What my project will be: I want to do a comparison of the effectiveness of different possible ich treatments on saltwater fish. There's two ways I was thinking about going with this, suggestions on which way to go would be helpful.
A: Copper (chelated or otherwise) is often regarded as the best method of destroying ich, but has major drawbacks in that it is often impossible to catch sick fish for quarantine, and if sick fish are treated in the display tank the copper nukes all invertebrates and makes live rock and sand completely useless. The other methods I wish to compare to copper are UV filtering of the water, hyposalinity of the water, and Kordon's Ich-Attack (supposed to be a 'natural' 'organic' method).
B: Alternatively, I would like to consider the effect of different copper treatments on ich-infested fish. Cupramine (activated copper), "ionic" copper sulfate, and chelated copper are all possible alternatives.
How/Where I will research this:
A. I would like a group of five fish, from the same store and if possible from the same hatching. One is for a control, the other four will be tested with copper, uv filtering, hyposalinity, and Ich-Attack. I plan to use the water from a pet store (possibly water from another person's tank if they're experiencing an outbreak of ich) in the tank and to stress the fish out (which hopefully will make them catch ich). After all fish show signs of illness (white spots, scratching themselves) they will be moved to separate quarantine tanks and administration of each treatment will begin.
B. About the same procedure, just with different copper treatments instead.
Questions:
1. How nitpicky do you want us to be with measurements? For example - I could make a count of white spots observed on a fish and fish behavior/body weight as a measure of their illness, or I could try to borrow a microscope, do slime coat scrapings on the fish and count parasites observed in the lens field. Which would be better?
2. Cost: I need to find a fish that is susceptible to ich (if they're too tough and don't catch ich, I can't test treatments on them), yet one that isn't too expensive. I know tangs get it easily, but at $30-40 a fish that is way out of my budget. Any suggestions would be extremely helpful.
3. I'm contemplating how to get around equipment needs/electricity costs right now. I have decided that simple fishbowls will do for the quarantine tanks, and I can get away with Hydor mini 7.5 watt heaters. My problem is filtration. I have to have separate filter systems for each tank, and was thinking about merely doing very consistent, small water changes (although that wouldn't be in keeping with a 'real' fish tank). Not sure if there's smaller filters that I've overlooked for some reason, or if that would actually be a viable suggestion.
4. Given all the difficulties with measuring, the only small chance that the fish I get will actually get sick, and the ethical concerns about purposefully making animals ill, do you think I should even pursue this idea? It seems not only costly, but I would probably be responsible for at least one fish death (the control will receive no treatment whatsoever, and will likely perish).