Here is one that I can recall off hand I find it very interesting : No other topic except for maybe water temperature spurs so much debate in the marine aquarium world. So, I will come out of the closet and clearly state now that I am not a supporter of the treatment of this ciliated protozoan with copper.
I am a mechanical engineer, by education so I like statistics and mathematical odds to substantiate claims and experience. In the 25 years in aquaria and 15 in marine aquaria, I have never conducted a successful treatment with copper of this disease. In all fairness, I guess I should define successful. I would define successful as treating an aquarium with copper while maintaining proper levels for a proper period of time and never having the parasite appear again.
When I had a fish only tank and copper treatment was an option, I tried this treatment several times. I was never successful and killed a few fish in the process. I also tried treatment in a medicationtreatment tank. This was also a failure. In every case, tangs were the offending species and in many cases the only species exhibiting signs of the parasite in the whole tank. After several attempts to try to address this issue and using copper and Ultraviolet light, I stopped treatment altogether. I quickly came to the conclusion, as many others have, that this is the correct approach. I have never had a fish die because of marine ich directly. One should look at marine ich as an indication that something else is wrong with the environment within the tank.
I have come to the conclusion that stress is the leading factor in fish exhibiting signs of marine ich. This may be caused by many things but the two primary causes are usually too many fish in the tank andor poor water quality. I have been guilty, as many others have, of putting too many fish into one tank. Especially those species that tend to compete for the same food source (tangs and angelfish primarily). As I matured as a hobbyist, I avoided this tendency to overcrowd and the incidences of Cyrptocaryon drastically diminished. This is not to say that I did not have it again. On the contrary, I had a Paracanthurus hepatus (blue or regal tang) that would still have a break out every once in a while (nine or ten, at least) over his eight year life span in my aquariums. He was never treated and still lived, what I consider, a long life. The parasite was never transferred to other fish and only seemed to exhibit itself when water quality deteriorated in the early days. He soon outlived the other two tangs and two angelfishes that were housed with him and in his solitary years at the end, he never once had an outbreak!
Statistically, I like these numbers and from my observations, stress is the culprit and once eliminated, so is the parasite. Much like a headache. Pain relievers treat the symptom but do not address the problem. Same with copper.
This realization has made my reef keeping experience a very sane and enjoyable one. It does not make sense to tear down a reef tank to treat one fish that will be so stressed out (along with all the other fish in the tank) that you will have caused more harm than good before one mg of copper is administered. Remember, you can not treat a reef tank with copper. Just think if I had torn down my tank every time my tang exhibited signs of white spot. I would dare say that I would compare my final outcomes to anyone's successes with copper in the treatment of this parasite.
Perturbing Pests by Nick Dakin
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I am far from being an expert in this field I just stated that Frenchwitch seemed to know what he/she was talking about. I can't see that you can totally discount this with someone that is in the Chemistry/Microbiology field. This person must have some valuable information and it seems that it has been well dcumented from their research. I am not trying to start a fight I am just stating that many people use different means to treat diseases. How about someone that swears by using garlic? Are the people out there that had sucessful outcomes with garlic liars? <img src="graemlins//evilwhorn.gif" border="0" alt="[Evil Horn]" />
