Ich attack!!!!

[Miked.]

I am treating my 10 gallon freshwater tank for ich. I am using kordon's ich attack and raising the temperature to 82 f. I heard also that ich thrives in the light so i turned the lights off. How long can i keep them off if i have a planted tank? I have to amazon swords and 2 bannana plants and a anubias. I dont have a hospital tank and my water parameters are am.0 nit.0 ph 6.8 nitrates 20..

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[ScotJudd]

I'm not a great lover of meds for ick. Raising the temp and holding it there for a good 10 days after the last signs of ick is my solution. I do increase surface agitation as the oxygen saturation will be lower at higher temperatures.
Meds will not treat the ick whilst on the fish only when it's in it's free swimming stage. The temp will deal with it at the free swimming stage. Meds can increase the stress to the fish and hinder their fight to recover. Regular WCs help, especially if you can take the water from nearest the gravel where the parasite erupt from.
I use a UV steriliser and a recent minor outbreak, my fault as I had quarantined fish but not seen the white spots on their silver bodies, the raised temp and UV stopped the ick in its track and the tank has been clear for 4 weeks
The fish appear healthy and unaffected by this blip.
Hope that's of some help. Steve.

 

[Miked.]

Thanks Steve ..Would you keep the lights on or off? Or does it even matter?

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[pip walters]

Temperature treatment needs to be maintained for three weeks if no medication is to be used. Otherwise the the fish can maintain a 'stock' of the parasites which are then able to re-infect if the fish becomes very stressed, or infect new fish added to the aquarium.

You will also need to regularly siphon off any organic matter and clean the same from your filter as the developing parasites attach to such surfaces. By removing detritus, you are removing large numbers of the parasite before it gets to the stage where it enters the fish again.

Salt dosed and maintained at 1g per litre has also been shown effective against ich and will not harm filter bacteria.

With all due respect to the previous poster, UV is only effective at very high power and low flow - something like 300 times more exposure than needed to kill bacteria, if memory serves me right.