White spot disspearing period

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bonesb66

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MFK Member
Feb 1, 2010
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Birmingham
Hi,

My GF recently set up a tank - without thinking i let her get some clown loach.

Long story short the kicked up some white spot and a few days ago the 2 clown loach and the oscar all went within a 12 hour gap.

The tank is now completely empty - how long will it be until its safe to add fish and there is no circling white spot?

Thanks
 
Sounds like ich to me too but without more details or pics I can't really say for sure. Sounds agressive for ick though. I havent heard of ick killing something has hardy as an oscar in a few days but I'm sure it can happen. If youre tank is already empty, I'd soak it with some ick treatment for a few days, then just do a 100% water change. You could probably use a cleaning agent too if you want to rinse it out afterwards. If you have any more info, like water parameters it could be helpful
 
haven't had chance to test the params - i suppose it is possible for there to have been a spike as it was a new tank but with them being coated in white spot i only assumed it was down to that.
 
Ick can remain dormant for months or years until a fish shows up again.
If you have access to another tank with fish in it, you can take water from a water change and put it in your fishless tank, this can fool the ick into hatching out of the gravel, and it will die if there aren't any fish to infest. This is not a one time deal though, you may need to do it multiple times. There is a theory that ick can lay dormant in dust until water and the presence of a fish bring it out of dormancy.
 
So how do you get out of getting it again then? The tank has sand not gravel, getting water from another tank is not an option as her house is too far from my house to transport 200 litres of water.

Surely without fish to latch onto it dies? I thought perhaps if i increase the temperature it will kill it?

Just like how you can treat it whilst its on fish by turning up the temperature
 
The dormant ick is encased in an almost impermeable shell, and can survive years dry in a desert until water and another fish comes by. Or in ice until it melts.
Sand, gravel does not matter.
An alternative might be to....
Bleach every thing,(sand, filters, nets, tubes, etc) let it sit in bleach water a week, and start all over.
 
These seem very extreme treatments - are you saying i cannot add fish to the tank at any point as they will get Ich.

In order for me to add fish i have to remove everything, bleach the contents and start over again?
 
Theres no guarentee your fish wont get ick unless you do a harsh treatment like bleach for a sufficient time. My understanding of heat (raising water temp) is that it stops reproduction, or at least slows it so that when the current adult parasites die, new ones wont replace them. I had a 100 gallon tank that i had ick come back a couple times. By using ick treatment, heating the tank up some, and doing frequent water changes it went away. By keeping up on my water changes I didnt have an outbreak of ick in that tank again (after about 3 years I sold that tank).
 
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