# Sterilizing Planted Tank from Ich



## stevenlau (Jul 21, 2009)

Hi everyone,

I have a 90L planted tank and 27 Rummynose Tetra which have been infected with Ich (white spot disease) for 2-3 days earlier after introducing new 2 Pseudomugil furcatus without quarantined them before about 2 weeks ago.

I think I would just discard all of my fishes but the only problem is how to completely clean/sterilizing the tank completely from Ich?

Will solely raising the temp kill the ich? 

I think my Otocinclus are immune to ich, is it possible? Or do they have a thicker skin that ich parasites will not be able to stick at their skin?

Is it true that if the ich find no host, they will all die them self? How long it will take time?

I also planning on re-scaping the whole tank, should I wash the sand/gravel and filter media etc including the tank with boiling water before begin re-scaping? How to clean my plants from ich too?

Thank you very much.


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## darkoon (Jun 7, 2010)

crank up the temp to 92 or 94 for a week or get a UV sterilizer.


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## Riverboa (Jun 26, 2007)

I recently had an ich outbreak that infected my residence Cardinal tetras after introducing some Rummynoses (funny, how it is almost the exact opposite of your issue).

Once I noticed the ich, I treated the tank with Rid-Ich using less than half the recommended dossage every other day - stopped the CO2 and Light altogether and increase the temperature by 2 degree from 78 to around 88 over the next two weeks. I lost some tetras (didn't lose any ottos or Amano shrimps) in the process but I think I have stopped the outbreak, the ~80% remaining fish seems to be fine now. 

Ich sucks, good luck with your tank, I hope those fish pull through.


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## jasonak (Oct 26, 2010)

UV lights do help they kill the free swiming form of ich and turing up the heat helps to speed up the life cycle of ich.I use Kodons ich attack,its supose to be all natural.


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## justjulie (Aug 16, 2010)

Ugh--Ich. My nemesis. I've only had planted tanks for about four months and already I've had several outbreaks. Here's what I learned:

We had a UV Filter running in one tank that had a major outbreak. I assume that it just couldn't keep up--it was a 9V in a 30 gal. tank and I think it just couldn't "filter" the water fast enough. So while in theory it should/does kill ich in the water, it can't be relied on to fix an existing outbreak.

Ich has a ~3 day life cycle and if there's no fish host it will die. There's no need to boil/clean your tank, substrate, and plants as long as you've taken all the fish out of your tank and left it alone for three days (five to seven to be sure).

I moved my fish to a hospital tank (bare bottom), treated them with Coppersafe, and returned them to the planted tank a week later (just to be safe--probably could have returned in 4 or 5 days).

It may be cheaper to just replace fish than to treat with multiple medications--after the Coppersafe I had to use two kinds of antibiotics for secondary infections. If you euthanize your fish there's a good article on humane ways to do it here: http://www.aquaden.com/phpBB2/articles2.php?type=euthanasia

I don't know if solely raising the temp will kill all the ich. I kind of doubt it, but if your other option is to euthanize your fish then you might as well try it and see if they make it through. Either way, leaving your tank fish-free for ~3 days will kill off all the ich and you can reintroduce fish--the new ones may be carrying their own strain of ich, but your tank won't be the culprit.

I don't know if Otos are immune to ich in general, but I do know that some individual fish can be immune to some strains of ich. Example: One of my swordtails died she had ich so bad, the other swordtail in my tank didn't have a single spot.

I learned everything I know about Ich from threads on this site and from links to other reputable sites. If you're interested in my sources you should start here: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/fish-planted-aquarium/16750-diseased-fish.html

One more thought: From what I read, the strains of Ich that we have today are more "potent" than those of a decade ago. So some medicines that used to be effective (and safe for plants) no longer work. That's why I chose a hospital tank with Coppersafe (which is VERY effective against Ich but also very deadly to plants). You may be lucky and have a strain that will respond to something more plant-friendly.

Good luck.


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## stevenlau (Jul 21, 2009)

Yeah you're right justjulie, I have managed to euthanize all of my rummynose  and raised the temp of my tank to 30-31C and plan to leave it fishless for maybe a month while I will be buying new fishes and quarantine them first for at least 3 weeks that I'm so afraid that these new fishes carry some any or other parasites.

Btw, all of my oto cats (I have 4) seem to have no effect from that ich and safe until now (in quarantine tank) and also all of my RCS. So the otos and shrimps are seem to be immune to ich, I think due to their hard skin, maybe?

Anyway, thank you all for your help.


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## Gordon C. Snelling (Jun 20, 2007)

If I read that correctly, you killed off the fish deliberately because they had ich?? If so that is insane. there is no need to kill the fish because they contract a very treatable infection. If this is a common practice you are going to go thru a lot of fish.


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## potatoes (Jun 25, 2010)

I agree, that does not make any sense and i hope we misread it


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## huaidan (Mar 6, 2010)

In my experience UV works. You just have to get enough wattage per gallon, and your flow rate is such that you're turning over your tank at least twice an hour, and still getting around 10 gallons/watt-hour, or less. I got by with lower sterilization than that (1.5 x per hour, 12 gallons per watt hour), but my ich infestation had just started and no fish had died.
In your case, 10 watts, 100 gal/hr would give you full-on level 2 sterilization, which hypothetically should be overkil.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Forget medicine and UV.

Just raise the temperature. We import rare fish and Ich is a constant consideration. From everything that we have tried elevated temperature is the only thing that really works. Yes, it sounds illogical but that's what we see.

There are many kinds of diseases that look like Ich. I do not know if they are varieties of Ich or not. Some last for 1-2 months, not like the "usual" 3-day kind of Ich.

If you ever buy a fish from a store chances are you are buying an non-quarantined stressed fish that was imported only few days ago. Problems can show up up to a month after importation. Keep that in mind. Don't blame your "infected" tank every time.

--Nikolay


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## Newt (Apr 1, 2004)

The ich parasite needs a host (a fish) to continue its life cycle. Once the cysts hatch the free swimming larve needs to find a host within (I think) 3 days or it dies. If you remove all of your fish and bump the temp up to 80 - 84 F and leave it for a few weeks the life cycle should cease to exist.


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## stevenlau (Jul 21, 2009)

What have done is done. I will not try to repeat that. Sometimes the medicines cost is much higher than buying the new fishes and sometimes, the parasites will get immune to certain medication we treat noted that this is small fishes and if we cure them according to med's label dose, we will likely to kill the fishes too but if we try to half the doses, it will make the parasites immune, sometimes...and will the second much more persistent outbreak in the future.


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