ICH, I have ICH, suggestions Please!!

[Buddy09]

Discovered last nite that I have an outbreak of ICH in my 40 gallon tank. Resident fish are two syno. brichardi, one psuedacanthicus leopardus, five pit bull pleco's, three otto's, three juvenile syno . petricola and a single angel. It sounds crowded, but only the brichardi are full size, the rest are still small. All are slated to be moved to a new, larger home in coming months. ...I started treatment with Rid-Ich last nite since I happened to have some on hand and I will be raising tank temp...any other suggestions, considering the fish involved??...The three juvenile petricolas and pitbull plecos are new additions, previous weekend, so that may have been the source of the outbreak, although they looked fine when I put them in.

[MatsP]

Careful with raising the temperature on a Rift-Lake species like S. petricola. Lake Tanganyika isn't a particularly warm lake, 25'C/77'F or so. So taking it up to 30'C/86'F is probably a bad idea.

So, just follow the instructions of Rid-Ich (making sure you follow the Catfish/Scaleless fish part of the instructions), and I think you'll be fine.

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Mats

[Buddy09]

Thanks Mats...yes, that's a good point about the temp. Perhaps I'd best leave that alone and just treat for a longer period....Is salt of any value in this case?? Seems I have read that some people use salt when battling Ich.

[MatsP]

I have never used salt against Ich. Yes, there are plenty of recipes of how to cure Ich with salt, and it definitely works. But so does proper medications. Combining the two has all sorts of potential side-effects - positive or negative. I personally prefer to use ONE form of medication unless it's VERY CLEAR that they will work together.

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Mats

[Bas Pels]

Wheter you use salt or one of the colored medications will firstly depend on what kind of fishes you have

Most of mine are very tolerant towards salt. I got a lot of cich-lids from Central America which don't mind 5 g/l (I never go past 2 g/l) and frankly, I simply forgot the first time I used salt my Pt gibbiceps and Platydoras armatulus are Amazonian fishes which are not supposed to withstand salt. But they did, and I don't think it hurt them a lot - I got both over 20 years now, and expect to have them for a lot longer.

However, I disagree firmly with Mats when he wrote 'proper medications' for other cures than salt. After all, a salt therapy is based on the observation the fishes can stand more salt then the ich. Precisely the observation one uses for other cures.

OK, I need a few kilos of salt for this cure, and if I would use one of the alternatives, a few grammes of the dried matter would suffice. But I never read a definition for medications being active in a concentration less than so and so.

I think salt is - for some fishes - just a good medication as colored stuff are for others

[MatsP]

However, I disagree firmly with Mats when he wrote 'proper medications' for other cures than salt. After all, a salt therapy is based on the observation the fishes can stand more salt then the ich. Precisely the observation one uses for other cures.

I actually agree with that - salt is a "proper medication" when used correctly. And I would expect Rift Lake Catfishes to tolerate fairly high levels of salt. I still think that Rid-Ich or some such is adequate in this case, and would not recommend mixing salt into the equation.

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Mats

[Phyllonemus]

Maybe a stupid question, but I realy don't no a fish related disease called ICH. Can someone explane wat is meant by ICH ?

[MatsP]

It is relating to Ichthyophthirius multifilis parasitic - aka "White spot" disease. There are some other forms of parasites that are usually grouped as the same - they are similar in treatment and effects, so there is no real reason to separate them...

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Mats

[summer]

both my tanks have it - I think the whiptail tank got it from a drop in temp when the heater broke, but we moved the betta into the main tank after the whiptails spawned, and he must have carried it over (obviously we didn't know or we would have given him his own tank)

so now I have whiptails with eggs and fry in tank 1

and swordtails/tetra/bristlenose/swordtail fry/polka dot loaches in tank 2

all with ich

duh

for now have raised the temp of all tanks to 26oC and an awaiting some rid-ich

the swordtail fry are in the QT tank as we want to be sure they're clear before taking them to the LFS

so, fingers crossed...

[MarkSmith]

There appears to be a particularly virulent strain of ich? the ocassionally pops up. (someone correct me on this one?)

The only way I was able to treat my tank years ago when this difficult strain hit one of my tanks, was to raise the temp to 90 and double dose the tank with rid-ick for two weeks. Only then, did it die away. I was keeping very hardy species, and so they survived the ordeal.

[MatsP]

@Mark: Yes, there is a "Ich-like" illness that is much tougher to deal with than normal ich. If it survives above 30'C/86'F it's unlikely to be "real Ich".

@Summer: Just raising the temperature to 26'C will not cure Ich - to kill it, you need some sort of medicine, be that salt or some other known cure, that's up to you. To cure it with ONLY temperature will need temperature above 30'C/86'F for several days.

The reason that people say "raise the temperature" _WHEN MEDICATING AGAINST_ Ich is that the sensitive stage is when the protozoan is freeswimming - which is only a small time of the entire life-cycle of the Ich. Since the life-cycle is faster at higher temperature, the time to keep the fish in medicated water is shorter, which helps reduce the stress of the fish (as medication is in itself somewhat stressful to the fish). This of course assumes the fish are in themselves OK with the higher temperature - like so many things in medicine, you must balance the danger of the cure with the danger of the illness.

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Mats

[summer]

thanks Mats -I am waiting for the rid-ich to arrive. didn't want to go higher than 28 with the sturisoma, what do you think?

[MatsP]

thanks Mats -I am waiting for the rid-ich to arrive. didn't want to go higher than 28 with the sturisoma, what do you think?

Which Sturisoma species is it? They probably tolerate 30'C better than the live-bearers, I'd say.

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Mats

[summer]

aureum - you might remember I have one with a deformed nose!

we have 2 fry (week old) too, am so hoping to eradicate the ich...can't find much in the LFS round here so had to order some rid-ich. I've been reading up on ich and catfish and altho there's a lot of opinions, most seem to say raise temps and treat with rid-ich, but carefully...

also to watch the water carefully as both meds and high temp can reduce the O2

kill or cure, hmmmm, I will be watching carefully, daily testing and water changes already underway

[MatsP]

I don't know what your local LFS stocks, but if they have Waterlife Protozin, that would do just fine - as far as I know, it's the same active ingredients as Rid-Ich. I've used this a few times on tanks with Catfish [I don't actually have any tanks that DO not have catfish in them - although I have a several tanks that don't have anything BUT catfish].

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Mats

[summer]

just to update you, I used protozin and raised the temperature. One treatment at half dose did the trick.