Top work Iridescentlily.
Being someone who spent more time and effort trying it on with girls ( including a brief forced stint of drama class with Rose Byrne during high school, whom I'm sure you all know is quite hot), instead of paying attention in english classes, I can completeley understand where Madasmick is coming from. Many of us actually had to get jobs to pay the rent and put food on the table around the same time we figured out we needed further education. You can guess which one wins out of the two.
It doesn't make you stupid, just ignorant. Ignorance is easily fixed.
The fact that he's a bannana bender is irreperable.
(Purely mucking around madasmick. please don't take offence as it's not intended).
Getting back to the ich!
Most of the time when people think they've beaten ich with good diet, impecable water and less stress in the tank, it's usually down to built up immunity, or a lack of visible symptoms. There are many studies and subsequent papers written on these different aspects of the parasite.
The studies go something like this. Good conditions ( for the fish), promote a natural immunity. Adding a new fish with ich( even if it's just one on the gills) will begin the whole immunity battle again.
Most fish do not show visible symptoms of infection. Not unless you take a gill cutting and observe it under the microscope.
Nurse. Get me a scalpel, STAT.
Ever notice how the fish with smooth skin are ich magnets? That's to do with the available area for the parasite to burrow in. Scales are much better at stopping ich for obvious reasons.
If you keep ich out of your tank in the first place it will be impossible for it to spontaneously appear.
My problem with this is that the QT proccess does not always guarantee success.
IMO dipping ( or continuous medication) is entirely necessary to for the QT method to be 99.99%. There is plenty of info out there on what will kill ich for certain but, unfortunately, many of these treatments seriously hurt the fish.
I have experimented with the hydrogen peroxide dips and found them to be extremely effective at removing even deeply embedded cysts. No gill cuttings here but the obvious guess is if the deep craters are sorted, the gills are pristine. That and the fact that the fish showed immediate improvement and minor discomfort throughout the treatment.
Copper is out in my books.
At the end of the day I choose not to quarantine because I dont' like the current treatments available and my tank is working towards four years and two incarnations. Ich is in there and it aint coming out unless I start again or find a suitable dipping proceedure.
PS.Please feel free to edit my puntuation or spelling. Proper english of course.
Also feel free to dissagree with my opinion and let me know why. It is a disscussion board after all.
