Ich Treatment

[JackMcD]

Well my fish (22” Argus) had Ich real bad a few weeks ago week. I mean completely covered in it. He looked bad!!! I think it was from some feeders ( about 60 gold fish) that I fed him over a couple weeks. I researched and read a few threads regarding different experiences and treatment recommendations. First, I raised the water temp to about 84’ F. He’s in a 150 gallon by himself so I treated the whole tank with some “Rid-Ich” med. All seemed well for the first couple of days and by day 4 it was a lot worse.

The next step was the salt method. I want to the LFS and they recommended using some “Lake Malawi Cichlid Salt”. I installed a large carbon bag in my FX5 and let it draw all the meds out for 24 hours. Did a 20% water change. This stuff is concentrated so, I dumped in about ½ ts per gallon (about 75 spoons) and within 24 hours, he was completely clear of Ich… unbelievable!!! On the third day, I added half the original amount. The fifth day he was looking awesome, completely healed up. The scrapes from brushing his face on the gravel, gone. The very bad Ich, gone. So, over the last week, I’ve made three 20% water changes and all is back to normal. I just figured that I’d throw the African Cichlid Salt method out there. It worked out great and I am pleased. This stuff is strong though. It’s probably not a good idea to use this on most fish but the larger species of SH are pretty hardy and they can indeed handle it.

 

[JackMcD]

Well… I guess I’ll respond to my own thread… Nice job. Thanks for the advice, might try that if need be. Glad to hear that your fish is healed up.

 

[Gwyneeth]

Hi Jack!

It seems you like responding to your own threads

The thing with ich is that you can't get rid of it just like that. Well, you might, if you're lucky.

Did you repeat the treatment of the whole tank 7 days after the first dissappearence of the spots? What salt does is that it forces the grown-up ich (one of three stages of ich) to fall off the fish and go into cyst stage. In that state they fall down on and in the gravel. They cannot be killed in that state, not even by UV light or by many antiseptics.

So what you did with salt is that you really cured your fish, but the parasite is still in your tank waiting for the next opportunity when your fish gets a bit down with it's immune system.

Ich has a cycle of life that last for (more or less, depending on the temperature) 14 days. 1-2 weeks after last medication, you should redo the treatment to kill as much of ich larvae (and thats its 3rd stage) as possible.

Be sure that we can never get really completely rid of it as its cysts exist in every drop of water (if not sterilized) you can use. But you can keep their number down so they cannot get your fish sick even when it's feeling good.

So what I'm suggesting is that you keep a close eye to your fish and its skin and do the treatment again, even if you don't see anything on your fish.

Best regards!

 

[JackMcD]

I will do just that. Thanks.

 

[stotty]

Hi can i say be care full with salt and snakeheads. I have done quite a bit of research on this ever since many years a go a friend of mine killed his dwarf SH by adding salt to cure some fin rot and killed his fish. The best think is to take it as they don’t like salt I have never had to use salt with my fish over the years and don’t like using it with them. Yes some are more salt tolerant but it’s just not worth the risk how much and witch ones. I will also let you into another fact, The New York State and environmentalists came up with this idea. The state environmental agency planners may try to flood a lake they have a SH problem with sea water, hoping to kill off the snakeheads and some other fish that also have a low tolerance for salt, but sparing other species. But yes some snakeheads can tolerate salinity but some of the small ones its death.

As for Ich or white spot on S.H I've normaly put the temperature up to 30 degrees celsius for three days, then put down to normal again for two days followed by another three days of 30 degrees. I also used to treat with good old methylene blue but this was fine as they were in plain tanks so did not stain every thing blue. you can also use any of the normal whitespot remedies from the shop. But start of with the temperature..

 

[Gwyneeth]

The temperature itself does not kill the ich. It only fastens their life cycles, so the adult forms may fall off the fish. It does not, however cure them completely.

I haven't tried salt with my snakeheads yet as they never had the ich, but I cured a LOT of other fish so I'm pretty sure that salt doesn't kill it either.

So, why bother with salt anyway? Oh and yeah, never forget the blackwater, they love it and itself, if dense can helps curing the ich. I've cured some very big bacterial infections w/o antibiotics with only BW. SHs like to jump out of the water, and I had to cure few injuries (and lost two of them) before I discovered the hole.

Methylene is fine and kills ich, copper as well (it's actually basic ingredients of common ich medications), and as SH has very hardy skin, it's best to try those in combination with BW (katapa leaves) and garlic.