Ich: Heat treatment?

[sinibotia]

Came home and found a few white spots on my rams... Did a 50% water change and now I've upped the heater to 87 degrees. The normal tank temperature is 83 degrees anyway. Is it really true that the high temperature alone will kill the ich? I would much rather leave it warm for a few weeks than add salt or chemicals, especially with sensitive ram cichlids. And the tank already has an airstone too.

Also, since ich appears to outright die at around 90 degrees... could peppered corydoras take that kind of heat? I'm fairly confident the rams would be fine with it considering they prefer warmer water anyway, but I worry for the corydoras.

Tank parameters pre-water change:
0 ammo
0 trite
20 trate

2 GBRs
5 Peppered Corydoras

Tank is 20 gallons, all of the fish were added exactly a week ago. (Fishless cycle before that)

 

[Delapool]

Heat does work. Unless apparently if you are in Florida (wherever that is ).

Not sure on cories.

Increasing heat does speed up the ich cycle so it may look worse before it gets better.

Also you don't want any cold/dead spots in the tank where the ich can survive.

Usually have heat up until 10 days after last spot seen and then slowly bring down.

Also watch out for secondary bacterial infections.


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

 

[BBradbury]

Treating Ich

Hello sin...

Heat speeds the life cycle of the parasite. Daily water changes of 50 percent and vacuuming the bottom material is likely enough provided you've caught the infection early. High heat will damage aquatic plants too. 83 degrees is warm enough to deal with Ich and though salt is helpful, keeping the water clean and the vacuuming to remove the parasites may be enough.

B

 

[sinibotia]

Thanks for the responses! I'm in Maine, practically as far north as you can get in the states unless you're in Alaska. Not too worried about heat resistant ich strains.

Normally I treat with a bit lower heat and salt, but I didn't want to treat Ram Cichlids with salt seeing as my water is already on the hard side for GBRs and I don't want to add another thing to stress them. Temp in the tank is 88 degrees now and the corydoras seem fine! And of course it's only a little warm to the (relatively speaking) thermophillic rams.

The only issue I've had is the female seemed in very bad shape last night, not from ich but she just seemed to be unable to control bouyancy or orientation- although this may have just been that I suddenly turned on the lights. The male was picking on her even while she was disoriented so I've separated him for a bit.

Oh, and my filter intake is right next to the heater and my air stone is right under it, so the heat should be distributed well; no cold spots. My thermometer is placed in the furthest corner of the tank from the heater and it reads 88.

I've read about secondary flavobacterium infections (which would be ironic because I work in a lab that does extensive work with flavobacterium....) I have to be away for 3 days until next tuesday, so hopefully the heat cures the ich and there are no secondary infections. Otherwise I'll have to hope for the best and deal with issues when I get back.

 

[Delapool]

Keep us posted! Good news on the cories.

Yes, last year had cottonmouth wipe out neons over summer. Two or three months later and ich slipped in. Heat treated, etc and dropped temp back down but got cottonmouth again which took out the harlequin rasbora's. Then into winter and tank has been fine.

Edit - do you do much with treatments for bacterial infections in the lab?

 

[sinibotia]

Keep us posted! Good news on the cories.

Yes, last year had cottonmouth wipe out neons over summer. Two or three months later and ich slipped in. Heat treated, etc and dropped temp back down but got cottonmouth again which took out the harlequin rasbora's. Then into winter and tank has been fine.

Edit - do you do much with treatments for bacterial infections in the lab?

Well, I'm just an undergraduate student lab technician (read: the lab grunt) so I'm not in on all the details. However, last year I did fish care for 18 tanks of fish in a trial where some of them had been injected with live or dead flavobacterium (I believe columnare). I'm not sure how far along they are with the study but I believe they're trying to create either a vaccine or treatments for it (but mostly for massive-scale aquaculture applications).

Mostly my lab is obsessed with sea lice, because it's a big problem in salmon aquaculture in the state. We've got like 6 different projects with them.

 

[MonkeyMonk86]

Excellent article, Delapool! Thanks!


(Friend of Bill W., One day at a time)

 

[sinibotia]

Well, I was away for the long weekend and half expected to come back today to half my fish dead or a massive, awful ich infestation undetered by the heat.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the ich appears to be gone, and all my fish look fine! I can't find a single spot on any of them. I imagine it's because I caught it early (I could count the number of spots on the rams on one hand and the corydoras didn't look infected yet) but the heat treatment absolutely excelled. Thanks for the advice everyone! 6 or 7 more days of 88 degrees and I should be in the clear.

 

[Delapool]

That is good news