First of all I have to say I have seen Marrone's tanks and they are beautiful and healthy, he also has some of the largest tanks I have even seen in an apartment.
Now I have to reiterate on a few things. It is very true that fish in the sea have paracites, probably all fish in the sea have paracites, but they do not die from paracites. Yes it is true that the fish is not confined and the paracites just mature and fall off the fish but that is why I said it is "my opinion" about the breeding condition. I have no other way of acertaining why my fish do not get ich except that since they have been in breeding condition and are actively spawning they do not, ever get ich. Even if I put an ich infested fish in my tank (don't do this unless you have my tank) no other fish will exhibit a paracite. I have done this countless times over decades and I can not think of any other thing it could be. As I said, if one of my fish is terminally ill from either jumping out or being bullied, he will get ich.
A few years ago I asked if anyone on RC wanted to put a fish in my reef with ich to test this, no one responded but that is how sure I am of my research.
Before we invented captive reefs no fish were healthy and ich was rampant. If it were not for copper, there would be no salt water fish hobby because we had to keep copper in the water continousely. Now the tanks are much healthier and we can get fish into excellent condition if we want.
I have found, through my research and my 40 years of diving (not only in resorts but off my boat with my equipment) that fish are extreamly lacking in one thing in their diet and that is oil. It is not added to commercially prepared food because it goes bad in the presence of oxygen. In the sea fish eat mostly fish. A fish could be 15% oil all concentrated in the liver. If a shark eats a 100lb fish, it is getting 15 lbs of fish oil. For some reason this oil seems to be a key ingredient in fish health. For a fish to spawn or at least produce eggs it needs to take in much more food of the proper type than it normally needs to stay alive. If you have ever cut open a fish with eggs you will notice that the eggs take up much of the fishes weight. 1/4 of the weight of a fish could be eggs. This is an enormous burdon on the fish and those eggs are mostly oil. Fish can make this oil from other foods but it is much easier for them if they are fed oil.
This all came together for me in 1972 when I was breeding blue devils. They were living fine (except for having ich all the time) but after I started feeding them live blackworms (which are full of oil) they started to spawn and for reasons unknown to me at the time I didn't have to keep copper in the water any longer. Those fish lived and spawned for me for 7 years. Not a great feat today but then it was unheard of.
The best food for fish is whole fish, that is something that as far as I know is not sold commercially in the sizes we need. I spoke to "Ocean Nutrition" about this. If you dive and watch closely especially near the sand, you willl see multitudes of fry. This represents a large part of the diet of fish we commonly keep, even tangs. Those fry have a large portion of oil in them.
I know very well the life cycle of ich and I know what the researchers say about ich, I even know some of the researchers and some of the "facts" are wrong. That is the reason some of us never have to quarantine and some of us better quarantine. Ich is not cut and dry. I believe breeding fish become immune or at least there is something in their slime that wards off ich. I am not a scientist or marine biologist but I think I have studied this paracite longer than, or at least as long as them.
If someone can come up with a theory as to why some tanks seem to be immune I am interested in knowing.
Why after 40 years I do not have to quarantine after adding multitudes of things from the sea and purchasing animals from a large variety of LFSs all over NY. Some of my fish are 16 years old and others have lived longer. There is no evidence of ich on anything in my tank. I can't figure out why but I wish I could. If we knew that, it would save a lot of fish for many people.
By the way, I am in no way trying to disrespect anyone, as I said I saw Marrone's tanks and I assume KathyCs tanks are also awesome.
I probably don't have the greatest tank on here but it ain't too bad either. :tongue1:
Have a great New Year.
Paul
) I do not believe in Malachite Green AT ALL. While it can be used to treat ich - again IMO - it is way too dangerous a chemical to use on our fish due in part to it being a carcinogen and the fact that there is no way to monitor the dosage level, while it will kill Marine Ich, you'd also most likely kill the fish too.
