The Life Cycle Of Marine Ich.

Anyone that has had to deal with eradication of Marine Ich (Cryptocaryn irritans), knows that it is it can be complicated and confusing.

Add to this the vast array of products on the market that make claims to be an effective treatment of ich.

There are only three proven effective treatments for ich.

1. Hyposalinity
2. Copper
3. Formalin

Yes some of the cure all products advertised may have some degress of formalin in them, but not nearly enough to eradicate ich. If the product had enough formalin in it to kill ich, it would also kill all inverts and sensitive tank inhabitants. The marine fish industry would save millions of dollors each year if there was such a product that you could just add to your display tank.

Life Stages of Marine Ich

1.TOMONT STAGE: May last anywhere from 3 - 28 days or even longer depending on water temperature. You can not see ich in this stage, it is attached to the substate.
2.THERONT STAGE: The free swimming stage lasting anywhere from 1 - 3 days.
3.TROPHONT STAGE: This is the only stage that you can actually visualize the parasite. At this stage it is attached to the fish and feeding on the fish, lasting 3 - 7 days.
4.TROPHONT FREE SWIMMING: The last stage where the parasite has fallan off the fish to begin it's reproduction cycling in the substrate.

THIS IS THE RUB: JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN NOT SEE IT ANY LONGER DOES NOT MEAN IT WAS ERRADICATED.

To effectively treat this parasite one needs to undertand the life stages of ich.

I hope that provides at least some assistance dealing with the frustrations of this particular marine fish disease.;D

 

Very good post. Short, sweet, and straight to the point.

Its not Droid, it's me fishies.

 

+1, except the people who need to hear it have absolutely no desire to listen.

 

Unfortunately very very true :

But hopefully it can be passed around.

Thank you guys for the kind words, they are really appreciated.

If anyone has any pictures of ich I would appreciated it.

TIA

 

Unfortunately, I do.

His first bout with it.....




His second

 

Oh poor baby :-X

Thank you very much, I really wanted some good pictures of the parasite during this stage and those are excellent.

I sure hope everything turns/ed out ok.

 

Yup, he's fine. But his ich broke all the rules and had me stumped.

 

This is another excellent example of a fish with advanced ich.

 

I battled ich when I moved my tank to the new house, after I foolishly added a store bought fish without quarantine. Anyways everyone recovered, I added selco to their food and performed extra water changes to boost thier immune systems, but now I'm worried to add any new additions. Is ich still alive in my system? There have been no outbreaks since the move 7 months ago...

 

Very informative!Good right up,thanks Corailline!