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Ich disease Help2007-11-24 23:36:58

My 2 fish had ich disease and died before I caught it. I want to make sure the tank is clean before I put more fish in it. I heard heating it up and running the filter would work. Will it?! Any advice?

Answers:

First of all - Ich is an Ectoparasite that has 3 different stages. If your fish have very small white spots on them (kind of like someone salted them) then you definitely have Ich. However - buying meds at this point is a waste of money because the parasite is not vulnerable to meds in this stage. Once the white spots have fallen off the fish - they go down into your gravel/substrate and begin an encysted stage where a single Ich parasite multiples up to 2,000 different ones. Once they become free swimming - they are vulnerable to meds/salt, but not before that point.

I just got through treating one of my tanks with Maracide Concentrate by Virbac Animal Health, and Evaporated Sea Salt. All you honestly need though is Salt. If you have a biolocial filter which has carbon in it , and treat with meds, you will need to take them out all together (because if you don't they will just remove your medication from the water). Salt by itself however you don't need to do anything but put it in and raise the water temp.

Salt, and raising the water temp to 85-86 degrees (provided your species of fish can tolerate that temp) is the best way to treat this mess. I wish I would have had the article out on Wiki before I started my treatment. Could have saved a ton of time and money had I done that. I'll post it for you here in my sources. The guy who wrote this truly is the Internet authority on Ectoparasitic treatments. Just use Evaporated Sea Salt, and warmer water and you will be ok. Go to the website in my sources and read the article out there. You will have a full understanding (more than you ever wanted to know) once you read it.

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I think that is a wives tale. My fish have had ick before and we had to go to a fish or pet supply store and get a special medicine to go in the water. I would recommend going to a fish supply store or a pet supply store and talking to an expert to find out how to clean the tank and such before adding new fish. If we hadn't asked, we would have never known what my fish had. Once it was cured, they lived a few years after the incident.

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Yes, that will work. Ich needs a fish host to reproduce, so without one it will die and leave no offspring. Increasing the temp makes this happen faster. To be extra safe, you can add 3 teaspoons per gallon of salt to kill the ich.

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ich is a common thing.when you fish ever gets ich again just put him/her in a separte tank and then treat the reagular tank with medicine and the small tank. when you see take the fish that was infected and look at it carfully and when it is gone you can stop putting medicin. and for the big tank. put ONLY ONE DOSE of medicine.. wait two days then put in some salt. wait a week before new fish is added

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Healthy fish don't suffer from ich. Maintaining proper temperature and keeping the water from being fouled by regular water changes and not feeding too much is the true key. People add things like melafix http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/pr. or freshwater salt http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/pr. when adding fish to an aquarium to help prevent problems brought on by stress.