Ich-lids

[QTOFFER]

I came back from LI yesterday and the firemouth greeted me as usual with a hungry look on his face.
So, I fed the fish and as I was doing so, I noticed that the firemouth was covered with tiny white spots - ich!
Yuck!
The severum and the ropefish have it too.

The last time I had ich, I was a newbie and wasted alot of time and money on formalin.
This time, I just cranked up the temp to 88o F where I'll leave it for about two weeks. I didn't add salt because I'm not sure that the ropefish will tolerate it. The heat alone worked like a charm in the past.

I moved the severum into the hospital tank because in addition to ich, he also seems to have some finrot. I've got the heat up to 88oF and I'm also treating with fungus clear and daily 25% water changes.

Now, I just have to be extra careful not to cross-contaminate my other two tanks.

 

[ferret]

Sounds like you got it well in hand. My first and only bout with ich was in my 90 gallon, and it got on everything you see on my signature. All of the poor guys. I turned the temperature up all the way though over a few days and two weeks later everyone was happy again, though I did loose 2 tiger barbs and one glow light.

 

[Menagerie]

They should all make a full recovery
It's a bummer to have to deal with it, but at least you know the easy, safest way!

 

[QTOFFER]

Ding-dong, the wicked ich is dead!!!!

No signs of ich on any fish after a week at 88o F (no salt added). I'm gonna leave the temp elevated for another week just to make sure I killed the little parasites! The firemouth and ropefish are active and have revenous appetites. Of course, I adjusted the filter spray bar to provide more surface agitation and put more O2 into the warmer water.

Meanwhile, the green severum has been a week in the hospital tank with 88o F water and Fungus Clear. He no longer has ich and the finrot appears to be getting better. He developed a bit of columnaris during the week, but that appears to have disappeared too. He's eating, but he's hanging out in one place near the heater. I can't tell if his swimbladder issues are still there because he doesn't swim much. I'll just continue the meds and high temp for another week and then quarrantine for a few weeks before putting him back in with the firemouth.

 

[Menagerie]

Horray, the ICH is gone!!

 

[AquaBear]

What's this about turning up the heat to get rid of ich? I just discovered this morning that 3 of my fish have it, and I'm getting ready to do a water change and treat it with some chemicals. Is it better to treat this way (heat)? Isn't that too hot for the fish? I'd rather do what's best for them, but don't want to cook them.

--AquaBear

 

[QTOFFER]

What's this about turning up the heat to get rid of ich? I just discovered this morning that 3 of my fish have it, and I'm getting ready to do a water change and treat it with some chemicals. Is it better to treat this way (heat)? Isn't that too hot for the fish? I'd rather do what's best for them, but don't want to cook them.

--AquaBear

Aquabear, scroll up to the top of the page and open the Articles section - it's just below the ad banner. Allivymar has an excellent article on ich and how to get rid of it. For most cases, the best Rx are water changes, gravel vacuuming, and elevated temperatures - leaving chemicals as a last resort.

The beauty of the heat treatment is its simplicity - just raise the temp of your tank to 88o C over the course of 12 hours or so. Ich can't survive this temperature, but freshwater tropical fish can. The only fish I can think of that may not survive this are cool-water fish like goldies and white cloud minnows.

The heat treatment requires you to have some faith and patience. A few days after you raise the temperature, the ich will appear to get worse and your fish will be encrusted with white dots. This is because you have accelerated the ich lifecycle - but don't panic, you have to keep the faith and stick with it. A few days after that, the ich will be gone, but now you must be patient and keep the temp elevated for at least another week to kill the nasties that are encapsulated and hiding in the gravel.

This treatment works for most cases of ich. Some people add aquarium salt (see Alli's article). There are some rare cases of heat-resistant ich. For these, I've read that RidIch is the most effective product to use. Good luck!

 

[AquaBear]

Thanks. Actually someone else mentioned the article too (I'm still sorta new to the site and hadn't found those yet). Now that I understand how simple it is, I wish I'd have tried it that way. I got some Ich Guard at my LFS because I didn't want to lose anymore fish. I did a half-treatment (because of the size of the fish), but it's still IN the aquarium. Can I switch over and use the HEAT treatment, or do I have to continue with chemical since I've already started down that route?

Also, this is complicated by the fact that my tank is cycling and the ammonia is still high. Won't that higher temp make the ammonia more noxious? I'm doing daily water changes to control it. If my ammo is high, is chemical treatment a better way to go? This is leaving me scratching my head.

--AquaBear

 

[Essayons89]

The only other thing that I would add is that if you are going to be cranking the heat up that high then make sure is plenty of surface agitation or add an airstone to keep the dissolved oxygen levels up. As water gets warmer the oxygen level decreases.



Bryan

 

[QTOFFER]

Aquabear, if your fish only show signs of ich, I would discontinue the medications and just use the elevated temps with frequent water changes. Your fish are struggling to breathe in the presence of ammonia and adding ich medications (most of them are based on poisonous fomaldehyde) would just add to their stress. It sucks having sick fish in an uncycled tank - I hope you can pull them through without any more losses.

As Essayons89 said, make sure to increase the surface agitation to get more O2 into the water. Also continue the frequent water changes to keep the ammonia down.

If any fish have or develop signs of other diseases, you may have to separate them and treat more aggressively. That's what I've had to do to my green severum - he had ich, finrot, and a swimbladder disorder. I put him in a small tank and blasted away with medication and heat. It was a risky move because the added stress could have killed him, but I figured the multiple diseases would have done him in anyway if I didn't act fast and decisively.

 

[AquaBear]

Well, as it turns out, my Betta, "Homer", developed some spots on HIS nose and fins too. He has never been in the community tank and I don't use the same nets or equipment in any of my tanks, so the only thing they had in common was some frozen brine shrimp (which I read can transmit or trigger an ich outbreak). I read the article you guys mentioned, and cross-checked it with a Betta-specialty site, because I was scared to death I was going to cook him, but they both said basically the same thing. So I'm doing the heat method in his tank. Although the specialty site recommended adding 1 drop-per-gallon of Aquarisol at each water change to prevent ich from ever coming back.

I've noticed a drastic reduction in the number of white spots in the community tank, just in the few days I've been treating. I contacted their lab directly (I'm using Ich Guard from Jungle), for help on how to use it and so far it seems to be doing the trick. I just don't want changing treatment methods mid-stream to make things worse.

Thank you all a thousand-fold for the advice.

--AquaBear