White spot disspearing period

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I've had it in my own tanks before aswel and i raised the temperature, it disappeared and never returned and thats why i thought it had died from the heat.

Bleaching things for a length of time really sounds like more trouble than its worth, if i had it in my tank there is no way i could move my fish around and bleach my filters etc and then cycle them all again - sure this applies to many fish keepers on here so surely there is a way around this.

Such as mine and your experience tomomothy.
 
In actuality, you raise the temp to increase the ick life cycle. Heat does not kill ick, it speeds up the cycle so meds or salt can kill the newly hatched parasites. If they hatch out, because of heat, and presence of fish hormones, the meds can work on the vulnerable stages of ick. The dormant ick is almost indestructible. Vacuuming can remove some of the dormant cycsts.
 
I agree that bleach is a lot of work, and if you dont rinse things properly it could be bad. Heat and ick treatments do work, its just that theres no good metric to determine when the ick has been irradicated. Something like bleach would be a more surefire way of doing it since it kills the ick, it doesnt just inhibit reproduction (as is my understanding, if anybody has a better understanding/correction feel free to add). I'm sure sufficient heat for sufficient time would also work, since boiling water is considered safe practice for water sterilization, its just a matter of how hot does it need to be to actually kill off ick, and how long does it take. Any other readers have any thoughts/input?

From what I have read ick stops reproducing around 85F (give or take a few) so I'm sure it begins to get killed off at some point shortly above that. I doubt it would have to go even half way to boiling.
 
I found this article. I know nothing about the author and there are no citations, but the author claims ick survived prolonged exposure to 90F water.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/ich.php

The only legit article I could find was this:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091202122052.htm
Which basically states ich can only be killed when in the water (not in the fish) which agrees with conventional wisdom since it is only in the water after development from reproduction.

Long story short I can't find any sure fire ways, but heat and time seem like a healthy start anyhow. The 2nd article also states fish can develop immunity, which makes me question if tanks that have "cured" ich really just have fish that are resistent to it...
 
Thanks for all your input tomomothy - i think you have a valid point there with your idea on fish developing immunities - that would certainly tie in with the experiences i have had.

For now the temperature in the tank is high, no fish present - i think i'm going to medicate the tank and let that clean it all up.

It's been a while since i've medicated a tank as it was over 2 years ago i had white spot - do i have to remove all the water after medicating it or clean the filters?

Anything in particular or just medicate and keep water changing?
 
Without fish, or fish hormones, I doubt that treatment will do any good, because many of the cysts will not hatch, they react to hormone.
And yes fish do build up an immunity, but much like humans, if a fish is put under any kind of stress, the immune system weakens.
In nature when ick hatches out, it has a hard time finding a fish, and a fish might get one infective organism. When in the confines of a tank, ick has a veritable smorgasbord of fish to latch onto, and that's why it becomes such a deadly epidemic, and fish become so completely covered.
It may seem a bother bleaching and making sure a tank is disinfected, but then again a bunch of dead fish you've just paid for is no picnic either.
 
I agree with duanes. Heating the tank accelerates the life cycle of ich, but I can't speak on authority if that will force cysts to hatch or not. If you decide to forgo bleach and use medication, I would do a complete water change. Since you have no fish it wouldn't hurt, and it'll flush out the treatments (they do have a shelf life, and the heat will probably shorten it). Before you stock the tank, I would get something cheap like some mollies or the sort to test it out with to see if the ich affects them. If it does, bleach would be your only option. If it doesn't affect them, it doesn't guarantee the tanks good to go, but it is a good sign. And as duanes mentioned, if fish in your tank become stressed, they will be susceptible to ich if even an iota is remaining.
 
All the actual reasearch I have found says that ich cannot lay dormant, and heat does kill it as I have used heat alone many times with many fish. Leave the temp up for a week and the tank should be safe again. It was the loaches that brought the ich in. Way way too much misinformation out there. If ich can't find a host in a few days it dies, also, drying out kills it as well, it cannot lay dormant in soil that is just bull. If it could stand drying I would have a big problem, I dry my nets and have never had cross contamination at all ever


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