How long should I continue treating?

[Kgunn2128]

I know ich is a common problem in aquariums. Let me give you a little background about my tank before I ask my questions.
I set up my 55 gallon tank and let it cycle before adding any fish. I also set up a quarantine tank, a 10 gallon. Last Saturday, I purchased 6 painted Platy’s, and a small half moon Betta. I put the Betta in the 55 gal, and split the platy’s between the two tanks, 3 in each.
Sunday, I noticed one of the Platy’s in the 55 gal had ich. It was two spots, not very large, but I immediately began treatment with Marineland’s Ick Remedy. The instructions on the bottle say to treat 4-6 days, performing 25% water changes daily, and if spots persist continue treating once every 24 hours.
The Platy’s in the 10 gal never showed any signs of ich. I discontinued their treatment after day 4, and they are happy and energetic. I am on day 6 of treatment in the 55 gal. The original platy still has one small spot of ich, and what appears to be a scar (?) where the other spot of ich was. One other platy in the 55 gal also has a small spot of ich.
How long should I continue treatment, and how long is it safe to continue treatment? My concern for safety stems from my Betta’s behavior today. When I first brought him home, he would come out and swim around with the Platy’s like they were the best of friends. In the days since, He has had a tendency to hide, but today I have only seen him once all day, which is odd. When I did see him, he went to the surface of the tank, took several big deep breaths, and returned to his hiding spot.
Please, all tips are greatly appreciated. I take my fishs’ health very seriously and it upsets me to think that I may be causing my Betta distress.

 

[NickAu]

Ich is easy to treat you dont need chemicals.

Raise the water temp to 31 deg c over a few hours and leave it there for a week, end of problem, you should see results in 18 to 24 hours, if not you can use some salt, you dont need aquarium salt, Kosher salt is fine, just dont use table salt.

Ich stops reproducing at 30°C/86°F

 

[docpark]

Hi Kgunn2128:

Would it be possible to temporarily rehome your betta to the other tank while you finish treating the 55? If the Ick is still visible on the platys in the 55 but not on the betta, maybe you could keep him in the 10g until you're done with the full treatment? Once you've finished with the 55, done your water change, and run carbon to get the medication out, you could put him back.
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I know ich is a common problem in aquariums. Let me give you a little background about my tank before I ask my questions.
I set up my 55 gallon tank and let it cycle before adding any fish. I also set up a quarantine tank, a 10 gallon. Last Saturday, I purchased 6 painted Platy’s, and a small half moon Betta. I put the Betta in the 55 gal, and split the platy’s between the two tanks, 3 in each.
Sunday, I noticed one of the Platy’s in the 55 gal had ich. It was two spots, not very large, but I immediately began treatment with Marineland’s Ick Remedy. The instructions on the bottle say to treat 4-6 days, performing 25% water changes daily, and if spots persist continue treating once every 24 hours.
The Platy’s in the 10 gal never showed any signs of ich. I discontinued their treatment after day 4, and they are happy and energetic. I am on day 6 of treatment in the 55 gal. The original platy still has one small spot of ich, and what appears to be a scar (?) where the other spot of ich was. One other platy in the 55 gal also has a small spot of ich.
How long should I continue treatment, and how long is it safe to continue treatment? My concern for safety stems from my Betta’s behavior today. When I first brought him home, he would come out and swim around with the Platy’s like they were the best of friends. In the days since, He has had a tendency to hide, but today I have only seen him once all day, which is odd. When I did see him, he went to the surface of the tank, took several big deep breaths, and returned to his hiding spot.
Please, all tips are greatly appreciated. I take my fishs’ health very seriously and it upsets me to think that I may be causing my Betta distress.

 

[Essjay]

It is quite possible that the betta has the whitespot parasite somewhere you can't see it. Moving him out of the tank then back again after treatment has finished might well result in another bout of whitespot.

Bettas are not community fish, and he may well be suffering from sharing a tank with the platies. He would be better kept alone in the 10 gallon quarantine tank, though this would mean having to buy a new quarantine tank.



You said you let the tank cycle - what exactly did you do? Did you just let the tank run or did you add ammonia following the instructions on here?
And what are your ammonia and nitrite readings now?

 

[RetBioTchr]

I know there a lot of opinions about this Ich treatment stuff, and many do work....if done correctly. I'm simply going to share how I conquered Ich recently in my 55 gallon planted tank. Since it had lots of plants, some platies, gouramis and Cory cats, I elected to not use copper or salt in my approach. But I will say that what I did really knocked out the Ich and have seen none since. Btw....my plants are Hygro Willow, Java Fern, a couple of Anubias, Amazon Swords, and Wisteria.

I treated the tank at one hour before lights off with Seachem's Paraguard for 28 days although I might have gotten away with fewer. I decided to extend treatment as opposed to having to repeat it again. I also fed them fish flakes containing both garlic and Metronidazole. I got my medicated flakes from Kensfish.com. On week two, I raised the temp to 87 degrees (with extra aeration) from my normal 78 degrees. On weeks three and four, the temp was returned (gradually) back down to 78. My thinking was to do a multi-pronged approach. Paraguard for the free swimming Theronts (external), Metronidazole in food for an internal attack with garlic serving as a sort of repellent and temperature to either kill off remaining Ich parasites or to greatly accelerate the parasite life cycle so as to expose the free swimming Theronts to the Paraguard for more time.

I will say that there were, for me, no bad fish stress issues and the plants did just fine although I've read that Paraguard is not guaranteed to be ok with all plants.

I have seen/heard of way too many people stopping treatment as soon as the white spots are not visible on the fish. This period is when three things may be (or are likely) happening that one cannot see.....Tomonts in cysts are reproducing from the Trophonts(what you see as white spots that are really a reaction with the parasite having penetrated the dermis) having left the host fish, the Theronts are swimming around looking for a host, or they may have just found a fish host, but have not yet shown up on the fish as a white spot. If any of these are going on, one does indeed still have Ich. If one stops the treatment too soon, they will surely be doing it all over again.

I really goofed and skipped the QT tank with plant additions from plants being sold with fish present and that is how I got the Ich. Yes, the Tomont stage can be on plants, gravel, or anything else in a tank. Now I QT everything live going into the big tank. When I did my treatment, I was focused on 100% certainty that it was gone. That's why I did it for more than a week after seeing the last white spot. Also.....realize that this approach will likely see a brief worsening of white spots prior to the eradication of the parasite. When I recently purchased plants, I found out that the ones I was getting came from a fishless growing operation. Thus, my Ich worries were taken care of. Call the place that sells aquatic plants and check for fishlessness....there is a word for ya. Finally, removing the infected few fish will do about no good. If you see white spots in your tank, there is a 99% chance that your tank is indeed infected.

As I said earlier, there are multitudes of methods for treating Ich. I'm just sharing my approach because it worked grrrreat. After much reasearch in this, I found Paraguard to be the best over Formaldehyde, Malachite Green, Salts, and others because it has less impact on the ecosystem, yet gets the parasites. With me, this worked great.....this is just my approach in case I might help someone having the dreaded Ich.

 

[NickAu]

I treated the tank at one hour before lights off with Seachem's Paraguard for 28 days although I might have gotten away with fewer. I decided to extend treatment as opposed to having to repeat it again. I also fed them fish flakes containing both garlic and Metronidazole. I got my medicated flakes from Kensfish.com. On week two, I raised the temp to 87 degrees (with extra aeration) from my normal 78 degrees. On weeks three and four, the temp was returned (gradually) back down to 78. My thinking was to do a multi-pronged approach. Paraguard for the free swimming Theronts (external), Metronidazole in food for an internal attack with garlic serving as a sort of repellent and temperature to either kill off remaining Ich parasites or to greatly accelerate the parasite life cycle so as to expose the free swimming Theronts to the Paraguard for more time.

So basically you did ALL the wrong things like extending medication when not needed, this causes more harm than good

 

[RetBioTchr]

Actually......Seachem states on the Paraguard that treatment should go from 21 to 28 days.....thus no 'medication extension'. Also, the med. tapers off and disappears in 24 hours. Oh...btw.....'ALL the wrong things' worked great for me. I thought the purpose of Forums is to share thoughts. If you have all the right answers to solve Ich, please share. I'm all ears.

 

[NickAu]

LOL @ treating ICH for 21 to 28 days. With just temperature and nothing else your tank will be ICH free in under 7 days.

 

[RetBioTchr]

Wow......such a reformed, condsiderate, educated, and encouraging response from a seasoned(3,650 posts) aquarist. Does this one-answer-fits-all apply to cold water fish too? How dare I consider a discussion with forum members with such condescending arrogance? Forgive me......I won't make this mistake again.