Have white spot in the tank with RTC
- Thread starter Blackviper2023
- Start date
We usually do not treat ich but make sure the affected fish is as stress-free as possible. Ich then goes away on its own in 99.9% of cases. In case it doesnt, again check thoroughly for stress sources and eliminate them. Can use medication, formalin+Malachte Green or Methylene Blue work well on ich and a bunch of other parasites. At 2" the RTC is vulnerable though, so any treatment - med, salt, or only temp can be damaging to it. If it doesnt show ich, Id not treat the RTC. If midas is the only one showing ich, I'd take it out.
This actually makes much more sense to me and I believe is the heat crank method I was mentioning.
Similarly, many years ago when I was in my teens the guy in the LFS I always used to frequent told me this method. This was based on raising the temperature around 10- 15 degrees higher than it was currently set. It was felt that ich spores could not live with the temperature rise. Back then it seemed logical as many tanks in the uk were kept in the low seventies range, but it still meant some were raised to low nineties to combat the problem.
success rates were hit and miss as some fish couldn’t take the change and some owners were told that the change had to be a relatively rapid one so the ich would not survive.
I’ve never really used it since most of my tanks are set to late seventies or low eighties already and I don’t generally get ich issues (touch wood).
But good to learn that heat alone works in cases.
I subscribe to a notion that ich lives on all fish at all times (unless a tank and its fish are sterilized, which does occur) and only stressed fish with an ensuing compromised immune system are not able to keep ich in check and it breaks out.
LFS owners receive dozens of boxes of fish weekly that either has ich or develops it soon after shipping as a result of the stress of the shipping and hence compromised immune system. AFAIK, they most usually, 99x out of 100x, do not treat ich but make sure the fish are as stress-free as possible and the fish most usually recover on their own.
In my naive understanding this may be similar to humans and staphylococcus / common cold pathogen in our throats. We get stressed, our immune system weakens, and common cold breaks out. You don't need to do anything, no need for meds, rest and caution are most usually enough and in 7 days you are almost healthy again. But staph didn't leave your body, it was only beat up into submission by your newly strengthened immune system.
