# Ich?



## Andrea3 (Sep 25, 2009)

Hello,

I have a 38 gallon tank with :

4 rummy nose tetras
3 mollies
6 leopard danios
3 gold zebra loaches
red ramshorn snails
cherry shrimp

about a week ago I noticed a small round white spot on the side of one of the tetras now another of the tetras has the same type of small white spot on the side of its head, the white spot on the original tetra is still there. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Your best bet is to maintain excellent water parameters (no ammonia, no nitrites, <5ppm nitrates), and feed well. Also raise your temperature to 84 or so to accelerate the Ich's life cycle. I recommend this over medication as shrimp and snails will be killed by a copper treatment, and loaches don't typically fare well with medications.

If moving all fish to a quarantine tank is possible, that would be the best bet, although I have a feeling it's not a possibility.


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## Andrea3 (Sep 25, 2009)

my water is good, no ammonia or nitrites and nitrates are less than 5, I do a weekly 25-30% water change. What would you recommend for food? Right now I feed a small amount of spirulina flake food twice a day and occasionally supplement with shelled peas, blanched romaine and blood worms. I have raised the temp, it has been at 84F for two days now, there doesn't seem to be any change so far...the fish otherwise seem well swimming and eating as usual. I thought that after a week the white spot should have opened...why I was thinking maybe it isn't ich? I do have another small tank that I could move the fish to, would I have to move all of them or just the two with the spots? 

Thanks for your help!


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

How long have the white spots been there? If they fall off in the next few days, then it's probably ich. If not - I'd have to think a bit harder 

If everyone is feeding (and apprently pretty well at that!) and acting normally, then I would just monitor closely and keep them happy, and I'm sure they will get over it.

oh, welcome to the forum BTW!


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## Andrea3 (Sep 25, 2009)

Thank you, I will keep watching them, the first spot showed up about a week ago, it is a raised white nodule about the size of the end of a pin.


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## bluekrissyspikes (Apr 16, 2009)

i'd increase the temp and add 1 tsp/g of dissolved salt. i've used this ratio to treat ich with shrimp in the tank without killing them all off. i may have lost a few though. it's hard to tell because of the plants. the salt also cased my red and bronze crypts to melt and grow smaller, bright green leaves. they are recovering nicely though.


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## Hitch (Apr 26, 2009)

bluekrissyspikes said:


> i'd increase the temp and add 1 tsp/g of dissolved salt. i've used this ratio to treat ich with shrimp in the tank without killing them all off. i may have lost a few though. it's hard to tell because of the plants. the salt also cased my red and bronze crypts to melt and grow smaller, bright green leaves. they are recovering nicely though.


there has been a recent discussion regarding this. Though the salt wont really affect the shrimp, but according loaches.com, loaches dont tolerate salt at all.


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## Chris S (Dec 19, 2007)

no salt with your loaches!


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## bluekrissyspikes (Apr 16, 2009)

Hitch said:


> there has been a recent discussion regarding this. Though the salt wont really affect the shrimp, but according loaches.com, loaches dont tolerate salt at all.


well, that is debatable and even the experts on LOL can't come to an agreement on that. in my personal experience, i have not had any issues treating loaches with low levels of salt(added in stages over a day) and generally add some salt to my qt when i first buy any fish. loaches don't tolerate any changes in their water conditions all that well, and they are also extremely sensitive to any sort of medications, like ick-cure just as much as they are to salt. i guess it's a personal choice. the salt is a more natural remedy that won't make the tank uninhabitable to inverts in the future and is non-carcenogenic. when i started keeping loaches three years ago LOL was recomending salt for ich treatment, so i guess they have changed their mind on it since then. i don't go over there much anymore. either way, i'd treat it with something before it gets worse. it's not something you want to wait and see how bad it gets before you decide to do something about it, especially with the loaches as they don't have the scale 'armor' to protect them. the next thing you will see is the white spots falling off, then they will 'incubate' in the bottom of the tank and hatch into many many many more 'little ichs'. sooo...you might think they are getting better if you see the spots going down but that will just be the calm before the storm..


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## Andrea3 (Sep 25, 2009)

Thank you for all of your suggestions, I guess I will wait and see if the heat alone will get rid of it, I hope so!


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## Hitch (Apr 26, 2009)

Andrea3 said:


> Thank you for all of your suggestions, I guess I will wait and see if the heat alone will get rid of it, I hope so!


heat it self wont be a safe method to get rid of the ich. Heat speeds up the life cycle of the ich, but it wont cure the condition. Chances are, the ich is just going to take down all of the fish if you dont do anything about it.

as for temp, I am not too sure what the safe temp zone for the fish is, but with my plecos, when I encounter ich, I crank the temp up to 86-88F.

give this a read: http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?t=2599

in the situation of ich, you *need* to do something, its not something that would just go away by itself.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Hitch said:


> in the situation of ich, you *need* to do something, its not something that would just go away by itself.


Often, all you need is to maintain high water quality and maintain feeding and basically keep your fish in an optimal condition to fight off the disease. Kind of like the common cold - plenty of rest, nutritious food, and bundle up and sleep. No meds required.

Although it's a completely different (in a bad way) beast, Marine Ich can be rid of by maintaining high water quality and feeding well make your fish stronger. The addition of supplements (Selcon, garlic guard, etc) often is cited as helping with the recovery process as well.


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## bluekrissyspikes (Apr 16, 2009)

isn't ich more comparable to scabbies, fleas or lice than a cold?


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

In terms of the actual disease, I suppose so, but the cause of the disease is more like the common cold - usually onset is induced by stressing the fish. Unstressed healthy fish can ward it off - unlike lice or fleas, where no matter how healthy you are, you can still get them.


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## Calmer (Mar 9, 2008)

bluekrissyspikes said:


> isn't ich more comparable to scabbies, fleas or lice than a cold?


Ick is a protozoan parasite. Anchor worm and fish louse are arthropod parasites similar in some ways to scabies, ticks, fleas, and lice.


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## Hitch (Apr 26, 2009)

so yes.....to get somewhat back on tract....(not saying I am not enjoying this ich comparison).

but still...in my opinion....do something to help the rid of ich. I would personally be worried to just leave it in warmer water and hope for the best...:/


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Good conditions can do much more in the long run than medications can. Warming the water to accelerate the life cycle is only to get it to leave the fish - keeping the fish unstressed and healthy prevents the reinfection. Also long term maintenance of these optimal conditions will help ensure that your fish are able to fight off future ailments.

Hope everything is turning out well for you


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## Julian (Jun 29, 2008)

i know it gets mixed results but i used that bio ick-attack stuff and it worked for me. Used it for 7 days at half strength didn't effect any of my plants either. I caught the ick early and i think that helped me. 

Julian


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## Jackson (Jan 30, 2009)

I have been reading some articles on other sites and they say salt does nothing to ich. I find this very questionable.

I know ich will not survive temps of 86f+ so if your fish can handle it raise the temp. Then some articles say if you raise the temps you are accelerating the life cycle of the parasite so if you don't use "meds" you will cause a huge increase in the parasites activity thus causing your fish to be overwhelmed by them and death will occur. I can sort of see that happening but I have not seen it happen yet LOL

I don't know what to say about most of these articles but I have used the salt+high temps+water changes each day and the no light method and it has worked for me every time. I also soak the foods I feed my fish with fresh garlic. If I think I need to use meds I have used nox-ich at 3/4 the dose just because I was using it on plecos. I have used the full dose when treating a new shipment of Datnoids with no problems.

I see lost of talk about this rid-ich+ and they say it is safe to be used on most if not all fish. I never used it so I am not saying this is true. 

Here are its Specifications
Contains formaldehyde (11.52% formalin) U.S. P. grade 4.26% and premium quality aquaculture-grade zinc-free chloride salt of malachite green 0.038%. The ingredients meet United States Pharmacopoeia science-based quality standards for health care. The U.S. P. is the official public standards-setting authority for all prescriptions and over-the-counter medicines and other health care products. Made in the U.S.A.

Nox-ich is made up of sodium chloride, malachite green - 1.0% inert ingredients 99% + total 100%

I guess it is just up to the user to figure out what they want to go with. 

I have also used the sera ich treatment it did nothing!

The info Ameek has given is great


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## Chris S (Dec 19, 2007)

Jackson said:


> I have been reading some articles on other sites and they say salt does nothing to ich. I find this very questionable.


Salt doesn't affect ich itself, it is used to boost fish health in times of stress.


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## Jackson (Jan 30, 2009)

Chris S said:


> Salt doesn't affect ich itself, it is used to boost fish health in times of stress.


LOL the funny thing is then you see the so called experts say salt does not do good for the fish because it stresses them out even more causing them to increase their slime coat or mucus development making their bodies work harder.

I really don't know who to believe.


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## bae (May 11, 2007)

It's undoubtably true that good water quality and absence of stress will prevent many fish ailments, but unfortunately, once you've got an ich infestation started, the organism multiplies so fast that the parasite load may well be more than even the healthiest fish can cope with.

When mature, the lesion on the fish bursts, releasing a *lot* of uninfective organisms. These settle in the detritus and each multiplies into an even greater number of infective organisms which then attack your fish. So a single ich lesion can result in many thousands of infective cells in the next cycle.

There seem to be a lot of different theories of how temperature and salt affect the organisms at different stages of their life cycle. Raising the temperature will speed up the life cycle, which will get the active lesions off the fish. However, I don't know what temperature will kill any of the stages of the life cycle or if there is one that won't harm the fish as well. Salt increases slime coat production which helps prevent secondary infections at the sites of the burst lesions and the thicker slime may make it harder for new organisms to attack -- but I wouldn't count on it working entirely when there are thousands of attackers. I don't know whether there's a salt concentration that will reliably kill ich organisms at any stage of the life cycle and still be tolerable for the fish.

Heat and salt are, IMHO, more a matter of supportive treatment than a cure. You might also vacuum the gravel and remove as much debris as possible to reduce the number of organisms in the off-the-fish stage, ditto the water changes to reduce the number of infective-stage organisms. I've never seen anyone else recommend darkness for ich, but it's sometimes proposed for velvet (Oodinium) which is a dinoflagellate and can photosynthesize. Ichthyophthirius is a protozoan (more or less) that doesn't photosynthesize, so it isn't clear why turning off the lights would help -- not that anyone, AFAIK, has determined that darkness makes a significant difference in velvet infestations.

I'm not saying that heat, salt, water changes, gravel vacuuming etc can't possibly stop an ich outbreak. I haven't had ich in my fish for a very long time, but what I would do, FWIW, is use a commercial ich remedy in conjunction with raising temperature and maybe adding salt if this isn't going to be worse for the fish than not doing so. Formalin and malachite green seem to be the current favorites, but methylene blue was used for many years successfully.

IMHO, the important issues are to treat early, before the infestation goes through a full lifecycle if at all possible, and treat for long enough that no more infective forms can arise. Because of the off-the-fish stage of the life cycle, you can't just take infested fish out and treat them separately. You have to treat any tank they were in, or leave it free of fish for several weeks.

(Actually, somebody asked me recently what I'd do about ich, and I said I'd ask Harold at Menagerie what he recommends! This is one store that's very serious about quarantining, and treating fish that show any signs of disease, so they'd have a lot of experience with current treatments.)

Note also that ich can only get into your house with an infested fish. (Well, conceivably with some detritus clinging to a plant, but...) So it's important to quarantine new fish, so you can treat them in the quarantine tank if necessary, where it's much easier and you don't risk your other fish or, especially, invertebrates.


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## Chris S (Dec 19, 2007)

Jackson said:


> LOL the funny thing is then you see the so called experts say salt does not do good for the fish because it stresses them out even more causing them to increase their slime coat or mucus development making their bodies work harder.
> 
> I really don't know who to believe.


It eases the osmotic pressure, allowing the fish to often recover on their own. Freshwater has a much higher osmotic pressure than the fluids of a fish. It isn't specfic to Ich, but to the general health of the fish. However, I think some parasites can't tolerate extreme high/low osmotic pressure either, which kills them. I'm not sure at what level this takes effect, nor have I experimented with it at all.

Obviously, salt is not good for every fish - much depends on their scales, or lackthereof. Extended use of salt can cause other health problems as well, unless it is kept low.


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## Jackson (Jan 30, 2009)

Chris S said:


> It eases the osmotic pressure, allowing the fish to often recover on their own. Freshwater has a much higher osmotic pressure than the fluids of a fish. It isn't specfic to Ich, but to the general health of the fish. However, I think some parasites can't tolerate extreme high/low osmotic pressure either, which kills them. I'm not sure at what level this takes effect, nor have I experimented with it at all.
> 
> Obviously, salt is not good for every fish - much depends on their scales, or lackthereof. Extended use of salt can cause other health problems as well, unless it is kept low.


I am all for the use of salt with the right fish. I just find that with all the info out there people wont know what to trust.

When you read in one place use salt it does as you said above and then another place says it does that but also causes the fish to be stressed out sort of makes it hard to know what exactly should be done.

Good thing people can sort this stuff out most of the time sharing their own experiences.


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## Andrea3 (Sep 25, 2009)

*Update*

The tetra with the original spot lost that one and then developed two more, the second tetra did not get any more spots after the first white spot went away. I decided to move the affected tetra to the smaller tank and treated it with an ich medication, unfortunately it ended up dying on the last day of treatment. I kept the water temp up over 86F for over two weeks in the main tank and now have gradually lowered back to normal, so far none of the other fish have developed any spots.

Thanks for all of your help and comments!


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