Originally Posted by
Ryancw01
http:///forum/post/3216233
Ok. Fair enough. I guess it would depend on the husbandry of the particular home aquarium. You would agree though that it is 'harder' for a healthy fish to contract the white-spot disease? Cryptocaryon will target stressed fish with lowered immune systems. They cannot prey on a healthy fish. Though it is true that because of the enclosed space the home aquarium the population can explode rather rapidly, they prey on weak fish stressed fish.
You are on the right track. Ich is a parasite. Trying to say a healthy fish can avoid Ich, is like saying a healthy person can avoid being bitten by mosquitoes. In a closed system where there's no where to go, the fish can not help it.
However you are indeed right on the stress part. Perhaps more then anything else involving marine fish is stress. Once the fish is calm, and eating strong, they can help fight off the tomites that are burrowing into them. Sometimes... (there are occasions where there's so many fish in a small tank the Ich levels can't be controlled and treatment is the only option)
Personally, this is why you see threads like "I haven't added to my tank in 2 years, but I just got an ich outbreak." Healthy fish can certainly go a long way in suppressing Ich to "livable" levels.