Hey,
So a few months back I got Ich. I hadn't added anything to the tank in literally months, but it appeared and it was a resistant pain in the ass. The malachite didn't work for a few months straight, so I upped the temps and nuked it with copper. This escalated to a triple dose of copper for literally 2 months straight. It was crazy, but finally it disappeared. I'm shocked my fish lived through it, especially my scaleless catfish (synodontis from Tanganyika are badasses though.) It was to the point where I almost had to get my hands on some fromaldehyde.
It has been ~4 months of goodness, nothing has been added. I just saw one of my fish scratch tonight. I am baffled at where it could be coming from. Is it possible that this was an isolated scratching event where maybe one of his scales got buggered up and he just needed to shed it? How long can the cysts survive in a zero water environment? Maybe one of them lived in a bucket I haven't used in literally months and sat dry? That would be rather extreme, I'm told ich doesn't transfer if you dry out the tank for a few weeks, this has been literally 4 months of dry non use on the bucket which may not even have ever been exposed to the ich.
Either way, if this crap comes back I'm gonna freak out. Especially cause in both cases nothing has been added. I don't even use feeders anymore for fear of that crap unless they come directly from a breeder of like guppies that are doing culls or something. You know, reliable places. Even then, it's been literally 8 months since feeders of any kind.
I'm sure for anyone that's had ich you're on high alert at all times like "did my fish just scratch" out of the corner of your eye. It's funny, only the cichlids scratched. The catfish and bichirs don't appear to care about ich at all.
So a few months back I got Ich. I hadn't added anything to the tank in literally months, but it appeared and it was a resistant pain in the ass. The malachite didn't work for a few months straight, so I upped the temps and nuked it with copper. This escalated to a triple dose of copper for literally 2 months straight. It was crazy, but finally it disappeared. I'm shocked my fish lived through it, especially my scaleless catfish (synodontis from Tanganyika are badasses though.) It was to the point where I almost had to get my hands on some fromaldehyde.
It has been ~4 months of goodness, nothing has been added. I just saw one of my fish scratch tonight. I am baffled at where it could be coming from. Is it possible that this was an isolated scratching event where maybe one of his scales got buggered up and he just needed to shed it? How long can the cysts survive in a zero water environment? Maybe one of them lived in a bucket I haven't used in literally months and sat dry? That would be rather extreme, I'm told ich doesn't transfer if you dry out the tank for a few weeks, this has been literally 4 months of dry non use on the bucket which may not even have ever been exposed to the ich.
Either way, if this crap comes back I'm gonna freak out. Especially cause in both cases nothing has been added. I don't even use feeders anymore for fear of that crap unless they come directly from a breeder of like guppies that are doing culls or something. You know, reliable places. Even then, it's been literally 8 months since feeders of any kind.
I'm sure for anyone that's had ich you're on high alert at all times like "did my fish just scratch" out of the corner of your eye. It's funny, only the cichlids scratched. The catfish and bichirs don't appear to care about ich at all.