[chevell]

We should be talking about what really causes ick and trying to prevent that. Stress causes the slime coat in fish to become weak enabling ich to take hold. I have seen out breaks with no other fish added just because of one mean fish becoming aggresive and tormenting other fish. This is for sure and without a doubt the number one cause and can't be prevented by putting fish in quarentine. The other cause are water changes with either too cold of water or just adding water too fast will for sure stress the slime coat on fish giving the parasite a chance to take hold. I use water from scripps and it does for sure have ick in it, there fore everytime you change water you have a good chance of introducing the parasite. Of course not changing water can have worse effects and to cure a fish i'll actually wait a few weeks between water changes in order for the fish to recovery completely,otherwise the slime coat won't have a chance recover from all the scratching which also rubs slime coat off. These are just my observastions and aren't scientific fact as none of the cures are fact at this point. Doing 50 percent water changes weekly as suggested by some only serves to further damage the slime coat while maybe removing some of the original ich it also causes the fish to have to acclimate to new water conditions over and over again which any one in the bait bussiness can tell you kills fish. Overall I have indeed linked the cause of ick to be from improper water changes which causes the slime coat to be comprimised and this is not addressed well enough in any of the articles that I have read on this thread.