I'm kind of baffled why the reefing community hasn't been able to come up with a _real_ solution to killing ich off in a display tank. I started thinking, and came up with two ideas.
1. The mouse trap / roach bait method
Figure out whatever it is about the texture of a stressed out Tang that secrets some "oil" or substance that attracts Ich to them. Create some sort of artificial plastic device that is an Ich magnet using the found oils from stressed out fish that Ich love so much.
Once the Ich take a bite into the side o' the stressed faux fishy, they get a mouthful of some compound that either:
a. Causes them to die by fire.
b. Causes their reproductive systems to become all mutated so they can't continue to reproduce.
It would work very much like cockroach poison traps. The cockroach goes into the trap, gets a bite to eat because it smells good, and it ultimately becomes its demise.
Just gotta make sure that nothing but Ich can access the compound that destroys it (some sort of anti-parasitic like metronidazole)
2. Biological warfare. Mankind has had the brains to genetically engineer viruses and bacteria that would wipe out the worlds' human population worldwide in matter of days / weeks. Why couldn't someone genetically engineer a virus / bacteria that specifically attacked Ich, and Ich only?
Study Ich in the wild, and any natural diseases that the parasite might have? Then go off of that and multiply it x 1000%?
a. There are all sort of implications here with the EPA and the CDC by genetically engineering viruses to eradicate a species. Maybe someone else here on the forums actually works for the CDC or in some Bio Tech field that could elaborate on the legal / government issues on this end.
1. The mouse trap / roach bait method
Figure out whatever it is about the texture of a stressed out Tang that secrets some "oil" or substance that attracts Ich to them. Create some sort of artificial plastic device that is an Ich magnet using the found oils from stressed out fish that Ich love so much.
Once the Ich take a bite into the side o' the stressed faux fishy, they get a mouthful of some compound that either:
a. Causes them to die by fire.
b. Causes their reproductive systems to become all mutated so they can't continue to reproduce.
It would work very much like cockroach poison traps. The cockroach goes into the trap, gets a bite to eat because it smells good, and it ultimately becomes its demise.
Just gotta make sure that nothing but Ich can access the compound that destroys it (some sort of anti-parasitic like metronidazole)
2. Biological warfare. Mankind has had the brains to genetically engineer viruses and bacteria that would wipe out the worlds' human population worldwide in matter of days / weeks. Why couldn't someone genetically engineer a virus / bacteria that specifically attacked Ich, and Ich only?
Study Ich in the wild, and any natural diseases that the parasite might have? Then go off of that and multiply it x 1000%?
a. There are all sort of implications here with the EPA and the CDC by genetically engineering viruses to eradicate a species. Maybe someone else here on the forums actually works for the CDC or in some Bio Tech field that could elaborate on the legal / government issues on this end.
