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I use 88 degrees. 86 is most often quoted as the number to hit (and is a number that worked for me for a while), and the lower the temp the higher the chance of the treatment not working, and worse pushing the parasites to adapt to the heat. There are heat resistant strains out there that require 88-90 to kill. Since having fought one myself, I have since done no less than 88. Because the parasite can live on a fish as a low level infestation hiding in the gills out of site, and because there are heat resistant strains, I treat every new fish while in quarantine with 88-89 for two weeks. I don't want to mess around with the lower temps. In my opinion treatments need I be decisive and not teeter on the edge of effectiveness, whatever they are.

I do not lower the water level, add air stones, or do water changes during the treatment. In my experience it's unnecessary. However, I am treating new fish in a quarantine tanks from 10-29 gallons. Were I treating a stocked show tank I would be much more concerned about O2 depletion. If your fish are close to maxing out your quarantine tanks capacity, then that wouldn't be much different than a show tank and so that too would be something to which attention should be paid.
 
Ta everyone, il keep turning heat up and keep an eye. What do you mean by surface agitation, what do I need to do to increase oxygen?

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Makes sense but just worried if I raise temp as far as 88 then the other healthy fish may suffer? I dont have a quarantine tank unfortunately so all fish are together. However if it's worked for all you guys on the forum and no other fish have been greatly affected by the heat then il stick with it. so I should or shouldn't do water changes as much? How do I increase oxygen?

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nataliedd said:
Makes sense but just worried if I raise temp as far as 88 then the other healthy fish may suffer? I dont have a quarantine tank unfortunately so all fish are together. However if it's worked for all you guys on the forum and no other fish have been greatly affected by the heat then il stick with it. so I should or shouldn't do water changes as much? How do I increase oxygen?

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Click to expand...

If there are fish in your tank with ich, they you might as well assume they are all infected. It targets the gill tissues first so can easily go unnoticed.

Yes do water changes, just make sure the new water is the same temperature as the treatment temperature.

To increase oxygen, you can drop the water level in your tank which will make the filter create more surface agitation. Either that, or you can add an airstone.
 
+1 you'll need to treat all the fish in the tank. Just raise the temp very slowly, little by little.. they'll be fine.

Generally I increase water changes to every other day when treating ich, and thoroughly vacuum the gravel each time to remove the tomants.
 
nataliedd said:
Makes sense but just worried if I raise temp as far as 88 then the other healthy fish may suffer? I dont have a quarantine tank unfortunately so all fish are together. However if it's worked for all you guys on the forum and no other fish have been greatly affected by the heat then il stick with it. so I should or shouldn't do water changes as much? How do I increase oxygen?

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Click to expand...


Ive administered the treatment to more than 50 different species, including cold water and sensitive fish. Never had a problem. I agree if one has it then they all must be treated.

I haven't found changing the water to have any impact on the treatment, or the fish during the treatment. I have seen a number of cases where water changes are performed and the treatment is not effective. That's just an observation - by no means enough to claim any kind of a relationship. In my opinion it's just an unnecessary variable to introduce because the benefit does not outweigh the risk. Others will disagree with this for sure. Many a successful heat treatment has been administered in conjunction with water changes - don't get me wrong :)
 
aqua_holic said:
Ive administered the treatment to more than 50 different species, including cold water and sensitive fish. Never had a problem. I agree if one has it then they all must be treated.

I haven't found changing the water to have any impact on the treatment, or the fish during the treatment. I have seen a number of cases where water changes are performed and the treatment is not effective. That's just an observation - by no means enough to claim any kind of a relationship. In my opinion it's just an unnecessary variable to introduce because the benefit does not outweigh the risk. Others will disagree with this for sure. Many a successful heat treatment has been administered in conjunction with water changes - don't get me wrong :)
Click to expand...

Its reasonable to assume that the water changes could have dropped the temperature in the tank. It can take a heater a while to catch up if it isn't a quality one giving the ich a chance to breed.
 
OK so after reading this, ich suddenly seems much scarier. Even though I have seen most fish get rid of it without any problem, and it has completely disappeared by itself after it failed to contaminate new fish, it has probably been the cause of death of more fish than I thought.

Anyway, I am not taking chances now. So I am starting a treatment heat and salt treatment in my 95g. Even if I came home today with no fish displaying signs of ich, it is certainly still present, and I want it to disappear completely before I get any new fish.

And I will be using a quarantine tank for any new fish and plants.
 
Cthulhu said:
OK so after reading this, ich suddenly seems much scarier. Even though I have seen most fish get rid of it without any problem, and it has completely disappeared by itself after it failed to contaminate new fish, it has probably been the cause of death of more fish than I thought.

Anyway, I am not taking chances now. So I am starting a treatment heat and salt treatment in my 95g. Even if I came home today with no fish displaying signs of ich, it is certainly still present, and I want it to disappear completely before I get any new fish.

And I will be using a quarantine tank for any new fish and plants.
Click to expand...

Good Luck, dont worry too much, im sure they will all make it out alive :)
 
Cthulhu said:
OK so after reading this, ich suddenly seems much scarier. Even though I have seen most fish get rid of it without any problem, and it has completely disappeared by itself after it failed to contaminate new fish, it has probably been the cause of death of more fish than I thought.

Anyway, I am not taking chances now. So I am starting a treatment heat and salt treatment in my 95g. Even if I came home today with no fish displaying signs of ich, it is certainly still present, and I want it to disappear completely before I get any new fish.

And I will be using a quarantine tank for any new fish and plants.
Click to expand...

Safe plan. Quarantine tanks are the best preventative thing out there and they are also the most underused thing out there.
 
Ok heat treatment it is, it's all scary and yet very interesting reading all the threads. Anyhow here's my next prob..........We obviously need to increase oxygen, right. So if my tank has a separate sump beneath it,with pump in its end chamber I am limited as to the amount of water I can remove otherwise my water pump will no longer be submerged. Therefore I could prob only take about a basins worth of water out to create oxygen. That's not gonna be enough surely? Could be days before I could get a chance to get an air stone. Any solutions to create more oxygen another way? Or should I postpone heat treatment til we get airstone in a few days?

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Ok......re read messages and realise that I misunderstood. ..to create oxygen it doesn't matter about the amount of water taken out per say but the water movement! Sorry for being silly.....

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Your aquarium is relatively new so you probably don't have too much fish yet right? In this case I doubt oxygen level will be a problem. Or maybe you could plate the return from the sump closer to the surface?
 
;)

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Thank you all. This forum rocks!

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Going back a little, to your question about "aren't more water changes better"?

The easy answer is yes, but everything can be overdone. Change stresses fish, even sometimes change for the better.


Sent from my iPhone with three hands tied behind my back.
 
trennamw said:
Going back a little, to your question about "aren't more water changes better"?

The easy answer is yes, but everything can be overdone. Change stresses fish, even sometimes change for the better.


Sent from my iPhone with three hands tied behind my back.
Click to expand...

Definitely think It was the water change that stressed them out the other night cos we were trying out a python for the first time
I know people rave about how great they are but we found using it more hassle! Kept pulling of the mixer tap and lead needed to be longer. So water was going in in stops and starts! Hope you feeling better x

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