Just raising the temp and vacuuming the water while the spots werent on the fish as well as adding the salt. It's the most effective method I've seen for ick. I was very surprised.
New oscar
- Thread starter Kittyflower
- Start date
When you treated for ich in the past, how long did you treat for? Generally to truly kick it out of your tank the minimum length of treatment should be 2 weeks minimum with 3-4 weeks being optimal
I agree with this.
If this is the tank you previously kept the dead oscars in with ick, it may be the problem.
Once certain fish are infected, but survive, they tend to build up an immunity, but if you do not treat and tank with ick in it long enough (at least 2 weeks, maybe more in heavy cases) any new fish added, are prime candidate to be infected.
Although many aquarists don't believe it, there are certain ick protozoa that have an innate timer, allowing a few of each hatch to go dormant, and reappear months (or even a season later) and reinfect a body of water.
This is how ick in ponds that dry up continue to survive, these inert cysts can survive in dried up mud, and wake up when the next rainy season begins again.
I treat with 3 lbs of salt per 100 gallons, because using a volume method can vary the salinity if salt grain sizes are different.
To kill ick, the salinity must be a a minimum 3 ppt (parts per thousand). Anything under 3ppt, and some ick will survive, all it takes is 1 survivng cyst and the disease can reinfect.
By the way, lest you think 3 ppt is high, the average salinity of the ocean is 35 ppt.
Personally I waited for the fish to be spot free for at least 7 days before I lowered the water temperature. Also the other Oscar's were kept in a separate tank and I treated them with a store bought treatment.... I think it was super ich or something like that. I followed the directions exactly and treated them until they died. After that I stopped treating them. But in this case the fish did survive and is still alive and thriving today. Hes now about 5 inches long and is definitely no longer infected
