Ich prevention

[Mark Hewitt]

I'm quite new to fish keeping and I've read a LOT over the past few months about Ich, we lost a couple of fish to start with before we even knew what it was.

I've read lots of useful advice on treatment, but little on prevention other than making sure you have good water quality so your fish don't get sick in the first place.

However, as I understand it, there is Ich present in water supplies? That being the case if I treated it with salt, say, when I come to do a water change Ich will then be reintroduced meaning a fish only just recovering gets clobbered again.

Now I've been treating new water with Machalite Green but I now realise that's not a good idea for the health of the fish, the filter, and indeed me.

But is there a way to make sure that any new water I put into the tank is Ich free, just to give them a fighting chance? I do have a spare 6 gallon tank; could I put water in there first and heat it up to a temperature Ich can't stand? If so how high, and how long for?

Some background: I have a 64 litre (17 gallon) tank which has just been running for a month now. It has 5 black skirt tetras, who all seem ok at the moment.

 

[Blueiz]

Ich is not present in the water supplies, nor is it always present in healthy tanks. You can introduce ich into your tank through adding new stock that is infected, addidng water to your tank that the fish came in from the pet store, sharing equipment from infected tanks to unaffected tanks that has not been properly disinfected, and maybe a couple ways that aren't coming to mind at the moment.

In order to prevent getting ich in your main tank, it is highly reccomended that new fish be quarantined and observed for at least 2 weeks before introducing them to your new tank. This is the best way to prevent introduction of any disease to your main tank, however depending on the source of your fish and how much you trust it will dictate how long you quarantine your fish for in most cases.

For the general community stock a 10 gallon tank with a heater and filter is sufficient for a quarantine tank.

I reccomend adding salt (regular table salt will do) at a level of 2 tsp per gallon to treat ich, leaving this in for no less than 2 weeks. You can raise the temperature of the tank to speed the lifecyle of ich as well. Temperatures of 86 and above are reported to kill ick as well. I do not raise the heat on my tanks if they get infected with ich, however a lot of ppl do and reccomend this.

Ich has several stages of growth, however it can only be killed in the free swimming stage. It cannot be killed while it is on your fish.

Since you have already started treatment with the malachite green, I would continue this treatment. Whenever you add things to your tank, it stresses your fish, unless this treatment isn't working I would continue on with it to prevent from further stressing the fish by changing treatment methods.

If ich were present in the water supplies, we would all have it. I don't know what source or sources you have read that continue to spread this myth, however I would permanantly delete them and the information learned from them from my memory While some information those sites provided may be helpful, they lose there integrity by continuing to spread this myth.

 

[Mark Hewitt]

Ich is not present in the water supplies, nor is it always present in healthy tanks.

Ok, thanks for that. I had read in several places, and been told at the store that this was the case.

If ich were present in the water supplies, we would all have it. I don't know what source or sources you have read that continue to spread this myth, however I would permanantly delete them and the information learned from them from my memory While some information those sites provided may be helpful, they lose there integrity by continuing to spread this myth.

Cheers. I'll continue doing my water changes without fear then! I've been keeping fish for only a few months now and I've found that not only is there a lot of things to learn, the information given is very often contradictory!

 

[Blueiz]

You've come to the righ tplace for information. I've been keeping fish for about 20 years now and in that time I have learned to take what is told to me at the pet store with a grain of salt. Of course, different ppl have different ways of doing things, not to say that any of those ways is right or wrong, however, it does make it easier to know the easiest and most efficient way to do things .

 

[Mark Hewitt]

The reason I want to discontinue Machalite Green is the detrimental effect on the biological filter, firstly, does it cause problems?

 

[Blueiz]

I have never heard of malachite green causing probs with the biological filter. If you were running charcoal and removed it, you may have removed some of your bio filter in doing so causing a slight spike in ammonia and nitrite.