silly question

[exxcapt]

got a silly question are any of these diseases contagious to us? just went through a very rough time i have lost every fish in my tank except 1 damsel the lfs said i had ich then possibly some other parasite lost a angel,racoon butterfly, 2 clowns and today the sailfin tang that i think brought the sickness in to the tank i wastreating with kick ich and rally and had my hands in the tank on more than one occasion never even thought about it until someone asked me if we can catch anything

 

[sepulatian]

Welcome to the boards! You are perfectly safe. Your damsel, on the other hand, is not. Being that you only have one fish left, now would be a good time to remove that fish into a quarantine tank. The ich will die in the display without a host. Please read Beth's Common Treatments FAQ for information about ich and proper treatments. Ask us any questions that you would like.

 

[beth]

What were the symptoms?

 

[al mc]

While I do not believe that the swf hobbyist is at risk of catching a disease from our reef tank inhabitants under most circumstances I do think that it should be noted this applies to people with healthy immune systems.
IMO a person undergoing chemotherapy or who has another immune compromising disease, like HIV, should be very careful and should either have someone else in the family do any of the jobs requiring putting your hands in the water, cleaning skimmers, etc. or at the very least wear gloves. Pathogen sthat are not normally contagious for us have been known to infect
immunocompromised humans.

 

[sepulatian]

Originally Posted by Al Mc
http:///forum/post/2544077
While I do not believe that the swf hobbyist is at risk of catching a disease from our reef tank inhabitants under most circumstances I do think that it should be noted this applies to people with healthy immune systems.
IMO a person undergoing chemotherapy or who has another immune compromising disease, like HIV, should be very careful and should either have someone else in the family do any of the jobs requiring putting your hands in the water, cleaning skimmers, etc. or at the very least wear gloves. Pathogen sthat are not normally contagious for us have been known to infect
immunocompromised humans.
Really? I did not think about people in these situations (my fault). I could see, maybe, a bacterial infection of sorts, but surely ich would not have an effect on a human.

 

[al mc]

Originally Posted by sepulatian
http:///forum/post/2544420
Really? I did not think about people in these situations (my fault). I could see, maybe, a bacterial infection of sorts, but surely ich would not have an effect on a human.
Sep...I am not implying that I have medical evidence that an immune compromised person has contracted Marine Ich. However, there is evidence that certain types of other parasites that humans usually would mount an immune response to but may not be able to especially if they have virtually no immune system, as when getting high doses of chemotherapy.
My personal experience is when my brother in law was battling leukemia. when the first round of chemo failed he got a second round of chemo with a bone marrow transplant and more drugs to prevent bone marrow rejection. Unfortunately, he died during the therapy of a fluke disease usually seen in
deer. That was 10+ years ago and unfortunately I have forgotten or mentally have blocked the name of the actual organism. (He was an avid hunter..probably exposed previously?)
You are correct that it is more likely to get a bacterial or fungal infection that is not a normal human pathogen while on immunosuppressive drugs, He had to give up his beloved dogs during his therapy (we kept bthem, so he got them back) because his oncologist was paranoid that he might catch a bacterial, viral or parasitic disease from the dogs.

So, while it is very unlikely that someone would get Marine Ich I believe those types of statements should carry a small asteric (sp) concerning chemo patients particularly.

 

[sepulatian]

Originally Posted by Al Mc
http:///forum/post/2544547
Sep...I am not implying that I have medical evidence that an immune compromised person has contracted Marine Ich. However, there is evidence that certain types of other parasites that humans usually would mount an immune response to but may not be able to especially if they have virtually no immune system, as when getting high doses of chemotherapy.
My personal experience is when my brother in law was battling leukemia. when the first round of chemo failed he got a second round of chemo with a bone marrow transplant and more drugs to prevent bone marrow rejection. Unfortunately, he died during the therapy of a fluke disease usually seen in
deer. That was 10+ years ago and unfortunately I have forgotten or mentally have blocked the name of the actual organism. (He was an avid hunter..probably exposed previously?)
You are correct that it is more likely to get a bacterial or fungal infection that is not a normal human pathogen while on immunosuppressive drugs, He had to give up his beloved dogs during his therapy (we kept bthem, so he got them back) because his oncologist was paranoid that he might catch a bacterial, viral or parasitic disease from the dogs.

So, while it is very unlikely that someone would get Marine Ich I believe those types of statements should carry a small asteric (sp) concerning chemo patients particularly.
Fair enough. I will take your word for it until proved otherwise

 

[guille]

I can chime in a bit on this topic. My son did 2.5 years (108) treatments, 1800 rads of cranial radiation ect. ect. His doctor said that the aniamals could stay but no cleaning of poo. He did have extra words of caution for the cats as far as cat scratch fever, never new it was more than a song until then. The main concern is bacterias in general. With his imune system in the crapper a good bacteria could have taken him in a few hours. With the overall little knowledge of marine systems in general I would advise caution as well. Lets face it something that smells as bad as a dead snail, coral, anen, ect. cant be all good LOL

 

[exxcapt]

well when i first got my angel we noticed her scratching on the sand not knowing enough about salt water fish i thought this was normal then the racoon butterfly started doing it then i noticed white spots on my sailfin tang this is when i went to lfs who told me to treat with copper which i started to do however i knew this was bad as i have live rock and inverts but they told me this was the only cure as rally and kick ich dont work so i treated with copper what the didnt tell me was to remove my poly pads and carbon from the wet/dry so to my suprise when i tested for copper no evidence of it in my tank so i went to another lfs who told me never never never copper and said i was lucky no trace in my tank so i started treating with kick ich i noticed some improvement until the angel died then i had to euthanize the butterfly couldnt swim eyes became cloudy and finally the crabs were at it then i went back to lfs who told probably some parasite in tank told to treat with rally which i started then my 2 clowns became listless and looked like they were losing there skin they both died the same night then the sailfin looked totally nasty losing weight face sunk in and fins falling apart breathing heavy got those lympohcytosis on it also i came home yesterday and he was crab food i now have a handful of crabs and snails and one very stubborn blue devil damsel the problem i have is two fold once your kids start naming fish them dying is very much more difficult and secondly everybody has something different to say on the hobby at the lfs i went there looking for help and felt all they wanted to do was sell me something else i dont know if these fish would have died or not i think they were sick from the time i got them but because of misinformation i lost valuable time now i have a 55 gal tank with one fish and do not know where to go from here i do not and cannot afford multiple tanks so not hospital tanks or qt tanks available im well sorry just venting any info would be a great help