# Your Ich experience



## Do78521 (Dec 15, 2006)

All my fishes just died of ich, 2 loaches, 7 cardinals and 6 rummy and it suck!!.

I used ich cure for my 55g, 55 drops every 24 hrs, just like what the direction said but it didnt work. 

What causes ich? and what was yours ich experience?


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## DonaldmBoyer (Aug 18, 2005)

Ich is an parasite (I think).

I've used NOX Ich before, and it worked very well. The only active ingredient in it is concentrated sodium chloride, so it is like dipping your fish in a mild saltwater solution before you place them in your tank. This dipping in saltwater will kill off freshwater parasites.

I will tell you that I followed the directions, too; however, I would add about ten to fifteen extra drops in my 55 gallon, and I might have added it a few hours ahead of time than the previous day (added NoxIch day1 at 8pm, next day at 6pm, next day around 4pm, etc.).

Sometimes, things like that just happen. Luckily, I kept a good watch on my fish, and noticed it when it first started showing up. If you catch it early enough, it is pretty curable.

Did you remove the carbon filters from your tank and increase the water temperature by a few degrees? Doing this in the future will certainly help you next time!!!!

Hope this helps you!


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## TeutonJon78 (Nov 10, 2004)

Well, in planted tanks, the medicines are often toxic to plants as well as invertebrates. Plus, the ich medicine can only get the parasites in a few stages of their life.

One method that works for a lot of people is a temperature method. I've used it twice before with good results and will be using again now that my newly setup tank has some ich. Basically, you slowly raise the temperature to 87-88ish. And you leave it there for 2-3 weeks. Ich can't live at temps greater than 86F (or so...it's a general consensus and I don't know how they even came up with that). Plus, it really speeds up their life cycle so they cycle though faster. Basically, ich should be gone from the fish in a few days, but the longer time is make sure and cysted forms have matured and been killed as well. If you still want to use medicine, using it at an increased temp should help it's effectiveness due to the increased life cycle speed.

Of course, make sure everything in the tank can at be fine at that temp. I've used it with tetras, ottos, gouramis, and rainbowfish with no problem. Shrimp did fine with it as well. golfish would NOT do well wit it.


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## Script404 (Jun 30, 2006)

I've used a King British Ich cure before and it worked very well, I also raised the temprature, that was in a mixed tank including a couple of small discus and a red tailed shark. But its probably one of the worst things I've seen in tanks for wiping out whole tanks.


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## KrispyKreme (Jan 28, 2007)

As of yet I haven't had to deal with ich. Just yesterday I did a little research just in case something happened. I can't vouch for any of this but here's an article I ran across.

http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article17.html


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## Do78521 (Dec 15, 2006)

I had 3 more SAE, infected with the freaking ich, I slowly raise the temp. It seem more lazy and inactive, doesnt swim around much. sigh
I also have a bristlenose and a common pleco, which have no sign of ich, I dont think ich is as harmful to them as to scale fish but to be on the safe side, Should I remove them into a different tank??

Anybody know when how often I should change the water??
and just incase the 3 SAEs die, do you guys thinks my pleco and bristlenose carry the disease with them? and might infect my future fish????


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## Jeff232 (Nov 4, 2006)

I raised my temp. to 89 degrees for a month, i also added a bit of table salt to the tank as well(1-2 tsp per gallon slowly)... worked like a charm. Keep an eye on your fish though, higher temps. decrease the amount of O2 in the water, 86 is a good number to aim for if 89 sounds too hot for your fish(mine liked it actually) The only casualties were a few ghost shrimp. My oto's sat on my heater and pouted for 2 weeks after I lowered the temp but no nobody died from the Ich.


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## Mad Dog (Mar 3, 2007)

Ahhh, I can feel how popular this is going to make me! The new guy who thinks he knows everything....well, hope I dont come off that way, but I honestly know a thing or two about this subject at least...



> Ich is an parasite (I think).


Ich is a parasite and I believe a flagellate protozoa (way too big of words for me though) and from my observations in the hobby, many people are told, or believe that Ich is always present in a fish tank...which is absolutely not true.

Like us, Ich has a bunch of parts to its life....for example, we were all babies at one time, then became teenagers, then young adults where we reproduce (the lucky ones at least) and then fall into old age and pass on. Ich is the same....it is a baby to start with and in this stage, it grows into a teenager where it swims freely in the water column, looking for a good place to live...namely a fish. The good news though is that like most teenagers, Ich is lazy and so healthy, unstressed fish are too hard to make a home upon and so Ich will seek out the weakest target, most commonly a stressed fish (for whatever reason) which has a weak stress or slime coat. Once it find that fish, it will attach itself and start to protect itself with a covering...or the 'white spots' that we all associate with this issue.

As a white spot, Ich is pretty much impossible to harm...and even malachite green and formalyn meds, from my understanding, make little to no impact on Ich in its white spot form. However, those meds to work relatively effectively on Ich in the free swimming stages and so they create the illusion that they are removing the white spots by simply making sure that no new white spots can form (because the baby Ich is getting killed).

Once Ich has hosted on a fish for a while, I dont beleive the exact timeline has ever been determined but there are a lot of timelines which suggest one, two, or three weeks (depending on what you are reading from whoever). However, you can help things along by raising the tank's temperature which in turn will create a more ideal environment for Ich. Sounds contradictory, but really, you want to speed up the life cycle of Ich when it is in the white spot form so that they fall off faster...hopefully faster than the fish can die.

This is why it is SOOOOOOOO very very very important to keep treating Ich even after the last white spot dissapears. In probably 99% of the cases in which one person will have reoccuring Ich issues, they have stopped treatment too early and those free swimming ich protozoa (which we cannot see with out naked eyes) can live on, host on a fish, and create more white spots. (The other reason is most likely from adding new fish without quarantining them first)

IMHO, the 'salt and heat' method is the safest method to use when treating ich. From what I have read on this forum thus far, it also sounds like adding small amounts of salt (sodium choride by the way...or in other words, table salt or an equivalent) is ok in a planted tank...but then again, I am new to the planted side of things and so maybe that is wrong. In any case, the chances are that in a planted tank, or a tank with scaleless fish, including most tetras, the best dosage for salt is about 1 tablespoon per 10 gallons of ACTUAL water in the tank (remember, 55 gallon tanks do not hold 55 gallons once there is a substrate, decor, and even fish added, which displace some of that water area). If there are no scaleless fish or tetras, and depending on if salt is ok in a planted tank, the normal dosage of salt would be 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons. The point is that only a small amount of salt is needed....05% I believe...to treat Ich effectively. Again, the salt effects the free swimming ich that we cannot see only. The raising of the tank's temp to between 86 to 90 degrees (slowly so as not to shock the livestock) will again, speed up the lifecycle of Ich and help force the ich to drop off your fish sooner rather than later. (By the way, make sure to dissolve the salt first in a cup of the tank's water, and add it slowly, again so as to not shock the fish)

One large reason I tend to go against meds like those with malachite green is not only like has been pointed out already in that they are as harsh on the fish as it is on the ich, but also becuase there are some health risks to yourself from using them. For example, I believe that malachite green, as was told to me by a friend and fellow fishkeeper, can cause birth defects if handled by a pregnant woman.

Also, the salt helps to equalize the balance of pressure between the water and your fishes' cells (again, as I learned from that friend of mine) and can actually help your fish breath even when Ich has moved into the gill area. Salt is also good for fish during a cycle or mini-cycle when nitrites are high since nitrites tend to 'gum up' a fish's gills, hence the salt helps the fish breath better.

Lastly, the very best thing you can do is prevent ich in the first place. There cannot be enough said about the use of a quarantine tank for new fish. By quaranting new fish for two or three weeks, you will have plenty of time to observe any problems the fish may have before putting it in your main tank and risking the health and/or lives of all your fish. (In fact, because I almost always use a q-tank, my main tank has been ich free for over a year and a half) Conversely, if all of your fish happen to die from Ich...it is best to wait two weeks, if not three, before adding new fish (being sure to keep the cycle from crashing due to lack of ammonia from the fish wastes). If an ich protozoa cannot find a suitable fish to host upon in approx two weeks, then it will simply die and you would end up with a clean slate to start over with.

I am not sure on the issues surrounding a planted tank with a UV sterilizer on it, but that is also another option for ridding your tank of ich as well as preventing it. For the most part, is can be debated as to how effective UV filters would be on a freshwater tank, but from what I have read, it can kill ich. They also prevent algae and het blooms (bacterial blooms) so that is always a bonus. I have had Ich one time in my saltwater tank, and I attribute the fact that not one other fish wound up with ich, nor did the ich spread any further on the infected fish to a large degree of having a UV filter up and running the entire time. Again, this may not be practicle, or economical, but it is still an option.


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## furballi (Feb 2, 2007)

Do78521 said:


> I had 3 more SAE, infected with the freaking ich, I slowly raise the temp. It seem more lazy and inactive, doesnt swim around much. sigh
> I also have a bristlenose and a common pleco, which have no sign of ich, I dont think ich is as harmful to them as to scale fish but to be on the safe side, Should I remove them into a different tank??
> 
> Anybody know when how often I should change the water??
> and just incase the 3 SAEs die, do you guys thinks my pleco and bristlenose carry the disease with them? and might infect my future fish????


Keep the water well circulated at 85F. You should change 50% of the water and add one teaspoon of salt for every five gallon. Add the same amount of salt for the 2nd and 3rd day. The parasite should decrease by the 4th or 5th day. Change 50% of the water on the 8th day if no visual sign of white spot. Keep the tank at 85F for another week.


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## Mad Dog (Mar 3, 2007)

> add one teaspoon of salt for every five gallon


I agree that this is a good dosage or quantity of salt, and not to get nit picky about this but, this is probrably too much salt for a tank which holds scaleless fish as I pointed out before. I bring this up and emphasis it becuase from my observations, it seems like most planted tanks are stocked most commonly with loaches or tetras, just to name a couple, and those are scaleless fish which could suffer from a high salinity...or relatively high salinity anyways.



> Add the same amount of salt for the 2nd and 3rd day


Again, not trying to discount your advice, but it is very important to realize that when you add salt to an aquarium, it does not get used up or deminish over time and so unless you are doing water changes between each daily dose of salt, you are effectively raising the salinity each time...and IMHO, to a dangerous degree in some aspects.

The key here is to keep in mind that .05% salinity guideline for the treatment of Ich. From what I have read, adding more salt than .05% is not going to speed things up, or at least not in a manner which would have no negative side effects. Using the true, dictionary and scientific definition, this .05% salinity level is always considered freshwater. If there is slightly more that .05%, then you start to look at brackish water conditions...again, based upon the true meaning of those terms (although, in the aquarium hobby, I believe that a salinity approaching 1% is considered brackish water). Some people may also refer to this higher salinity as being a 'brine'. At any rate, the point is that you would want to balance the effects both negatively on the ich while trying to maintain a positive situation for your fish.



> if no visual sign of white spot. Keep the tank at 85F for another week.


This I disagree with and I go back to the fact that Ich can survive in your tank, without being on a fish as a white spot, for quite a while. To support that idea, you can look on most any Ich medication and you will most likely see the directions stating to keep treating the tank for weeks after the last spot is gone. Again, stopping treatment too early could easily result in another Ich outbreak, which is all the more likely to occur quickly because the fish are already stressed from the initial treatment methods. Of course, it is very common to hear that a stressed fish is more open to illnesses, infections, parasites, etc...


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## bristles (Mar 7, 2006)

Unfortunately all three species of fish in your tank are ick prone (IMO) and with my planted tanks the only moderately effective treatment (as Mad dog stated) has been salt ( I dose at 1/2 recommended amount) with a temp boost & regular water changes, this helps thicken the fishes emusion coat until the ick lifespan cycle is through.


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## furballi (Feb 2, 2007)

Mad Dog said:


> I agree that this is a good dosage or quantity of salt, and not to get nit picky about this but, this is probrably too much salt for a tank which holds scaleless fish as I pointed out before. I bring this up and emphasis it becuase from my observations, it seems like most planted tanks are stocked most commonly with loaches or tetras, just to name a couple, and those are scaleless fish which could suffer from a high salinity...or relatively high salinity anyways.
> 
> Again, not trying to discount your advice, but it is very important to realize that when you add salt to an aquarium, it does not get used up or deminish over time and so unless you are doing water changes between each daily dose of salt, you are effectively raising the salinity each time...and IMHO, to a dangerous degree in some aspects.
> 
> ...


I've treated cardinals/neons (other disease) with salt as high as three tablespoon per five gallons without any long-term effect. Most plants will not tolerate this bath. Some species of white spot must be hit with a higher salt concentration.

The life cycle of white spot is under one week at 85F. Therefore, 8 days plus another week at 1/2 salt concentration should be adequate to control white spot.


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## Lord Nibbler (Dec 22, 2005)

The salt method has worked great for me. The only problem was it killed a patch of Ambulias, but otherwise it was way better than the dye treatments.


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## tkos (Oct 30, 2006)

http://aquafacts.net/wiki/index.php/Ich

An excellent link on ich


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## argblarg (Aug 10, 2006)

Heat method worked for me, 14 days from seeing the last spot go at 87 degrees.


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

Very, very good info Mad Dog.

I've never had to treat ich in a main tank because any fish that enters the house goes into quarantine.

It's also a very good point that you have to keep treating ich for the full life cycle, and not just until you don't see spots anymore.
Everyone who keeps fish should read up on the life cycle of ich to fully understand how to best treat it.


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## Mad Dog (Mar 3, 2007)

> I've treated cardinals/neons (other disease) with salt as high as three tablespoon per five gallons without any long-term effect.


I am sure that you have done this...and to be honest, I am sure that I have treated with more salt than needed before I came into contact with some websites, people, and other resources which changed my mind on that. Obviously the trick here is to balance Ich treatment with what a fish can handle, and more importantly, with what plants can handle since this is a planted tank forum, I assume the majority of members have or will have plants in a tank.

Like JanS points out, prevention is by far...by very far, the best ich treatment out there. Having a small quarantine tank for all new arrivals so that they can be monitored will save a ton of issues in a main tank, and I assume, tons of money in plants over the long run. I can honestly say that my q-tank, which is a 10 gallon (or a couple of them actually), has held fish which are way too big for it, or at first glance, would seem completely overstocked. However, over the short term, it is acceptable to quarantine fish in a smaller than normally needed tank. I bring this up because it defeats the reasoning for not using a q-tank due to costs or space...trust me, costs will be much higher with only one outbreak of any illness in a display tank.

Being new to the forum, I am not sure what the policy or thinking is about linking to other sites, but if interested, I know a lot of good places to research and even get a visual representation of the lifecycle of ich...both fresh and marine. I will seek some guidance on that before posting them though and if it is ok, I will edit this post.


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## primal (Jan 30, 2007)

Mad Dog said:


> Ich is a parasite and I believe a flagellate protozoa (way too big of words for me though) and from my observations in the hobby, many people are told, or believe that Ich is always present in a fish tank...which is absolutely not true.


Can you cite sources that prove ich isn't always present in a fish tank?


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## Mad Dog (Mar 3, 2007)

http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/ich.shtml

While this article does tend to get a bit wishy washy on the subject, it does state that freshwater Ich is not always present in a tank and in fact, they go further to point out that this misconception may have come about due to the fact that Marine Ich, which is totally different from FW in everything but appearance, is able to stay in a tank for a long time...probrably long enough to give the sense that it is gone before reappearing making the illusion that it is impossible to get rid of.

Otherwise, right now I could only give links to another forum which has this information in a easy to understand format.

However, thinking about this logically and understanding that this is a parasite and not a germ, bacteria, or fungus which can be spread through the air or remain in a long term dormant state. So, just like your fish, once all of the ich protozoa die, it cannot come back unless you add it yourself, even if it is unwittingly.

I will get some more sources gathered up which are not on a forum. However, this article here, even though it is on a forum, is one that I have seen quoted or used on a ton of forums so here is the link and if this is inappropriate, just ask a mod to edit and delete it:

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/ich.php I believe that this article is a combination of quite a few other articles which are more scientific in nature and semi-confusing overall.


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## miles (Apr 26, 2006)

increase temp to 82 - 83 and use quick cure. i dosed full strength on my tank (says to use half dose with tetras). i have cardinal and glowlight tetras; ottos; blue rams; swordtail; cory; ghost shrimp; and pond, mts, and ramshorn snails. plants include java fern/moss, anubias, cryptocoryne wendtii, c. affinis, ludwigia ovalis, l. brevipes, l. inclinata, vallisneria nana, hygro, rotala rotundifolia. none of the fish, plants, or inverts was negatively affected (save for c. affinis, which is a notorious melter; it has since started to send out new leaves). i kept photoperiod, co2, and fert the same throughout the treatment period. plants kept growing.

i would have rather used salt, but i didn't want to lose most of my plants. i think the prolonged, elevated temp routine is too stressful on the fish, especially o2 loving fish like sae's.


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## tkos (Oct 30, 2006)

Increased surface agitation will help with O2. And I don't see how NaCl in a low dose is more harmful short term to plants than meds.


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## miles (Apr 26, 2006)

tkos said:


> Increased surface agitation will help with O2. And I don't see how NaCl in a low dose is more harmful short term to plants than meds.


i've done a search on this board and another well-known planted tank forum and many have said their plants suffered from *therapeutic* doses of salt. regarding the effects of meds, a noted plant expert, on his website, says none of the ich meds (save for preparations containing copper) have negative effects on plants. i've used two meds that contain malachite green (maracide, quick cure) and none of my plants, including sensitive ludwigia's and crypts were killed; neither were my ghost shrimp and snails. sufficient salt to kill off the ich would certainly kill my crypts and probably some inverts.


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## Mad Dog (Mar 3, 2007)

> sufficient salt to kill off the ich would certainly kill my crypts and probably some inverts.


Not to drag this topic up again...but I have concerns about others who may read this statement and base an opinion on it or take it as a fact...and again, I don't mean to always be disagreeing here, but this statement is not completely correct IMHO and IME.

First, the amount of salt needed to kill off FW ich is much less than a lot of people, and maybe yourself, might think. A salinity of .05% in a freshwater tank is sufficient enough to kill Ich and that level is without a doubt still considered freshwater...in fact, when not in captivity (i.e. still living in a lake, stream, pond, etc...), most fish probably see this amount of salt on a regular basis.

It is also true that your ghost shrimp, like a few other fish and inverts, can be acclimated to a saltwater environment and live for quite some time...and yes, I realize that there is an almost identical shrimp to the ghost shrimp which is a true marine species and I am not confusing them. In the past, I kept a 'predator' type saltwater aquarium and fed ghost shrimp regularly...even with just taking them out of FW and into a full SW environment, they lasted days, if not weeks sometimes. I would also be relatively willing to bet that they could have lasted longer, if they were not eaten.

Speaking of saltwater, the treatment for marine ich (again, I realize that it is a totally different thing from FW ich) is the same as using salt and heat in a FW tank, only the exact opposite in which the salinity in the tank would be lowered to about brackish tank levels (hypo salinity).

I can assure you that Malachite green is not completely harmless to your fish or plants...and it is not even harmless to yourself. The fact of the matter is that MG is really a dye used for textiles with the added bonus of also treating ich and other parasites to some extent. In large enough amounts, I believe that the state of California recognizes it as a carcinogen and it is also known to cause birth defects....all of which I learned from a friend of mine who is very trustworthy IMO.

Still, dont get me wrong, I am not trying to push my opinions on anyone, but rather just trying to shed some more light on the subject. If what you do works for you, and even I would always go back to what has worked for me in the past, then by all means, do what you feel is best.


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## MiSo (Nov 4, 2005)

i had ich break out in my main tank.
i bought some cardinals and rummies about a week apart. 
i was never sure which of the fish actually brought along the disease but i never qt'd the fish.
lesson learned the hard way.
i lost all the cards (6), all the rummies (6), 3 clown loaches, and not sure if anything else.

=(


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## Sidi (Mar 16, 2007)

In the past I've used methylene blue to treat an outbreak in a sculpin tank (absolutely could not be heated up to the necessary amount). I was able to get it cheaply/easily through work as a biochemist. No plants, but it worked very well, other than staining the rocks faintly blue.

Most recently I had a small outbreak in my main tank after adding another pictus. I hadn't set up a quarantine yet, and I'm still kicking myself. For that I just used the heat method, put it at 84-85 for several weeks and it cleared up very well. My discus was certainly happy about the change, since he usually has to deal with living at about81.5 degrees. Salt wasn't really an option since I have a clown loach in there, who will eventually move up to my big tank (and probably get a couple friends).

You have to adjust your method to what's living in your tank. Some fish will die long before they hit 80 degrees. Some can't stand much salt. Most medications will have some possible side effects in certain systems. Just make sure to observe after you try any treatment, if the fish seem stressed be ready to rescue them from the treatment.

Oh, and here's one of the biggest things I've figured out, due to a tank emergency. Your "quarantine" tank doesn't have to be beautiful. It has to hold water, maintain a temperature, and have adequate filtration. It's preferable that it have lighting to keep your fish from being too stressed about day/night. You can buy a $10 garbage can or Rubbermaid container and create a quarantine tank from it easily. If things are set up right you could even dry it between use and reseed the bacteria in the filter from your other tanks right before use, if you monitor water parameters carefully.


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## Mad Dog (Mar 3, 2007)

> In the past I've used methylene blue to treat an outbreak in a sculpin tank (absolutely could not be heated up to the necessary amount). I was able to get it cheaply/easily through work as a biochemist. No plants, but it worked very well, other than staining the rocks faintly blue.


This is another common med, or part of a med, which one can find relatively easily and cheaply as well in fish medications. I also think it is used sometimes as a sort of preventative measure for fungus (kordon states that its product can do this).



> For that I just used the heat method, put it at 84-85 for several weeks and it cleared up very well


I am not sure if this has been mentioned yet, and if so, it is worth repeating a lot....the salt, the heat, or the salt and heat method are not the fastest way to cure Ich by no means....the point is really that they are probably the most 'natural' and invasive treatment as far as additional stress to the fish. It is also often said that it is the better treatment for scaleless fish such as your pictus cat because they can be irritated more easily than a fish with scales. I bring this up only becasue I felt that it was worth noting that you did this for 'several weeks', which would almost always be the case.



> You have to adjust your method to what's living in your tank. Some fish will die long before they hit 80 degrees. Some can't stand much salt.


I agree, although I would say that most of the fish one would commonly keep in an aquarium could last for a relatively short time in higher temperatures if the change was made slowly and methodically. Obviously there is no heater with a thermostat in a lake, river, ocean, or any other body of water and so it can be argued that at one point in a fish's life, it may live in warmer, or colder, water than it would 'prefer'. Also, I agree that a few fish cannot handle much salt, even for a short time, and most freshwater fish could not simply make the leap into brackish or saltwater, however the thing to keep in mind is that we are not talking about a lot of salt here really and if added slowly, I believe any freshwater fish can deal with .05% salt for a couple of months. Your point about medications I have to say I completely agree with...some fish are going to be able to stand up to literally breathing one med or another much easier than perhaps another fish might. It could also be argued that when one adds meds to a tank, their fish are already weakened by whatever prompted that medicine to be used and hence, may be even less able to handle that.



> Oh, and here's one of the biggest things I've figured out, due to a tank emergency


You certainly nailed things right on the head here and make some fantastic points which brings us down to the heart of this issue...prevention is by far the best Ich 'cure' available to anyone! It is ceratinly easier, and much less costly to keep a q-tank or a plan to make an emergency version. I don't think anyone can really argue that unless the fish are the very first ones to inhabit a tank, a q-tank is not useful or a good idea for everyone. To help support your thoughts here, I would add that about three or four weeks ago I found myself in a situation of having no saltwater q-tank (becasue I was foolish and felt I could go without for a while since my tank was stocked as I wanted) up and running when I found that one of my Mandarin Gobies (Dragonette, if you prefer) with some pretty bad injuries, possibly oodinium (velvet) and also what appeared to be Ich (but wasnt). While I am sure a lot of people do not get into saltwater because of the expense and difficulty of getting a SW tank up and running smoothly, I will tell you that I made a SW q-tank in less that an hour out of an old 10 gallon Walmart 'kit tank' which previously only held freshwater and had only the normal freshwater equipment. I used all of that equipment, buying nothing else at all for the tank short of the meds and treatments, put the fish in, and had absolutely no problems with it at all up until I returned that fish to my main tank a couple days ago. Like you said, I simply monitored the water parameters closely and reacted to them slowly and methodically. The fish is fine and that tank is now back in the basement with my larger SW q-tank back up and running for good this time.

The only thing I would caution anyone on...and this is all common sense I am sure...would be to say that if you want to or need to 'seed' the q-tank off of another tank, make sure that you are not just switching a filter media or any equipment between the two tanks in a manner which could spread any problems or illnesses that you may have and are treating for. The same goes for equipment such as nets or algae scrapers/magnets. In fact, any equipment used in a q-tank should either be used for that tank only, or allowed to dry completely before use in another tank.

Lastly, the main reason that a q-tank is so handy is because problems which are easily transmitted from fish to fish require us to treat the whole tank instead of just one fish. Simply removing one fish which has ich from a main tank may not stop the problem from showing up on other fish. By using a q-tank, we can avoid having to risk an expensive display tank with plants or other fish by keeping Ich and other problems out completely. Usually, I think most people would say to quarantine new fish in the range of about three weeks to one month as a minimum to ensure that they are disease free.


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## Do78521 (Dec 15, 2006)

ANOTHER QUESTION FOR THE ICH GURU OUT THERE.
It had been a week in a half since all my fishes died of ich, is my tank now a totally ich free environment (I have ghost shrimps and a bristle and pleco lelf, is there any chance they are infected but doesnt show any signs)? If it is not, how long does it take and what should I do for my tank to become healthy again? I had done 50% water change everyweek. 

I should've asked this question from the beginning, we had establish that ich is an parasites and such and that it have a low immunity to salinity and high temp, we got the treatments but WHAT CAUSES ICH, AND HOW DID IT START? (This will hopefully help prevent any future problems.)


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## Mad Dog (Mar 3, 2007)

By most accounts, freshwater Ich can live without a host (being on a fish) for two or three weeks.

I am not sure how to answer your question on what causes ich....being a parasite, ich causes ich. The scientific name of freshwater ich is Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, which you can google and get some more scientific type information about it rather than solely fish tank information. One way to put it is that it would be much like leaches in a river...when you walk through the river, some latch on to you and begin feed off of your blood. Ich would be similar in theory.

On healthy fish, Ich has a hard time latching on becuase your fish produce a slime coat to protect their skin/scales. This is not to say that it is impossible for a healthy fish to get ich, but if your fish are weakened, stressed, sick, etc...including being in an overstocked or uncycled tank, then there is a better chance that Ich can latch on and form those white spots you see.

It is basically as simple as that...since ich is not a bacteria, fungus or any other type of airborne pathogen, it can be killed and 'removed' from a fish tank. In your situation, I would continue to hold out on getting new fish for probably two more weeks, however I would continue to use what ever method you feel is best to deal with ich for all that time as well. If your fish are infected right now, you would start to see white spots pretty quickly...it is the free swimming ich that you need to worry about and like I said, you can be pretty confident that in two or three weeks from now, unless your other few fish show white spots, your tank is pretty much 'ich free'. HOWEVER, the reason that you got ich in the first place is because you introduced it into your tank somehow...most likely with a fish, invert, substrate, decor, or ANYTHING else that was once in another tank, for example the tanks at your LFS, and is now in yours. Again, it is not an airborne issue, it has to come on a host, or in water. So, when you do restock your tank, stock slowly ( a few fish at a time)...which you should do anyways...and use a quarantine tank to ensure that your new friends are ich and other problem free. In fact, if I were you, I would wait two or three weeks to introduce new fish into my main tank, but I would start quarantining fish right now in another, totally seperate tank. I use $30 'kit tanks' from walmart (10 gallons) with little to no substrate, lots of fake plants, and keep an eye on water parameters closely. Again, it is not like you really should be buying 10 fish at a time anyways so a small tank is totally fine. Even if it is traditionally too large for a 10 gallon tank, the fish isnt going to spend its whole life there, so those sorts of rules can be overlooked a bit.

P.S. I am by far not a guru on any subject....I am simply letting you know what I have read both in my own research, which is minimal on Ich, and from reading thousands of posts on forums like this one. This is a very common topic on other forums...and this one, but to a much lesser extent it seems. Ich is by far the most common issue for hobbyists and I would go as far to say that between Ich and algae/bacterial blooms, it is one of the first issues we all face when starting out. Yes, cycling is truly the first issue, but most new hobbyists dont recognize or know anything about that so it doesnt count, lol.


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## Ulan (Oct 2, 2006)

As this is a thread about personal experience with ich, here's mine. I had horrible experiences with the salt/heat treatment. Neither my tetras nor my cory cats survived that. The fish were extremely stressed, but the ich felt well. A bad combination. I might have hit a strain of ich that is resistant to heat and salt. All you do with the heat treatment in that case is speeding up the ich proliferation, killing your fish more efficiently.

On the other hand, I had good experiences with Kordon's Rid-Ich+. That's a combination of malachite green and formalin, but both ingredients can be kept at half the normally effective dose as they work synergistically. I have never had a fish, shrimp or plant that reacted negatively to that medication, and it removed ich well in my cases. As a side effect, it also treats fungus. Take it for what it's worth .


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## miles (Apr 26, 2006)

Mad Dog said:


> Not to drag this topic up again...but I have concerns about others who may read this statement and base an opinion on it or take it as a fact...and again, I don't mean to always be disagreeing here, but this statement is not completely correct IMHO and IME.
> 
> First, the amount of salt needed to kill off FW ich is much less than a lot of people, and maybe yourself, might think. A salinity of .05% in a freshwater tank is sufficient enough to kill Ich and that level is without a doubt still considered freshwater...in fact, when not in captivity (i.e. still living in a lake, stream, pond, etc...), most fish probably see this amount of salt on a regular basis.
> 
> ...


well, i guess i assumed that a therapeutic effect would require more than .05% salinity (i assume you mean sg). can you please provide a link that states this? seems to me that the oft prescribed dose of 1 tablespoon of salt per 10 gals of actual water volume far exceeds .05% sg. at these concentrations, people have reported plant loss.

so if you can provide empirical evidence of your assertion, i'll i use salt. i'd gladly use salt over meds--cheaper, available 24/7, and no health effects personally. but if you can't, then it's just all speculation and your humble opinion and experience, not fact--and you are arguing for argument's sake. give me a link or a paper citation. thanks.


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## Mad Dog (Mar 3, 2007)

Mr. Miles,

I will certainly entertain your concerns, however, I wont do it in this thread in fear that it would detract from the original content. I have made my own thread here: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...lt-and-heat-for-ich-treatment.html#post286708

Please understand this though...therapeutic uses of salt, or prophylactic uses are not something I would like to support, or agree with since they are often long term and there is often no consideration as to how much salt is being added in response to how much is taken out. I have seen and heard of many people who continually add salt to a freshwater aquarium and believe that it just gets 'used up' or evaporates with the water. It doesnt evaporate with water (otherwise distilled water would be impossible) nor does it get used up very quickly. This is how many people wind up with very salty freshwater aquariums. Not a good thing for sure.

Using salt for Ich treatment usually does not end in this sort of fate because it is commonly known (I hope) that you can remove some of the Ich in its juvenile stage through water changes....and doing more frequent water changes is often good for ill fish...that is what I have come to know, correct me if I am wrong please.



> but if you can't, then it's just all speculation and your humble opinion and experience, not fact--and you are arguing for argument's sake. give me a link or a paper citation. thanks.


Hopefully I can, and have. I hope that you can accept my apology for seemingly sounding as if I am talking down on you or anyone. It was not my intention.


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