# Ich Attack - Help Please!



## Ridgeback (Feb 6, 2010)

My relatively smooth entrance into the world of planted freshwater aquariums has suddenly taken a nasty turn for the worst. After the thrill of having my Rams lay eggs - and then eat them, my tank has had a sudden Ich outbreak :faint:

My losses have been manageable (1 Otto, 1 Cherry Barb, 1 male Emporer Tetra and my other male Emporer is not looking good). At this point my remaining 3 Emporer Tetras have signs of Ich to a lesser degree and my Rams have it pretty bad but the appear to be unfazed...other than having a lot of white spots. The remaining tank residents are "clean" (male Betta, 5 Roseline Sharks, 5 Corys, 6 Cherry Barbs) but show signs of irritation (the Cherry Barbs flash from time to time off the substrate and plants). Other than my one remaining male Emporer Tetra, everyone is eating fine which is a good sign.

I am using the treatment suggested from another post on treating ich from Diana K. (thank you for your informative post):

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...0147-how-cure-ich-without-harming-plants.html

I am have added 8 tablespoons of aquarium salt (for a 40 gallon breeder tank) and raised the temperature up to near 86 degrees. I am in the process of lowering the temperature back to 82 degrees to reduce some of the stress on the fish. I did a WC 3 days ago (about 25%) and I am doing a water change tonight (another 25%). I will also be doing some re-scaping so I can keep better tabs on everyone.

So I have a couple of questions:

Using the aquarium salt - raise the temp solution to Ich, how long before I see some positve results? I started treating the tank (added first amount of salt and started incresing the temp) 5 days ago. Should I consider a larger WC and add an Ich medication instead?

My plants are starting to shed leaves (Ludwigia Inclinata 'Cuba', Ludwigia Brevipes, Hydrotriche Hottonflorii). Is this because of the higher temp in the tank or the added aquarium salt? I suspect it's the salt but I thought I ask.

This outbreak has occured despite what I consider to be good water quality (ph 7.0 -7.2, Nitrites - 0, Nitrates - 0, Phosphates 0.1 ppm, KH - 5 deg., GH - 11 deg., CO2 added at 3bbls/sec.) with plants growing very nicely. I suspect I may have added my rams to quickly (about 2 weeks ago) or my cleaning the cannister filter earlier in the day I notced the first signs of Ich some how released the parasites and infested the fish . That's the only thing I can point to recently. Either way, I only have myself to blame. :mad2:

The situation is pretty disheartening since last weekend I had the happy surprise of Rams laying eggs while this weekend I will be keeping a sort of death watch on the tank. Talk about having a bad change in fortune!

Your encouragement and advice on getting my tank cured is very much appreciated. Once the tank is free of Ich I am going to improve and/or change my quarantine procedures.


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## mats808 (May 7, 2008)

Hi Ridgeback,

Sorry to hear that about your fish.

I think the things you did are good but I would also treat the tank with some kind of medication. I like to use quick cure but anything with malachite green in it will work. I think the temperature is a little higher than you need. 80-82 should be fine. The amount of salt you are using should be okay as well.

The reason that you need to treat the tank is that the medication is what is really going to kill the parasite. Raising the temperature only increases their metabolism which accelerates their life cycle. This only helps to speed up the process when you treat with medicine. It won't kill anything in and of itself. The salt helps a little because ich tends to prefer water that is not salty. If you raise the temp, and add salt, but you don't use medication you could reach a point where your fish look clean but there's still "ich" in your water. This often results in reinfection some time in the future.

Also keep in mind that if you aren't careful about sterilizing your buckets, hoses, nets, hands, etc., another outbreak could be waiting in the wings, or you could easily transfer the parasite to another tank.

I hope this helps.


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## Ridgeback (Feb 6, 2010)

mats808 said:


> Hi Ridgeback,
> 
> Sorry to hear that about your fish.
> 
> ...


Thanks mats808...I was thinking the aquarium salt would eliminate the ich...this is an incorrect assumption. I was getting close to medicating the tank anyway. I may do a water change (to reduce the salt level a bit) and then medicate away. I have lowered the temperature to 81-82 degrees and the fish seem happier.

I do plan to sterilize the equipment when I eridicate this stuff. I was going to wash/soak everything in a water and bleach solution (a ratio of 20-1) for 20 minutes and then rinse/soak it with some declorinated tap water for 20 minutes. Would this be sufficient to sterilize everything?

As an update...my losses are mounting. I lost one half of my breeding pair of rams (female). Both were doing fine but she went downhill quickly over the weekend. My last male emporer tetra is hanging on but I don't think he is going to make it either. Everyone else seems to be doing OK. It just sucks to lose a ram...particularly a young one that had just started laying eggs.


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## Daniil (Oct 30, 2009)

I had an Ich outbreak about 2-3 month ago in my 55G tank. 
I had 15 neons, 5 cardinals, 6 Rummy-Nose Tetras, 3 siamese algae eaters and 5 Otocinclus.
I did 50-70% water change, increased temp. to 80F and treated with
1 teaspoon of IODINE ones and 2 teaspoon/day Tea Tree Oil for 2 days, then I did 50-70% water change. 
The only casualties in the battle with Ich - 3 Rummy-Nose Tetras.
Hope this helps.


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## mats808 (May 7, 2008)

Sorry to hear that about the rams.

20 to 1 clorox will do the trick. I think half that concentration will work though. I use even less. I make a 1.875% solution. I'm sure it never comes out exactly that but that's the goal. I let it soak for at least 20 minutes. 

Keep in mind that although you should definitely sterilize your equipment once the ich is gone it is just as important that you sterilize anything that touches the water while they have the disease as well. It's a pain but you shouldn't use anything that's touched the water in that tank for anything unless you've cleaned it.......I don't know if you have other tanks but once something touches the water you shouldn't even use it in the same tank until you've sterilized it. You can liken it to when you are sick. Tissue is the best to cough in and blow your nose because it's disposable. You wouldn't want to cough into a towel and continue to do so while you're sick then only wash it once you're better.


Cheers,
Aaron


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Ich could be easy to treat - just raise the temperature. But ome kinds of Ich do not disappear in 2-3 days. 

If raising the temperature helped then great. 

If it didn't help then any medication is just a shot in the dark. Hoping the fish will get better. In most cases will only make you feel better that you did something for the poor fish. That's true for any other disease, even if it has been diagnosed properly and the proper medication is used.

Ich is the easiest disease to cure, but only if it's the 3 day kind. Generaly Ich is a sign of some kind of issues with the tank maintenance, but of course not always.

--Nikolay


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## mats808 (May 7, 2008)

There are many ways to make it appear that there is no ich in your aquarium but I really suggest that you use some kind of medication. One of the commonest medications used for ich is malchite green alone or combined with other stuff. I agree that with other types of disease it can be difficult to diagnose and therefore it can be hard to decide on the right medication but that's mostly with bacterial types of infections. Those types of disease are normally treated with antibiotics and of course antibiotics will only work on certain types of bacteria. Then there's also the problem of deciding if it's fungal or bacterial. There's also viruses like mycobacterium which basically can't be "cured".

Ich is much easier to diagnose and once you know it's ich, malachite green will work. It may just take a little longer depending on the strain of the parasite. Perhaps ich could be misdiagnosed for velvet but the treatment would be the same. Although keeping the tank dark also helps with velvet. Velvet is harder to get rid of, usually taking much longer before all the parasites are gone. 

Having said all of this I haven't gotten ich for more than 10 years now, maybe longer. I've gotten velvet but only with my soft water fish and usually only when they're wild stock. I can't stress how much I disagree with "treating" ich/velvet with just raising the temp. This could actually cause a high temp resistant strain to form in your aquarium. If anything I would treat with just medication and not do the salt or raise the temp long before I use the latter with no medication. Of course there's a point where a high enough temp would kill the ich but that's at a much higher temp than I would ever want to put my fish through.

aaron


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## Ridgeback (Feb 6, 2010)

mats808 said:


> There are many ways to make it appear that there is no ich in your aquarium but I really suggest that you use some kind of medication. One of the commonest medications used for ich is malchite green alone or combined with other stuff. I agree that with other types of disease it can be difficult to diagnose and therefore it can be hard to decide on the right medication but that's mostly with bacterial types of infections. Those types of disease are normally treated with antibiotics and of course antibiotics will only work on certain types of bacteria. Then there's also the problem of deciding if it's fungal or bacterial. There's also viruses like mycobacterium which basically can't be "cured".
> 
> Ich is much easier to diagnose and once you know it's ich, malachite green will work. It may just take a little longer depending on the strain of the parasite. Perhaps ich could be misdiagnosed for velvet but the treatment would be the same. Although keeping the tank dark also helps with velvet. Velvet is harder to get rid of, usually taking much longer before all the parasites are gone.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the input. Just an update...my tank seems to be over the hump. The ich is off most of the fish (a couple spots on my ram and my last male emporer is improving but still has it on his fins...he is not out of the woods yet). I dropped the temperature to 81-82 degrees which reduced some of the stress on the fish.

To your point...it's hard to tell if the Aquarium salt "cured" the tank. Ich has been noticeable in my tank for a little over a week since I started treating the tank, not the 2-3 days that you hope for when you start treating the tank. I added the aquarium salt very slowly so this may have prolonged things longer than usual. I definitely think the aquarium salt has helped the situation. I am sort of in a wait and see mode for the next few days. Once I see that there are no visual effects of Ich I am going to start doing frequent small water changes to reduce the salt in the tank. If I see things return I will medicate immediately (I have API Super Ick at the ready).

I really appreciate the input. This has been a good learning experience for me. I believe I added fish too quickly. It's a not so gentle reminder about keeping good quarantine habits. As a result I had a few casualties and get to sterilize all of my equipment :twitch:


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## mats808 (May 7, 2008)

Glad to see things are getting better.

Salt definitely will help to get rid of ich and velvet as well. I now realize that you may not want to treat the tank because you're afraid of harming your plants. Hopefully all the ich will disappear and never come back again. If you are only going to use salt make sure you don't remove any of it for at least a couple of days after all visible signs are gone. Sometimes if you don't treat with medication or you stop treating too soon the ich will come back. The second time it can also be a little more resistant to whatever method you are using to get rid of them. That's why I really advocate using a combination of salt, increased temp, and quick cure (malachite green). I really try to make sure I wipe out all of the parasites so they never come back. I also never let anything that touches the water (hands included) touch anything else until it has been cleaned. I really try to make sure that if by some strange reason one of my tanks get something none of the others will. I use a lot of 91% rubbing alcohol to clean my hands. 

I'm a little anal when it comes to trying to make sure no cross contamination ever occurs. For things like ich I guess it's not that important but it's a good practice in case you ever get something like TB in your system. Something like that could wipe out your entire collection if you aren't careful about cross contamination. Especially because infected fish may not show signs for months or longer. Sorry I just realized that I don't know if you even have multiple tanks so I'm not sure if this even applies. If not just disregard.

Good luck with everything.

aaron


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