Question:
I wont say that stress causes Ich, but I think in a stress free aquarium that
ich will not show itself. I look at ich like a cold, if you run yourself
raggged, and get stressed out, you are much more likely to catch a cold. If you
releive the stress and get rest, the cold will get better, if you dont the cold
could get worse. The same goes for Ich IMO.
Can a fish carry ich, without showing any signs of it?
Answer:
I rather like this analogy Rod, because that is pretty much it. In a healthy stress free system the ick
is kept to a minimum and may even completely leave the system in time. Many years ago I once had a system
that had ick, depending on how the system was running.g stress, poor water, etc. the ick would pop-up.
Upon improving on the conditions the ick would seem to disappear. Of course ever couple of months or so,
I would run a test with a "guinea pig to see if the ick was still there or not, an Achilles Tang. yup, it
was there, ever time he got it and lots of it and it also showed up more on other fish, but not a big
break-out. After a little over a year, after not using the tang, the ick had vanished and putting the
tang back in showed no signs of ick and never did for the next 10 years or so.
"Can a fish carry ich, without showing any signs of it? "
Yes, and they are called "vectors" and some fish are quite well know for it at times. *A fish in *A
system only needs to have * 1 ick for the disease to continue in that system through its cycle and you
may not see that *1 "ick". If during that cycle, the fish become stressed, their immune system will be
less responsive and make them prone to the ick.......ick break-out.
i have a very stressfull job myself and i have never had ich. sometimes
insomnia, but never ich. i dont think a parasite can just materialize
wherever it "feels" stress will be present. it would have to be there
first, then stress may make your immune system anable to fight of the
attack. luckily for me, i have never had ich present and therefore i have
never beeen infected with this bastard parasite! my fish have had it a
couple times though....
I don't think that Ich can be compared in any way to a virus. A virus
can lay dormant for years inside of a person. Ich does not behave in
the same way. Cryptocaryon irritans is an obligate parasite that must
have a host fish or it dies. Yes, fish can habor a subclinical (without
apparent symptoms) infection. This does not mean that Ich is always in
our tanks. I think Alan has it right. Stress does not cause ich, but it
does make fish MORE susceptible to it.
I do not think that he was implying that the cleaner wrasse removed the
parasites physically and that is why they disappeared.
The real benefit of the cleaner wrasse in a community tank is the
"referreeing" behavior it carries out as referred to by CD. This can be
a great reliever of stress in a tank with combative or territorial fish.
Real brawls are reduced to a minimum and fighting is almost completely
eliminated. This reduction in stress is the real benefit of its presence
in a closed system and can in turn reduce outbreaks of the actual
parasite.
