ICH!!

[Reefer James]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Reefer James
Also my saltwater tanks are extremely high nutrient, above 100 nitrate and 1ppm phosphate. Theres not an issue with ich.. My fish are healthy
Then you are the one out of a thousand reefers that have a healthy tank with very high nitrate levels.

You need to understand how important nutrients are for corals... I am convinced that nutrients in aquaria is not a level that needs to be kept low unless you're look for 100% growth speed. But then you'd have a 6500K bulb and the corals would be brown. But hey they'd grow.

Checkout Richard Ross at MACNA 2014 talk about phosphates. He's a pretty smart guy who is in charge of the 212,000 gallon coral reef aquarium.... He runs nutrients even higher than me...

Will you sacrifice growth with higher nutrients yes. But I do not need more growth. I already dose over 50ppm Calcium a day and have to frag monthly to avoid touching corals... My corals grow quite quickly...

People will go 6 months to a year or more without adding any new fish and then suddenly something happens to stress fish out and there's suddenly a huge ich outbreak. Ich can be controlled with healthy conditions (I do the same myself with my reef tank) but due to the differences with freshwater Ich this is a very very rare occurrence. Ich will not go away consistently without treatment and that's just a fact that cannot be avoided.

So keeping healthy conditions works. Glad we can agree ......

 

[Mebbid]

So keeping healthy conditions works. Glad we can agree ......

Until it stops working because the ich was never treated.

 

[Reefer James]

While ich can remain dormant, I see no way even when methods of eradication are used for all ich to die off... I have even read a dissertation, wish I saved the link, of ich being able to remain dormant within FISH GILLS for years. For your knowledge, this was a freshwater research project...

Once introduced into the aquarium display, ich remains next to impossible to fully eradicate. The BEST solution will always be to protect the immunities of the fish by providing a stable, healthy, stress free environment. Should ich become prevalent again, raise the temp to previous mention temp to increase cycle of it's life and keep the tank healthy again..

I also do not see how a tank would randomly go from a stable healthy environment to fish being so stressed they just start getting outbreaks... I also think it would be species isolated primarily due to ich mutations....

As mentioned again, the only reasonable treatment for ich is outside of the display with copper and temperature. Everything else is just feel good for aquarist. "Oh I'm doing something" I think this is the main reason for salt. It makes the aquarist feel good that they're doing something... Still makes the most sense to me to practice proper housing techniques.

 

[Mebbid]

While ich can remain dormant, I see no way even when methods of eradication are used for all ich to die off... I have even read a dissertation, wish I saved the link, of ich being able to remain dormant within FISH GILLS for years. For your knowledge, this was a freshwater research project...

Ich can not remain dormant. That is a pervading myth in the hobby that refuses to die, much like the one that Ich is present in all tanks.

Taken from the literal book on fish diseases: https://books.google.com/books?id=b...oLQAQ&ved=0CDwQ6AEwBg#v=snippet&q=ich&f=false

Ich is an obligate parasite and as such requires susceptible hosts to propogate. There is no evidence of a resistant stage that allows survival during environmental changes or in the absence of fishes. Thus it is most likely that the parasite is maintained through a low-level infection in a population

I also do not see how a tank would randomly go from a stable healthy environment to fish being so stressed they just start getting outbreaks... I also think it would be species isolated primarily due to ich mutations....

1 - Fish growing up and becoming aggressive
2 - Change in water parameters
3 - Heat Wave
4 - Power outage
5 - the list goes on and on

As mentioned again, the only reasonable treatment for ich is outside of the display with copper and temperature. Everything else is just feel good for aquarist. "Oh I'm doing something" I think this is the main reason for salt. It makes the aquarist feel good that they're doing something... Still makes the most sense to me to practice proper housing techniques.

From the Southern Regional Aquaculture Center

Typically, Ich cannot reproduce
properly at water temperatures
above 85o F (30o C)

If there's no dormant stage and the ich can't reproduce, then that's the mechanism for treatment. There are heat resistant strains of ich, but these are a rarity.

 

[Reefer James]

The text from 2006 may not be accurate on the dormant potential of this parasite and aquarium mutations across the last decade. As I mentioned living as long as year within fish gills.... The specific environment in here is very different.

You have to consider the stages of ich as how long they can truly live. There are so many factors that will keep ich alive for very long time while not even being dormant.

I don't see why you're arguing with me here? Do you have these on bookmarks or have you read the book prior to this thread? I have spent an immense amount of time in classrooms, online, countless hours reading books, documentaries, and studies, and in real world application gather my knowledge and can assure I am presenting well rounded factual information.... This industry is large and vast and there are many ways this hobby is done... and done well... I'm presenting a route of treatment and prevention that has been proven successful with data and analytical studies... You're going to ask me to show you something now. I am sorry I do not google thread to thread to find my information for posts...

 

[Mebbid]

The text from 2006 may not be accurate on the dormant potential of this parasite and aquarium mutations across the last decade. As I mentioned living as long as year within fish gills.... The specific environment in here is very different.

You're right, I am going to ask you where you found this information. Without material backing your statements it's the same as saying "My uncle joe said this thing that one time"

Do you have these on bookmarks or have you read the book prior to this thread?

I too have spent an obscene amount of time researching aquaria topics, and have encountered both of these in my previous travels. Bookmark? no, but I remember where the information is located.


Also, nitrates and a related stress response in fish. Pg 43 https://books.google.com/books?id=B...ved=0CDUQ6AEwBTgK#v=snippet&q=Nitrate&f=false

 

[rjrossi88]

So raising the temp and copper is the route I should be taking then? If so, copper? I assume there are products, any recommendations?

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[rjrossi88]

What about slowly adding salt to the tank? Is that recommended by anyone?

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[thing fish]

So raising the temp and copper is the route I should be taking then? If so, copper? I assume there are products, any recommendations?

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be careful before you use any copper meds in your tank. anybody that considers using copper based meds ought to be aware of its affect on inverts. if you have or ever want to have inverts in this tank, then do not treat using copper. you can safely treat with temps of 86 alone.

 

[rjrossi88]

be careful before you use any copper meds in your tank. anybody that considers using copper based meds ought to be aware of its affect on inverts. if you have or ever want to have inverts in this tank, then do not treat using copper. you can safely treat with temps of 86 alone.

Yea, that's what made me ask about salt. I read that copper is no good for inverts and I plan on getting some snails so I want to steer clear of copper.

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[thing fish]

i say slowly raise the temps to 86, increase aeration (either add an air stone or drop water levels), leave the lights off more often, and increase water changes. increase water changes/gravel vacs will remove free-swimming and dormant ich and increase temps will speed up the ich cycle and eventually kill off the ich.

good luck.

 

[rjrossi88]

I'm already at 86. 85.8 to be exact lol. Was getting ready to do a water change now. Hopefully everything makes it through this!

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[Delapool]

So raising the temp and copper is the route I should be taking then? If so, copper? I assume there are products, any recommendations?

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http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_ich2.php

There are quite a few ways to kill ich. The trick ime is not to kill your fish at the same time. I've never used copper. Here MG and formalin is common to most ich treatments.

As in the article above the heat treatment method should work by itself.

The addition of salt can be done (or other meds) with heat treatment however this will stress the fish more which is why it's not recommended. The addition of salt with heat is commonly mentioned in articles, I've never worried about it but can be done. If I did then around one teaspoon per 5gals would be my limit as I have plants.

FYI. I have run MG/formalin to treat ich, also heat treatment in another case & in another case heat treatment with MG/formalin together. Most cases (especially long ago) would have been MG/formalin. As well the selection of meds in Australia occupies a small tray on one shelf here at the lfs as we don't get many choices.

Using the heat + MG/formalin (not recommending here as both reduce oxygen content in water) I have found ich was persistent for a week and a half. I saw at least one new lot of ich appear and one spot hung around for almost a week! So while various articles will say ich cycles through life stages in x days, I've found ich hasn't read the same articles and often takes longer in my cases. So ime don't get discouraged, pick a treatment and stick with it - they will all work (except perhaps herbal ich treatment products which I'm dubious on).

The advertising by seachem I find very keen but I do have a lot of respect for their products.

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/ParaGuard.html

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Cupramine.html


Other ich observations -> I've had cases where ich will infect certain schools of fish but not others (including catfish). This is with/without a uv unit. If you do have a uv unit I'd run it 24/7 - can't hurt and may get rid of some ich. Where fish weren't infected I believe heathy fish in a tank with increased water changes/gravel vacs can resist it. However in my cases I've always had to treat tank to remove it.

Last one is that a drawback to heat treatment is the increased risk of secondary bacterial (or fungal infection). Watch fish carefully for this.

 

[Delapool]

I'm already at 86. 85.8 to be exact lol. Was getting ready to do a water change now. Hopefully everything makes it through this!

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Final comment is that you need to maintain that temperature (or slightly better) for best results. So good flow in the tank to make sure no cold spots and pwc's of the same temperature.

Each summer we go away for a week and come back to find the fish tank well over 86F. We then put the air con back on and the tank temp will drop back down over several days. The fish are pretty much fine. Generally I seem to have one fish lost each holiday but this always occurs in winter as well. Which is particularly irritating then as the only change is removing me and adding a auto-feeder.

 

[rjrossi88]

I have a digital thermometer in the tank so I can keep an eye on exactly where it is. Hoping this works

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[Delapool]

Good luck, keep us posted.

Pure speculation and off topic for OP-

Sometimes the ich is picked up late for heat treatment (by the time it's found after say work, questions posted and answers received, lifting the heat started, etc, etc).

I've seen threads of some heavily infected fish where you know the heat treatment will work but it's a race against time as the fish is already stressed and fading. These threads are somewhat rare but the question gets asked (or the OP does it), stopping heat treatment and switching to meds (or combining heat and meds). Perhaps a separate thread but I'd be interested in possible solutions (eg copper & heat??, herbal treatments & heat??, triple sulpha and heat???). Just speculating as generally it seems akin to changing horses mid-stream.

 

[rjrossi88]

I'll just have to keep an eye on it. I now know that I was 2 days late on diagnosing it. My rainbows were swimming into the filter outflow and I thought, and so did others, that they just liked the current. Then the white spots showed up 2 days later and, after some research, I come to find out that one of the behaviors from ich is swimming into the outflow. I wish I would have known that before. Hopefully I wasn't too late.

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[Mebbid]

I'll just have to keep an eye on it. I now know that I was 2 days late on diagnosing it. My rainbows were swimming into the filter outflow and I thought, and so did others, that they just liked the current. Then the white spots showed up 2 days later and, after some research, I come to find out that one of the behaviors from ich is swimming into the outflow. I wish I would have known that before. Hopefully I wasn't too late.

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If there's just a few spots then it's not bad. This is what is meant by advanced.

 

[rjrossi88]

Ah. Yea, one of the rainbows has quite a few. But mostly there's just a few either on the fins or body.

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[zer0signal]

I just got through this a of couple weeks back. 2 weeks at a constant 86-88, in 1 week I was able to see it all fall off the body. After another week with nothing showing, I brought the temp back down. Should have ran another week but it was murder on my plants so i rolled the dice and stopped it after 1 full week of nothing showing (so about ~2 weeks of treatment total). But I did catch it in its very early stages, and did not lose one fish.

One last tip, when doing the WC make sure the new water coming into that tank is close or matching the current temp. Also check the temp at night too, I found that at night time my water temp drops by around 2 degrees.