Is Uv Effective On Whitespot

[rival]

I have heard it being used on marine, but is it as effective in tropical?

 

[mark7616]

UV wont kill white spot if you already have it on your fish but it does eliminate free floating bugs preventing ws. I use a big uv on my 412g tank as it has rays and delicate fish in there they are a very good piece of kit to invest in.

 

[rival]

Thanks for the tip mate. I'm picking up my tank on thursday, and thought I had better get one if you guys said it would be a good preventative measure. Gonna go down the LFS today.

 

[mark7616]

What size tank are you getting. I would recomend the TMC v2 range very good uv`s you need to cange the bulb every 6 months for the uv`s to be effective. There is a light on them which tells you when to change them.

 

[rival]

What size tank are you getting. I would recomend the TMC v2 range very good uv`s you need to cange the bulb every 6 months for the uv`s to be effective. There is a light on them which tells you when to change them.

7ft x 2ft x 2ft

 

[mark7616]

get a tmc v2 600 it will be fine.

 

[rabbut]

UV's are the type of equipment that some love, and others hate.

In the words of Collin_T;

Some people swear by them and others swear at them.

That sums them up fine. Mark is obviously someone whom loves them. I don't see their point and am one of a few who sit on the fence so to speak. With the correct maintanance, your fihs should be healthy enough to thrive without one, as mine do, and thus they are deffinately not a needed piece of equipment. They have their uses, I'll admit that, but I don't see them in general fish keeping, unless fish get that imbread that they have no natural immunity

In QT tanks or shops they are very good, preventing disease, but if you fish are healthy, disease isn't going to be in your tank in dangerous levels anyway, unless you are puttin the tank into a stressful situation, such as a shop, which isn't recomended anyway

I wouldn't bother with one for your situation, personally.

All the best
Rabbut

 

[andywg]

UV is great for culling a whitespot infection down to a much smaller size at which point you can let the fish build up an immunity of sorts to it (or perhaps develop a low level infection which leads to the ich is everywhere and ich has a dormant stage myths) or you can then disconnect the UV and use a med to actually kill all the whitespot.

The thing to remember is that a UV only kills the whitespot in the water that flows through it. There will always be more water out of the unit than in, so it is perfectly possible for floating whitespot to not go through and thus find a host.

However, I have often used UV and find it extremely effective at breaking the back of a whitespot outbreak.

 

[TetraLinz]

UV is great for culling a whitespot infection down to a much smaller size at which point you can let the fish build up an immunity of sorts to it

Whitespot is a parasite which penetrates the slime-layer and the skin of the fish. Fish cannot build up immuity - of any sort - to a parasite - no more than a dog can build up immunity to fleas.

UV will kill the free-swimming juvenile parasites in the water if they're taken in by the filter, but for whitespot, I'd just treat the tank rather than rely on a UV system. I have one connected to the filter for the 44gal tank - but only because of a Fish TB outbreak that's currently threatening my tetras.

 

[adamgreen240]

i have a v2 600 and its great!

 

[andywg]

Whitespot is a parasite which penetrates the slime-layer and the skin of the fish. Fish cannot build up immuity - of any sort - to a parasite - no more than a dog can build up immunity to fleas.

Strangely enough, those scientists that study ich are starting to believe a view contrary to that which you post.

From the excellently researched Skeptical Aquarist web page on ich:

Acquired resistance to Ich. When Ich strikes, often there will be some fishes in the community that won't be affected. Recently, research at Cornell is confirming the long-held hunch of many aquarists that, once an individual fish has been cured of Ich, it has acquired some level of immunity (see the "Defenses/Immunity" page in this folder).

On the above mentioned page it has this to say:

Acquired immunity. Fishkeepers have long noticed that, once a fish had been attacked by "Ich" and was cured, that individual seemed to have developed some degree of immunity. At other times, when almost all the fish in an aquarium have been infested with "Ich," fishkeepers have noted that some individuals have remained free of the parasite. Well, inquiries currently being conducted by Dr. Ted Clark and a team at Cornell University School of Veterinary Medicine are confirming that these anecdotal hobbyists' hunches are in fact well-founded. Dr. Clark explains, "Although the parasite is quite lethal, animals that survive epizootics develop a strong acquired resistance, and we can routinely immunize fish in the laboratory by exposing them to sublethal infections followed by chemical treatment of the water to eliminate free-swimming stages that would eventually kill fish. Resistance is seen within 3-4 weeks of initial exposure." He goes on to tell that part of the resistance involves an antibody produced in the mucus as a response to proteins in the parasite's outer outer membrane. The antibodies bind on the surface of the parasite, forcing it off the fish prematurely, though not killing it. The team is even working on Ich vaccines!

So it would seem that Dr Clark's work with the Cornell University School of Veterinary Medicine is seeing evidence of immunity to whitespot. However, my point was not originally about a full immunity, but more resistance (my bad on the tired post diving day attempts at writing English). It would seem that ich can persist as a low level infection that is barely, if at all, detectable until a new fish comes in without such an immune system and suddenly you notice a whitespot infection.

UV will kill the free-swimming juvenile parasites in the water if they're taken in by the filter, but for whitespot, I'd just treat the tank rather than rely on a UV system.

A fully wise system, though I must admit, having used UV on outbreaks where treatment was both massively costly (meds for a 6x2x2 don't run cheap) and seemingly very resistant to treatment, I found UV to bring the outbreak under control very swiftly. It could be that it was a combination of the effects of both, I don't honestly know, but I do believe UV can be very useful at bringing a bad outbreak down to a lower level from where you can use meds to mop up any remaining pathogens.

 

[Bignose]

andy is right on track here.

UV will do an excellent job of decimating a population, but will never fully 100% eliminate them. It is a physical impossibility because UV does not treat the entire tank volume, only a small percentage of it.

The population of anything is governed by a simple equation: dp/dt = B - D. dp/dt means the change in population (p) over time (t), B represents the rate of births and D represents the rate of deaths.

When a population reaches steady state, dp/dt = 0, and B=D. Now, obviously, birth rate and death rate are affected by a lot of things -- how much sustenance is available, how favorable the environment is to reproductions, how many predators there are, how tolerant the organism is of diseases/infections other things that kill them.

In the case of ich with a UV, the UV causes a large rise in D, but not infinite. The population will settle down again to a level where the new higher death rate and the birth rate are equal. The number of ich organisms in the water will be much, much less, but it will never be zero.

That's why I like exactly what andy did there. Use the UV for several days to really cut down the number of organisms in the water. And then use the medications to wipe them out. Medications can eliminate 100% of the infection because they treat the entire tank. There is no place for the ich to hide. The UV then the meds I think is a very effective 1-2 punch.

 

[TetraLinz]

Whitespot is a parasite which penetrates the slime-layer and the skin of the fish. Fish cannot build up immuity - of any sort - to a parasite - no more than a dog can build up immunity to fleas.

Strangely enough, those scientists that study ich are starting to believe a view contrary to that which you post.

From the excellently researched Skeptical Aquarist web page on ich:

Acquired resistance to Ich. When Ich strikes, often there will be some fishes in the community that won't be affected. Recently, research at Cornell is confirming the long-held hunch of many aquarists that, once an individual fish has been cured of Ich, it has acquired some level of immunity (see the "Defenses/Immunity" page in this folder).

On the above mentioned page it has this to say:

Acquired immunity. Fishkeepers have long noticed that, once a fish had been attacked by "Ich" and was cured, that individual seemed to have developed some degree of immunity. At other times, when almost all the fish in an aquarium have been infested with "Ich," fishkeepers have noted that some individuals have remained free of the parasite. Well, inquiries currently being conducted by Dr. Ted Clark and a team at Cornell University School of Veterinary Medicine are confirming that these anecdotal hobbyists' hunches are in fact well-founded. Dr. Clark explains, "Although the parasite is quite lethal, animals that survive epizootics develop a strong acquired resistance, and we can routinely immunize fish in the laboratory by exposing them to sublethal infections followed by chemical treatment of the water to eliminate free-swimming stages that would eventually kill fish. Resistance is seen within 3-4 weeks of initial exposure." He goes on to tell that part of the resistance involves an antibody produced in the mucus as a response to proteins in the parasite's outer outer membrane. The antibodies bind on the surface of the parasite, forcing it off the fish prematurely, though not killing it. The team is even working on Ich vaccines!

So it would seem that Dr Clark's work with the Cornell University School of Veterinary Medicine is seeing evidence of immunity to whitespot. However, my point was not originally about a full immunity, but more resistance (my bad on the tired post diving day attempts at writing English). It would seem that ich can persist as a low level infection that is barely, if at all, detectable until a new fish comes in without such an immune system and suddenly you notice a whitespot infection.

UV will kill the free-swimming juvenile parasites in the water if they're taken in by the filter, but for whitespot, I'd just treat the tank rather than rely on a UV system.

A fully wise system, though I must admit, having used UV on outbreaks where treatment was both massively costly (meds for a 6x2x2 don't run cheap) and seemingly very resistant to treatment, I found UV to bring the outbreak under control very swiftly. It could be that it was a combination of the effects of both, I don't honestly know, but I do believe UV can be very useful at bringing a bad outbreak down to a lower level from where you can use meds to mop up any remaining pathogens.

That link makes a series of critical errors:

1) You should NEVER raise temperature before starting treatment. The source even admits that the life-cycle of both the parasite and the fish will speed up. That means the the parasites will reproduce faster, meaning the fish will be covered with the parasites in a shorter time, meaning the parasite is harder to remove from the tank.

2) Some fish such as Clown loaches are salt-intolerant.

3) When you "cure" a fish of WS, you have killed all the parasites in the tank, because once the adult parasites reproduce, they die off. Not contracting a disease is not an aquired immunity if the disease is no longer present.

Some fish are more resistant to parasites, but that is not the same as an immunity.

 

[andywg]

That link makes a series of critical errors:

1) You should NEVER raise temperature before starting treatment. The source even admits that the life-cycle of both the parasite and the fish will speed up. That means the the parasites will reproduce faster, meaning the fish will be covered with the parasites in a shorter time, meaning the parasite is harder to remove from the tank.

Where does it actually say to just turn up the heat? It's comments on treatment are thus:

I've recently read that at lowered temperatures the vulnerable free-swimming stage can last as long as 96 hours: that's four full days! This might be a problem in a cool outdoor pond, but rather than drag out stressful treatment, you'll surely begin by raising the temperature in the aquarium. Adjusting the setting on the heater will do the job; don't try to raise or lower water temperatures faster than a couple of degrees an hour. Higher temperatures result in speeded-up metabolisms, both for the parasite and for the fish. Above a certain temperature (86oF is often quoted) the heat-sensitive parasite will be stressed. Its life cycle is interfered with, and it might even be killed. But if the host fish is also stressed, high temperatures can be counter-productive. You need to judge your individual species' tolerance for heat; a White Cloud Mountain Minnow or a Corydoras will be more stressed by heat than a Discus. Since at higher temperatures the water holds less oxygen, you might want to lower the water level enough to get some extra splash from the filter return.

Notice it says Begin, not only. "Begin with raising the temperature". It then has a whole list of remedies and goes through the pros and cons of each. It even notes that increasing the temperature can be a problem.

2) Some fish such as Clown loaches are salt-intolerant.

Perhaps you should speak to Bob Fenner (the somewhat renowned ichtyologist who runs Wet Web Media) who informed our own Neale Monks that clown loaches have been collected in the wild from brackish water. The exact nature of the collection is not as clear as would be liked, but there certainly appears to be evidence that clown loaches can inhabit brackish waters in the wild.

I think very few people will say that the short term use of salt to try and treat ich is going to cause a major issue with the osmoregulatory functions of salt sensitive fish - especially at the levesl used to deal with ich. I will admit that clown loaches are not my speciality, but I would assume it is similar to corydoras catfish (also known for salt intolerance). If our own corydoras breeder and mod (Inchworm) has no issues with utilising salt as a short term treatment of corydoras then I doubt a similar treatment would be so bad for clown loaches (especially considering the information above regarding brackish waters).

3) When you "cure" a fish of WS, you have killed all the parasites in the tank, because once the adult parasites reproduce, they die off. Not contracting a disease is not an aquired immunity if the disease is no longer present.

But acquired immunity IS what is being observed by researchers and discussed on the Skeptical pages. They expose the fish to ich, get rid of the ich and then re-introduce it and observe that the fish have developed a method for combating the pathogen by causing it to drop off early.

 

[Bignose]

TetraLinz,

the point of raising the temperature is actually to indeed make the ich go through its life cycles faster so that when you are treating the tank, the ich cycles into it vulnerable life stage faster and is thus killed faster. Medication lose their effectiveness over time, so if you can get more of the ich into the vulnerable stage where it will be killed by the medication before the medication loses its effectiveness, that's a good thing! The idea is also that because the ich goes through its life cycles faster, and hence gets killed by the medications faster, the fishes won't be exposed to the medication for quite as long. Obviously, this is a judgment call, as The Skeptical Aquarist says, because the higher temps may stress the fish, too. Like a lot of things in life, it is a compromise.

Also, this immunity is well documented: Just as one of many examples, please see Alishani and Buchmann "Temperature-dependent protection against Ichthyophthirius multifiliis following immunisation of rainbow trout using live theronts" in DISEASES OF AQUATIC ORGANISMS Vol 72, 2006. The authors performed a study where they injected rainbow trout with live theronts cultured from a ich ciliate that was alive and on the skin of a fish. Then they put the fish into bathes of water that were known to be have live theronts in them. In their own words: "Vaccination conferred a relative protection (evaluated as the decrease in the number of established theronts) at 12 degrees C and almost complete immunity at 20 degrees C. Significantly increased immobilisation titers (using plasma immobilisation of live theronts) were found in immunised fish at Week 2 and 4 post-vaccination. Lysozyme activity of plasma from vaccinated fish increased from Week 1 to 4. Both immobilisation titers and lysozyme activity were significantly higher at 20 degrees C. This study demonstrated that live theronts are good candidates for an antigen source for development of effective vaccines against white spot disease in this fish host, and further indicated that the protection of rainbow trout against I. multifiliis infection is highly temperature dependent and may be associated with both adaptive and innate response mechanisms."

Like I said, this is just one of many papers talking about fish's gained immunity. Here's a few more that look promising (from their titles)

Title: Cutaneous antibodies from channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus (Rafinesque), immune to Ichthyophthirius multifiliis (Ich) may induce apoptosis of Ich theronts
Author(s): Xu DH, Klesius PH, Shoemaker CA
Source: JOURNAL OF FISH DISEASES Volume: 28 Issue: 4 Pages: 213-220 Published: APR 2005

Title: The parasitic ciliate Ichthyophthirius multifiliis induces expression of immune relevant genes in rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss (Walbaum)
Author(s): Sigh J, Lindenstrom T, Buchmann K
Source: JOURNAL OF FISH DISEASES Volume: 27 Issue: 7 Pages: 409-417 Published: JUL 2004

Title: Immune responses and host protection of channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus (Rafinesque), against Ichthyophthirius multifiliis after immunization with live theronts and sonicated trophonts
Author(s): Xu DH, Klesius PH, Shelby RA
Source: JOURNAL OF FISH DISEASES Volume: 27 Issue: 3 Pages: 135-141 Published: MAR 2004

Title: Systemic and cutaneous mucus antibody responses of channel catfish immunized against the protozoan parasite Ichthyophthirius multifiliis
Author(s): Maki JL, Dickerson HW
Source: CLINICAL AND DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORY IMMUNOLOGY Volume: 10 Issue: 5 Pages: 876-881 Published: SEP 2003

Title: Immunization of rainbow trout fry with Ichthyophthirius multifiliis sonicate: protection of host and immunological changes
Author(s): Dalgaard M, Buchmann K, Li AH
Source: BULLETIN OF THE EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION OF FISH PATHOLOGISTS Volume: 22 Issue: 5 Pages: 288-297 Published: 2002

In fact, the database of papers I use, Web of Science, has 34 different papers with "Ichthyophthirius AND immun*" in the titles. There seems to be quite a lot of evidence that immunization against ich is very real, TetraLinz.