Ich

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gimmethatfish

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Feb 4, 2014
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138
Location
Michigan
So, I have some ich happening. It's now in 3 of my tanks. I'm usually super careful about not cross-contaminating, but obviously not careful enough.

I know how to treat the bettas and have been doing so with high temps and salt. However, I have one tank that most definitely has ich and also African dwarf frogs. I also have a 120 gallon community that has shown no signs of ich so far, but that tank has cories (paleatus), snails, and panda garras - all of which I don't think will tolerate salt treatment. Like I said, no ich so far in this tank, but I want to be prepared.

Has anyone had success with heat alone killing ich? I have read so many different articles with people saying heat works great alone to some saying heat doesn't work without salt/meds. I've had good success with salt + 86 degrees with the bettas, but I worry about the cories, frogs, panda garras, etc. If heat alone might do the trick, will cories tolerate that temperature for a few days?

Lastly, think it would do good to get a UV sterilizer for my 120 gallon tank?
 
I managed to get rid of ich twice with heat alone, I have sensitive fish and inverts so I didn't want to add any salt.
So yes heat alone kills ich, remember to do pwc with gravel vac, I did mine every second day, I also added an air stone too help with oxygen due to the higher heat. And I kept my temp up an extra 7days after my last visible spot.
Good luck :)

55 gallon elephant nose tank.
16 gallon vampire shrimp and snails
 
Thanks very much for the input. I have hope that I've caught it early enough that it's not going to become a huge problem and that I have no lives lost. And luckily again, the majority of the infected fish are bettas, so they can handle the high temps and the salt very well. I've pulled out all the bettas to put in separate quarantine tanks. Good thing critter keepers were on sale this week because I had to buy 5 of them :) Been doing full water changes on them daily and 75% changes with gravel vac on the tanks they came out of for the cories/frogs I have in those.

I am going to just completely replace the substrate in the 3 tanks that I know are infected - I use pool filter sand and blasting sand, so it's super cheap to do. Might as well be safer than sorry.

So far, my three largest tanks have no signs of ich, so I'm hoping it stays that way. Strangely, the only tank I have added new fish to (I did quarantine them) is my angelfish tank which seems completely unaffected so far.

This is my first time in over a year of fishkeeping that I've had to deal with a widespread infection, so I was freaking out at first but starting to remain calm now that I've gotten some great help and advice.
 
We've all been there! That's how I got ich into my tank I didn't quarantine either.
Sound's like your doing a great job already with your pwc. And I hope your other tank's stay well.
Keep me updated. And good luck :)

55 gallon elephant nose tank.
16 gallon vampire shrimp and snails
 
I've also killed ich, twice, with heat alone, once in a 45G planted and once in a 220G planted. In both cases I raised the temp to 88-89F (testing with a very accurate thermometer - don't trust the heater) for two weeks. Gone and no recurrence.

I had snails, shrimp, lots of plants, tetras, catfish, plecos and angels, and none of the seemed to suffer at all, in fact their activity picked up and they ate a lot more.
 
Thanks for the response Linwood. I feel much better about this whole thing hearing other people have had success and it hasn't harmed any of the fish. I've had horrible visions of having to catch and separate all the fish in my 120 gallon without tearing out all the plants and also catching all the snails and shrimp that could be hiding anywhere. Yikes.
 
You can't remove the fish to treat anyway, unless you remove them ALL for a month or so. The communicable ich is in the tank, on the plants, on the substrate - everywhere. So you must treat the whole thing.

If you have multiple tanks and have been using nets, etc. between them, there's a decent chance it is in those tanks also. To be safe, give a heavy chlorine bath to anything before using it between tanks (or in some other way disinfect it).

Note ALL these treatments (other than a killing chlorine bath) kill the ich only in the free swimming stage; the cyst on the fish and the reproducing form in the substrate is immune to medicine, heat, etc.
 
The weird thing is that I have separate nets, buckets, and siphons for each tank except for the 2 in my daughter's room which share equipment between the 2 of them but no ich in those tanks (yet). Don't know how ich has managed to spread!
 
I don't know for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if it couldn't spread on your hands, if someone went from tank to tank. Say when doing water testing? Not sure.

It also could have been present at a low level, and some fish got stressed or weak and it became visible. A lot of people think it lives in all tanks (they are wrong) because of this -- it can just suddenly appear as if from no where, but in reality they were probably infected, but at such a low level as to not be visible.

The final possibility is that evil aliens who only come out in complete darkness transferred it from one tank to the other.
 
I've always wondered if it can be carried by hand's, just in case it does I always scrubbed my hands between going from tank to tank.
But I have to admit, I like the evil alien's transferring it Lol :eek:

55 gallon elephant nose tank.
16 gallon vampire shrimp and snails
 
It is my belief that it is VERY possible to transfer ich when it is in the theront stage of the life cycle. Whether by plant, tools, fish, etc. this is the stage where the ich is most infective. So to me, it's very plausible.


Sent from my iPhone that doesn't like me. Or you !!
 
When my goldies had ich I added a powerhead so violent surface breakage to aid oxygen. If you have fish that are sensitive to water current as my goldies were angle power head width ways so not such a powerful current is created but still more surface breakage

Sent from my Kestrel using Aquarium Advice mobile app
 
I totally thought I heard something moving around in my house the other night. Must have been those ich aliens.

Anyway, I have all affected tanks bumped up to 88 degrees with no obvious signs of stress to any of the fish. I have 3 tsp per gallon of salt now in every tank that can tolerate it. I got some Kordon ick attack which apparently is "herbal" and probably couldn't hurt anything even if it doesn't help. Added a bubble wall to the tank with guppies and glofish. The visible signs of ich are already gone, so so far so good. Ten days of the heat + salt will hopefully kick this.
 
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