not to be silly, but are you sure the ich parasite has eyes? im asking because i never heard of treating ich by blackout and ich is a protozoa, i wasnt aware that they could see and found their host by looking for it. is this true?
Okay, you had me googling for awhile to find this, cause it was so long ago that I had read it :
Heat, salt and darkness: This is surely one of the most hotly debated topics in fishkeeping! The suggested treatment procedure is as follows:
* gradually increase the tank s temperature to 80 degrees F.
* add salt to a solution of 3 teaspoons per gallon (in increments of 1 tsp per gallon every 12 hours).
* keep the tank in darkness by switching the light off and covering it with cloth or paper.
The theory behind how this treatment works is this:
* Increasing the temperature to 80 degrees F speeds up the ich lifecycle to a few days and therefore speeds up the rate at which the tomites are killed off by the salt. It also boosts the fish s immune system, helping it to fight off the disease.
* The salt raises the salinity of the water to a level beyond the the tomites osmoregulatory tolerance, causing them to burst. Also, the increased salinity stimulates the fish to produce a slightly thicker slime coat, helping to prevent re-infection and secondary infections.
* Ciliated protozoans cannot find new hosts easily in darkness and therefore more of the tomites die before they can latch on to the fish.
Thats a treatment I got off of a goldfish website about seven years ago for ich treatment when I had my first out of two bouts ever in my whole lifetime of fish keeping with ich.... I tried it and it worked. I would NEVER spout words of advice to
anyone without them having been successful for myself first. If I don't know the answer I will admit that... that said, I don't know why it worked, but it did. Do ich tomites have eyes? I never meant that literally... I know they don't. Neither do the trophonts, or any of the other stages of ick. But I blacked out my tank for three days with a heavy duty garbage bag, peeled it off and had no more ich. But as I said I ALSO used salt & heat... So I am not sure which method actually worked.
Also, thats not the only place I found that advice being given, but they all said essentially the same thing: no one knows if a photo period of lights off or on has anything to do with it, but it has been proven to work or at least help some people. It was also suggested that it may actually keep the stress level of the fish down during treatment, and we
know stress is a major factor in fish succumbing to ich in the first place.
