How to get rid of ich and keep it away

[Tan-tay]

I just want to kno the best way to get rid of ich and how to properly do it And keep it away.

 

[Mumma.of.two]

http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_ich2.php
Here you go. What it is, how to treat and how to prevent.

 

[maestromad]

Excellent article thanks for adding it

 

[Fishguy2727]

IME the best way to prevent and treat it is with water changes. With high quality food and water the fish are not stressed, so they don't get sick, especially not from ich.

 

[BBradbury]

Treating "Ich"

+1 for Fish...

IMO, we should be changing a minimum of half the water in the tank every week. I keep large, planted tanks of "Livebearers" and don't go more than a week without a large water change. The more water you change and the more often you change it, the better.

Since I keep "Livebearers" and several species of Corydoras, I also use a little standard aquarium salt. Not saying all fish will benefit from salt, this is just what I do for my fish. A little more than a teaspoon in every five gallons of my water change water keeps my fish healthy.

Corys are supposedly "salt sensative", but I've been using the salt for several years and the Corys are fine. Even the young ones have no problems tolerating a trace in the tanks.

I read some years ago that most pathogens that affect tropical fish are unable to tolerate even a trace of salt in the water. The salt and the large and frequent water changes may be necessary for general fish health.

B

 

[BillD]

Once you get rid of ich, it will not come back unless you reintroduce it. Regardless of whether you have stress free tanks, what your water temp is, or whether you add salt, you will not have ich.

 

[Fishguy2727]

Although I have found that salt treatment can be an amazing treatment for ich and overall stress, I disagree about using it all the time. These are FRESHwater fish that have adapted to FRESHwater, they are not made to handle higher salinities all the time. This is especially so with soft water fish like cories and tetras. If you have issues with water being too soft then simply add some crushed coral to the filter. Otherwise leave the salt on hand in case something comes up, not in the tank.

 

[bruinsbro1997]

Give this a read:
Freshwater Ich? Yuck!

 

[BillD]

I have to agree with Fishguy on the use of salt. This is one of the myths that won't die.

 

[BBradbury]

I have to agree with Fishguy on the use of salt. This is one of the myths that won't die.

Hello Bill...

With all due respect, I think the term "myth" is a little harsh a term for the use of salt in freshwater aqauriums. There are a number of commercial freshwater aquariums that use certain types of salt in their tanks. I believe one could use standard aquarium salt, canning or kosher salt, just not table salt because of the additives.

A commercial fish shop that comes to mind is "Aquatics Limited" in the Chicago area I think. Anyway, salt has been used effectively since the tank keeping hobby began as a breathing aid for new fish. Apparently, freshwater fish have an easier time breathing with a trace of salt in the water. Seems like I read it aids in gill function.

The website for the Aquatics place is www.bestfish.com/fwsalt

Thanks for the talk!

B

 

[thegundog]

I used Kordon Ich Attack (100% Natural) with steady 86 degree temps, it worked well for me.

 

[Fishguy2727]

A store is always dealing with new fish that were just shipped from who knows where. They are also only forcing the salt on the fish short term since they will be sold soon. Adding it all the time to a home aquarium is a completely different situation.

It is a myth that freshwater fish need salt all the time. Not to mention that the recommended dosing is many times higher than even the super hard rift lakes in Africa. It causes damage to their internal organs, especially the kidneys which are not adapted to handle those conditions.

 

[MrPillow]

Salt - at least the term generally applied here meaning sodium chloride - does not affect water hardness, and is irrelevant to the hardness of your water.

EDIT: I see this could have been taken in a way in which I did not intend. I am referring to carbonate hardness, the typical hardness scale we use when discussing hardness as it relates to aquaria. Any dissolved ions can affect hardness in some way or another, including chloride, etc., but not when referencing carbonate hardness, which I believe is what we all mean when we say "hardness". My tap water is "hard" as the dickens, but it isn't very salty

A fair number of livebearers are euryhaline fish. In their natural environment, they inhabit waters with salt concentrations ranging from nonexistent to verging on complete saltwater. These "freshwater" fish are 100% capable of dealing with salinities at anything equal or lower to typical seawater, possibly higher in certain specimens. It does not damage their kidneys. They have perfectly functional metabolic processes for dealing with this varying osmotic gradient.

When keeping livebearers, especially those which are known to inhabit varying salinities in their natural lives, I see no problem with recommending NaCl in the "freshwater" aquarium. They do not thrive in perfectly fresh water, nor do they thrive in full on marine salinities. They can survive both, but the proper levels lay somewhere inbetween the ends of the spectrum. I am not familiar with the exact osmotic preference of livebearers, as I do not keep them, but I'm sure the information could be found somewhere in the scientific literature. If no livebearers specifically, then euryhaline fish as a whole.

The problem stems from information being taken out of context, or not understood fully.

Not all freshwater fish have the osmotic regulation adaptions to handle salinities above nil. Someone who is keeping livebearers, and uses salt in all their tanks, may not see a problem. The practice does not however, translate to freshwater fish as a whole.

If you understand which species you are keeping and what their tolerance for salinity is, salt can be used effectively in the aquarium full-time. Knowing the tolerance of your species, is however, of UTMOST importance when determining if a permanent salinity is to be maintained in your "freshwater" tank.

For freshwater tanks as a whole, no, long term application of salt is not a necessity. For certain specimens, often kept in "freshwater" aquaria, who are not stenohaline, then long term application of a salinity is not a problem in the slightest, and could potentially be beneficial.


Case and point - research the species you are keeping before considering long-term application of a selected salinity. In MOST freshwater aquaria, salt is not a beneficial mineral.

In regards to dose levels -

5 gallons is approximately 20 liters. Assuming standard "recommended" dosage of 1 tablespoon of salt (approximately 17 grams), this would produce a salinity of approximately 894ppm NaCl, or ~.9g/L. This is less than 1/30th the average salinity of seawater, and falls in the very low end of typical "brackish" water conditions, in terms of salinity. Research seems to indicate that typical minimal lethal salinities for presumed stenohaline freshwater fish is in the 7-15‰ range - roughly an order of magnitude larger than the dosings typically recommended for ich treatment. Some even go as far as to say one teaspoon per 5 gallons for sensitive fish - around 6 grams level - which would put salinity at around .3g/L, well within the generally accepted definition of "fresh water". At these levels, it seems highly improbable - especially since ich treatments with salt are generally very short term - that any toxic effects could manifest themselves.

 

[Fishguy2727]

In nature those fish were born in the wild and CHOOSE to enter those waters. Even when they do it is temporary. They do not live out their entire lives in saltwater or brackish conditions, they venture in to them for short periods of time, returning to where they stay most of the time, FRESHwater. However, effectively all of the livebearers a hobbyist will ever buy are captive bred on fish farms, in FRESHwater.

The other half of this is that even if they were perfectly capable of handling the higher salinities all the time, this would only matter if they were the only fish in the tank, or any other fish were from the same conditions. This is also not true. When you add tetras, cories, and other soft water and regular aquarium fish in to an aquarium, any debate about how well livebearers can handle salinity all the time is a moot point.

They do thrive perfectly well in hard freshwater. High quality food and water will allow livebearers to thrive, sometimes leading to the problem of way too many of them.

You don't even keep them yet argue they should have salt?

Well I actually do have some livebearers so let me enlighten you. They thrive in freshwater. I currently have some massive platies in with my goldfish, three inches long and as thick as my thumb. I do not add ANY salt at all.

Even you are discussing it as a tolerance for salt, not a need for it. Listen to yourself and you may learn something.

Studies about the lethal doses of salt are geared toward short term exposure. Just because something doesn't kill them in the amount of time they are doing the study, doesn't mean it didn't cause damage or would have killed them after five years when they could have lived 10-15.

Lake Tanganyika is one of the hardest, most alkaline bodies of freshwater on the planet. The dosing for Seachem's Cichlid Lake Salt for Lake Tanganyika is 1/2 tablespoon per 10 gallons, that is 1/4 tablespoon per five gallons. Yet the recommended dosing for all freshwater tanks with aquarium salt is FOUR TIMES this! There is nothing natural about salting a freshwater tank.

Recommendations for ich treatment are irrelevant since those are short term treatments and we are discussing long term use of salt. No one is saying salt treatment for ich (or other problems, including just stress) is harmful at all.

 

[MrPillow]

Cichlid Lake Salts do not dose NaCl, they dose other buffer salts that will raise hardness and buffering to desired levels. 1/2 tablespoon of buffer salts is entirely unrelated to 1 tablesoon of sodium chloride.

"Salts" does not equal "salt". Once again, the issue comes from not understanding the difference between buffering "salts" and "common salt". Buffering salts, are not NaCl. Common salt, is.

Wild livebearers, especially mollies, do not CHOOSE to enter brackish conditions. They are by nature, brackish water fish. Many of them are born, live, and die, in the brackish conditions of estuaries along the Atlantic coast. Some of them venture upstream into fresh, some of them downsteam into sea. Brackish conditions are their natural environment. Mollys have NO long term problem handing brackish conditions for the entirety of their livelihood. And once again, the standard recommended doses of NaCl to freshwater aquariums, barely stray into the territory of brackish.

Being bred in freshwater long term would only alter the species ability to survive in brackish water if a mutation which made the fish more likely to survive in freshwater presented itself. Since the fish could already live in freshwater well enough, this is entirely unlikely. Especially since the amount of time we have been breeding them in these conditions is extremely unlikely to have presented some sort of evolutionary change which would cause a shift in the habitable conditions of the species.