Ich treatment

Llamalord · Jan 17, 2013

So long story short, my gf (now ex) got me a couple raphael cats, something I've wanted fr a while since they're so adorable. Thing is she got them from WalMart, so they had ich. At the time I was away visiting family and she decided to put them to my 40g growout with my endli, and large mouth bass. The bass started picking on them so they got moved to my 10g growout. Anyway I come home and see some wrigglers floating around my tank and I'm pretty pissed. I've kept the temp at ~84-85 f but haven't noticed any real drop in the amount of wrigglers.

Would it be possible to throw them all in my 20g growout for the night or so, hope for the best and put the infected tanks in the garage to freeze overnight? Would that kill off the pests? If so would a good strong salt bath + treatment of equipment be enough to destroy the menace?

tomomothy · Jan 17, 2013

Ive never had to treat wrigglers before, I gotta imagine anything you do to kill the ich is going to be bad for them. I think the safest thing to do is keep the temp high, add salt and give it time and see how the little guys do

duanes · Jan 17, 2013

When ich freezes it just goes dormant, some die but not all.
A good way to treat while raising the temp, is to add salt gradually until the salinity reaches 3 parts per thousand. Borrow a salinity meter, if you don't have one, because under 3ppt ich survives. I just add a handful of rock salt every couple hours until the meter reads 3ppt.

Llamalord · Jan 17, 2013

tomomothy said:
Ive never had to treat wrigglers before, I gotta imagine anything you do to kill the ich is going to be bad for them. I think the safest thing to do is keep the temp high, add salt and give it time and see how the little guys do

Same, this is my first experience with ich, and I hadn't thought it would be so difficult to get rid of. I'm going to start 50% daily changes keep up the heat, and hope for the best. I can't really afford the cost of salt if I'm replacing it so often. So I'm hoping the heat and constant water changes will be enough.

Llamalord · Jan 17, 2013

duanes said:
When ich freezes it just goes dormant, some die but not all.
A good way to treat while raising the temp, is to add salt gradually until the salinity reaches 3 parts per thousand. Borrow a salinity meter, if you don't have one, because under 3ppt ich survives. I just add a handful of rock salt every couple hours until the meter reads 3ppt.

How long does the salt treatment have to go for to be fully effective? I'll look into getting a hydrometer, is there an approximation of how much I'd have to add per gallon to achieve the .003?

tomomothy · Jan 17, 2013

It usually is around a week give or take before the ich really visibly goes away, but the parasite is still alive in the water beyond that. Many people say at least two weeks total for treatment and ive heard up to 3 weeks. Ive had symptoms stay away from adult fish after 2 weeks of treatment, but with the wrigglers, its hard to say how they'll handle it.

duanes · Jan 17, 2013

I'm not sure what the hydrometer reading is, I always used a salinity/conductivity meter.
And the cost of salt is minimal, I use water softener, or road salt from the building supply store, 50lbs for maybe $10, and I used maybe half the bag in a 150 gal tank, throwing it in by the handful over the 3 weeks. Much less than the cost of replacing fish.
Treatment should last at least 3 weeks.

Drstrangelove · Jan 17, 2013

Vacuum the substrate, raise the temp to 86 (slowly, assuming all the fish can stand it), and add aeration. The ich life cycle is disrupted by the heat.

It has been found that Ich does not infect new fish at 29.4°C/85°F (Johnson, 1976), stops reproducing at 30°C/86°F (Dr. Nick St. Erne, DVM, pers. comm.), and dies at 32°C/89.5°F (Meyer, 1984), [1] http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_ich2.php

Adding salt is a feasible treatment for fish that can tolerate salt.

Use salt. In a non-planted aquarium with tolerant fish, the addition of Aquarium salt at the rate of 1 teaspoon per 4 liters/1 gallon of water disrupts the fluid regulation of Ich. Do not add salt crystals directly to tank. Always dissolve salt in a small amount of tank water before adding to tank. This dosage may be repeated every 12 hours for a total of three treatments. When Ich is gone, salt is removed with daily 25% water changes. [2] (same link.) At the end of the 3 treatments, salt will be at 3 ppt in the tank. No more should be added.

If heat and salt are not options, there may be options for chemical treatments. However do not use all at once for obvious reasons.

1) Heat only
2) Heat and salt (at lower dosage, 1 tsp per gallon, with no added amounts, to 1 ppt)
3) Salt only (at higher dosage, 1 tsp per gallon added again after 12 and 24 hours to max of 3 ppt)
4) Medicine only

Do NOT combine high heat with medicines or high salt. And always add aeration in any case.

Assume that all the fish are infected and treat accordingly.

Since ich is visible on the fish at some point and since heat accelerates the life cycle drastically, I'd wait until I couldn't see any ich on the fish and then give it another 3-4 days. You should be clear by then. At lower temperatures the life cycle is far too long ( 64 F = 12 days) for this to be practical.

A tank with no fish and no plants can be easily cleared by raising the temp to 90-95 degrees for a few days. Absolutely do not try cold (they simply become dormant) or need chemicals.

Also, http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/ich.php


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