Icky Ich!

Ariesgirly

I have a few Parot Fish along with a few Plecos in my tank. I have not had a break out of ich in almost 6 years. I introduced two new fish to my tank recently & I think they brought it in. In my many years of having fish, once they get ich, they always die. I usually try the medicine that turns the tank blue & do the proper water changes, but it never works..they always die. Has anyone had any luck with treating ich? I read the post all about it & I raised the temperature to 86 degrees. Is that too high for Blood Parrots? Is thathigh enough to kill ich? I also added Aquarium salt. I TBS/5 Gallons. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Loman

The salt method is certainly a good manner to treat ich. It sounds like you have initiated the treatment as described in the sticky on the subject. One small clarification is that by raising the temp it actually makes the ich grow faster and thus speeds up the life cycle. Ich parasites are only vulnerable when they are free swimming (and you can not see them) sio by accelerating the life cycle they get to the free swimming stage sooner and the salt level causes them to die. Given your history with the disease this will not be a surprise but do not stop treatment once the white spots are not visible. Given it a few days or weeks. You want to be sure the parasites are fully killed and not in a non vulnerable stage

Ariesgirly

Thank you...so as for treatment, do I just continue with small water changes? Do I add more salt each time? They are all eating & swimming even though they look like they got caught in a blizzard..poor things! It makes me itch looking at them!

jwurm

When you do water changes, you only need to replace as much water as you take out. You said you were going to put in 1tbs/5gal, right? I'm not sure how big your tank is, but let's say it was 20g and you were doing a 40% WC, 40% of 20g is 10g, so you would add 2tbs for the salt that was removed along with the 10g.

NOTE: salt does not evaporate, so if you are adding water because of water loss due to evaporation, you do not need to add salt.

As for how often you should do water changes, I would say stick to what you normally do. Also good to note is that salt makes nitrite less toxic to fish and invertebrates (not that you necessarily need to worry about those, right?)

And I think I read somewhere that the life cycle of ich is around 14 days, so I think you should wait at least 14 days after the visible symptoms go away before ending the treatment.

cichlidgirl

One thing i noticed about ick treatments (Salt or medications)is the sooner you see a spot and start treatment the more chance you have for success. I try to make it a habit of looking at the fish closely when i feed them each day, i look specificly for ick even if i have not had a outbreak recently. I look at fins and body on a couple of the fish in the tank each day, and that is good not just for ick but other issues as well, i found a fungus spot recently on one of my fish by doing that, it was tiny and not noticable , if i had not been looking with the detail needed for the tiny ick spots i never would have seen it. Its a good way to spot minor injuries or a fish thats just not quite acting right too. Gives a really good jump start on treatments/prevention.

Ariesgirly

Well, I will let you know if this works out. I have never had fish survive ich, but maybe this time it will be different with just salt.

Tommy Gun

Hey Ariesgirly - welcome to the forum!

You are getting some fantastic advice so far. I just wanted to help bolster the idea that this method of treatment is proven and does work. If anything, the largest key will be to have patience and stick with it. As Loman points out, the higher temp helps speed up the lifecycle of ich...which may mean that you see an increase in white spots at first and if it does, don't jump ship too early.

There is also one, often unadvertised aspect of any and every ich treatment...getting your fish back to being healthy enough to resist ich in the future. So, I agree with jwurm in that it might be less stressful for your fish if you were to stick with your normal water change routine so long as it is sufficient. It would also be a very good idea to make sure that the water holds enough dissolved oxygen for your fish. In fact, the higher temp and addition of salt will mean the water cannot hold as much oxygen so it is important to make sure you are constantly replenishing the oxygen as your fish use it. This article may help you out with some good tactics for doing that:
http://www.fishtankforums.com/fishtank/gasexchange

Again, welcome to the forum! I am looking forward to celebrating your first successful ich treatment with you!

Ariesgirly

Just wanted to say thank you all so much. I am in shock, but the ich is gone..first time in my life I ever was able to cure it! The white spots were gone after 3 days and never showed up again!

cichlidgirl

Fantastic !! I think the key to treating this is to catch it early and treat it promptly. Better yet try not to get it at all LOL.

Tommy Gun

Awesome! Now....prevention, prevention, prevention!!