Do Corals help with ICH managment?

vlangel · Nov 4, 2020

I was taught when I worked at a LFS in the 90s( by my boss who was very knowledgable) that a reef tank did not need a UV sterilizer for disease control because the coral consumed ICH in the free swim stage.

Stigigemla · Nov 4, 2020

Of coarse will the corals eat free swimming parasites.
The question to make is : Does that matter?
We know that in established reef tanks ick outbreak is very seldom. I guess that depends most on that the free swimming parasites will be eaten.
But there are a few ways of introducing ick in established tanks. The "best" method I think is to introduce fish treated with copper. They can or will very often introduce Ick and I think it has to do with their poor immune system.
With fishes in bad condition the corals and the animal living in the sand just cant do enough.

I have been a teacher for many years and it happens so many times that the kids getting a cold, flue or ear inflammation is just the kids that has got antibiotics last year. The antibiotics does not only kill the bad bacteria. It kills commensals and useful bacteria too and for humans it takes more than a year to build up the immune system again.
I think we have a similar process in fishes. Maybe they are recovering a bit faster.

I had another LFS in my area selling reef fishes too. They used copper. After about 5 years they now stopped selling all sea water animals. They got a bad reputation of many fishes dying within a month that I never got. I have not used copper since 2007. UVC takes Brooklynella, Ick and Oodinium in my tanks. And the fishes have their immune system intact from the wild.

dbowman5 · Nov 4, 2020

chalk this up a newbie induced delirium (NID): corals do more than just eat. they fight other corals. they poop, i expect they respirate, could the presence of corals be putting something into the environment that is inhibiting to the ich organism?

BryanD · Nov 4, 2020

Back in 2007 bought a yellow tang and put it in the tank, 55 gallon, no quarantine. About a week later, everyone had ich, yellow tang, pajama cardinal, and coral beauty. Took a couple of days to decide what to do, would have meant a total tear down to get to the fish, and because no one got plastered decided to wait. Raised temp to like 84 degrees. The only other things in that tank were a coral banded shrimp and a TON of mushrooms, the ones you see in my avatar. It took like a month, but slowly all the fish got less and less ich until it disappeared. Only thing that made sense to me was as the ich were released into the free-swimming stage the 'shrooms chowed on them. Maybe the 84 degrees helped but at the time I kept my tanks at 80 so kinda hard to believe. And, believe it or not, I still have both the pajama cardinal and yellow tang, coral beauty suddenly stopped eating and died about 3 years after the ich episode.

laverda · Nov 4, 2020

TheRealDmorty217 said:
The answer is no. There have been several studies showing ich is only killed with medication or hypo salinity both of which will kill corals and most all invertebrates. Fish will build a immunity to ich after sometime of being exposed to it but every time you add a new fish the outbreak occurs again. Ich multiplies at such a rate that the corals even a tank full of corals will never eradicate it. Theronts and tomonts are the two stages that could possibly be eaten if you will by corals but if this was what actually happened then how do people introduce ich from Frags? If corals ate ich then there would never be any that came in with corals. I also believe the amount of theronts and tomonts produced far outnumber any ability for coral to control.

Clearly the answer is we do not know the answer at this point in time. To say they do eat ICH because it has been introduced from frags would imply that a coral has the ability to clean the frag plug it is mounted on of ICH if there was ICH on it. That would be amazing! Even a frag not mounted on a plug might have ICH on the underside of it or between polyps. I think the likely hood that some corals would take advantage of ICH as a food source is very high. Which corals? I haven’t a clue. Could they be enough to help control ICH? Very possibly depending on how many ICH eating corals were in a tank.

pdxmonkeyboy · Nov 4, 2020

I will say one thing, this hobby does have its fair share of weird beliefs, especially around Ich. There is a difference between causation and correlation. I had ich once and the LFS store told me not to change my underwear until the ich was gone. It took like 10 days but the ich cleared up. Worth trying.

H3rm1tCr@b · Nov 4, 2020

Like others have said, I'm sure that filter feeders like certain types of coral and invertebrates would consume the protozoans floating around. I have noticed that tanks like Paul B's (which are FILLED with beneficial stuff and corals) don't have problems with disease. When he gets a new fish that presents symptoms of disease, it usually gets better. I bet it also has something to do with the biodiversity of your system. Along with reef tanks being more stable and running more smoothly, the creatures you can get from cultured or even ocean rock help keep the baddies in check.