Sorry, but degree of experience DOES have a bearing on an idea that you are then promoting for other people to use in treating their fish. Trying something twice is not a valid data set. At most, you could write it up as a “case history”.
Well, if you want to talk about sample size my friend and I, and the hundreds of people who have had success with protozoan parasite management have probably saved thousands of fish in total.
Pretty decent sample, I'd say.
There are whole communities revolving around using Oxydators in Europe. I wouldn't call that a lack of personal experience given that I'm not new to aquaria and QT tanks for that matter.
And I'm sorry but I'll say it - QT tanks are
only good to see if a new fish from the store has a disease going on because fish stores run low dosages of copper in their display tanks.
However, QT tanks are completely unreliable for preventing these diseases from transferring to your main display tank. The practice proves it.
Why do you think so many QT tank protocols fail?
Why do you think the subject should be discussed and updated over and over again, and it's still super difficult to find long-term success?
Why do you think there are people like Paul B who did
not even bother to quarantine fish while having a 50-year-old reef tank?
Point me to someone religiously executing QT protocols with a tank that has not crashed in 50 years from some parasitic infection...
There are ways to overcome a lack of personal experience. Can you reference Oxydators in the literature at least? I cannot, and I have literally every English language fish disease book in my collection.
First of all, it seems you still haven't read my article.
I cite multiple studies in there which suggest oxidizers can be effective in treating protozoan parasites (including marine Velvet).
There were also studies I did not cite, that point to this.
Obviously, if a study shows that oxidizers kill the Throphont and Theront stages of Ich and Velvet one could use their brain and connect the dots that this could be done in home aquaria.
No need for a cohort, double-blinded, placebo-controlled study specifically examining treating Ich with an oxidizer in ornamental fish in home conditions, right?
Secondly, it's short-sighted to think that something is true only if it's present in a book.
This is the "perceived authority" fallacy and it's super
easy to manipulate info through it.
Literally
every discovery in history ever was first a hypothesis based on personal observations.
There's a whole mathematics book proving that 1 + 1 equals 2, but do you think our ancestors did not deduct that fact based on their observations?
You put 1 apple in the basket, then you put another one in there, and you end up with two apples in the basket!
The "but it's not in the books on my shelf" type of thinking is what
stalls progress in the hobby.
Observing, hypothesizing, and testing are what brings progress.
I don't know why people are so keen on being told what to think instead of learning how to think.
Truly hurts people in situations like having to deal with Ich and Velvet.
Furthermore, the "show me a book that says it" argument stumbles upon
the verification fallacy.
I highly recommend you read some on verification versus falsification and how that impacts science.
If you do, you'll begin to understand how science works, I promise!
P.S., weren’t you the person promoting brass/copper sheeting to control ich? Do you still think that is a viable method? If so, I think you need to be more critical about your acceptance of viable fish disease methods.
I'm not the person "promoting" it - I was the person who first wrote about it as a possible treatment based on a research study conducted in 2019.
I mean, if you're a fan of the scientific approach you'd approve since "it's in the books", right?
Or could that be cognitive dissonance on your part? Or you are trying to, again, diss an article you did not read?
And allow me to correct you since it's important - that was an Ich
eradication method, not an Ich control method.
Big difference there, and people who've dealt with Ich know that.
And yes you could say it's potentially a viable option if you want to
get rid of the parasites once and for all and stop flushing money for expensive marine species and their upkeep down the drain each following outbreak.
I do, however, prefer Ich control, not Ich eradication since the control method is
easy to execute, spares your corals and other inverts, it's relatively cheap, and evidently has a good success rate.
