue, and it's not one I've ever heard of being a problem in the context of aquarium quarantine procedures. Fatal lactic acid build up can only happen if the fish is exerting a huge amount of effort - enough to build up lactic acid to fatal levels. Pulling a fish from the water by a hook leads the fish to exert far more effort trying to get away, it's pulling against the force of the line as hard as it possibly can, same thing with keeping a fish in a drag net with thousands of others for hours. A fish that's been netted in a closed box might struggle in the net a bit, but it will be nothing compared to a fish fighting trying to get off a hook, and they are never in the net for more than a few seconds.

I've got 20 fish in my tank at the moment, and every single one of them went through a tank transfer protocol. I can also say that every single one of them went back to behaving completely normally within 20 minutes (about an hour for the anthias) of the transfer, including eating. Stressed, scared fish generally don't eat. They were caught using a tupperware with holes drilled in the bottom and other than trying to get away (which involved swimming no faster than they often do in the tank), there was very little struggling, a few thrashes as the water drained out of the tupperware. Yes it's stressful, but it's temporary and over vey quickly compared to what they went through to get to you. I've never heard of anyone losing a fish to the tank transfer protocol that wasn't from mismanaged water quality (a track record that copper should look upon with envy and self loathing). In fact, I would consider something like the tank transfer method to be the least stressful of all the ich treatment protocols because you're engaging the fish in a survival strategy they've spent hundreds of millions of years developing - they are literally built for the 'fight or flight' response and have a myriad of physiological pathways to activate and cope with it. They are not built to cope with hyposaline conditions, or to deal with toxic levels of physiological poisons, they just aren't necessarily immediately killed by them.

The goal with fish (and in humans, coincidentally) should be to avoid long term, chronic and systemic stress, as that's what will affect their overall health and lifespann. Poor water quality is a long term chronic stress. Keeping them at the wrong temperature, or under the wrong lighting, or with the wrong tank mates, or in too small of a box is a long term chronic stress. Keeping them in an environment that encourages higher ectoparasite loads than they would ever be exposed to in the wild is also a chronic stress. Exposing them to acute bursts of very short term temporary stress in order to avoid exposing them to chronic conditions that could possibly or kill them is the lesser of two evils IMO. It's like saying we shouldn't vaccinate our kids against the measles because they're afraid of needles.