Marine Ich!

[humpy_the_humphead_wrasse]

hey guys, so 6 months after my first dealing with ich im back to it again! you'd think i'd learnt my lesson from last time but due to a break down in qt tank at the time 3 coopers anthias were slowly added to the tank from the shop. bout a week later we have 2 dead and a whitespot problem. /sigh i currently have my 2 clows which have numerous spots on them in a plastic holding trap at the top of the tank and the anthia in a breeding box and was just wondering if this would be enough to stop life cycle!? or atleast the ich re infecting these fish after they drop off?

i have just found a way to have everything ready for next time by having the qt media running in the sump of my main tank, which i never thought of.

my guess is that the cysts will drop off onto the plastic bottom of both the traps and either be eaten, or die! just wondering what people think?

 

[kj23502]

Sounds like you're having a rough time No that won't be enough. Ich does have a free swiming stage where it'll swim until it finds a host or dies. Keeping them in a container w/in the tank won't save them from it.


Life Cycle:

Cryptocaryon irritans is a parasite with a direct life cycle, i.e. requiring no intermediate host like an invertebrate to complete its life cycle. The time per generation is temperature dependent, ranging from a few days for tropical to a week or more. If one considers the possibility of "resting stages", marine ich can wait out weeks to months before seeking out fish hosts.

A) Starting with a stage feeding (call trophonts) on its fish host. These are embedded below the epithelium (upper living skin layers) of host fishes, under copious amounts of mucus, not affected by chemical treatments.

B) Protomont stage leaves the fish, drops to the bottom and forms a resting/developmental cyst (tomont) stage persisting for 3-30 days generally. Becomes attached to and transmissible by any wet object. For about a day at 78 degrees F. reproduction occurs by binary fission; that is, by each cell dividing into two, possibly producing two hundred individuals (then called theronts). These encysted stage individuals are not affected by chemical treatments.

C) After 3-7 days, as tomites or theronts they break out of the cyst (typically at night, when reef fishes are often "sitting on the bottom") and swim into the water in search of a host fish, in a to several hours to a day or two at elevated temperatures they must find a fish host or die. If the parasite is lucky (and its host fish not so) it will find a host and burrow into its skin or gills. This "free-living" swimming stage is the opportune moment for chemical treatment.


http/www.wetwebmedia.com/ichartmar.htm