Ich Treatment advice

[FrankP]

Hi,

I have been treating my tank with white spot treatment. The instructions on the bottle say to keep treating for 48 hours after all spots are gone.

I started treating my tank after I saw a couple of fish rub themselves up against rocks. I can't see any white spots on any of the fish, but I have heard that you sometimes can't see the spots.

Can anybody give me some advice on how long to treat the tank for? I have been treating it for 9 days now.

Thanks

Frank

 

[FrAnK3333]

Just a couple days you cant see the spots anymore.

 

[WILDER]

If the 9 days are up do a gravel vac to get the parasites out of the gravel, and a water change to remove the meds, put black carbon back, watch to see if the spots return as you will need to retreat again sometimes it takes two rounds of meds, good luck.

 

[a1wonder]

I've also found that salt baths on certain types of fish are a great way to get rid of very bad ich infections. This works very well for mollies and such.

 

[turbotiber]

If you can't see any spots (like grains of salt) maybe your fishies have velvet (if you shine with a flashlight you will see like a goldish dust covering on your fish). ANywho, it's the same treatment as ich so it should be ok. However if their velvet is cured and yu're still treating, you could still be treating for no reason, so check to see exactly what they have.

 

[Bignose]

1) You have to keep treating ich through all its life cycles, since it is only vulnerable to medication in one of its many life stages. This cannot be underestimated. If even one parasite escapes your treatment b/c the medication is stooped, you skipped or forgot a dose, etc., the population of ichs can grow back in a short time. Then next month you will be asking about the "neverending ich" on the message boards. At normal tropical temperatures, the ich life cycle is 3-5 days. (In cold water, the life cycle can be as much as 30 days) Personally, I would keep dosing for a good two full life cycles after the problems seems to have cleared up. 6-10 days. I know it seems like a lot, but again if only 1 escapes...

2) The gravel vac is an important part of a dosing cycle, not necessarily b/c it sucks up some parasites, which it no doubt does. But, more importantly, most ich medicines work by oxidizing organic material. So, you want to take out as much oxidizable material as you can before dosing -- this includes uneaten food, fish poo, algae, etc. So, the gravel vac tidys things up and get all this gunk out that your medicine may act on. And, the big thing there is that if your medicine is acting on the fish poo and food, it is NOT acting on the ich, and here is the scary thought, if too much medicine was consumed by non-ich things, there may not be enough left to act on the ich when it is needed. Also, many of the ich medicines will harm your biological filter, so water changes become necessary anyway.

3) tt, brings up a good point. There are actually lots of things that can cause scratching. Velvet (another protozoan parasite), gill and skin flukes, the presence of nitrite. Etc. Check out a good fish disease book form the library (or buy one from Amazon, etc.) Such as A-Z of Tropical Fish, The Manual of Fish Health, Tropical Fishlopaedia. These all list several reasons why fish will scratch. Ultimately including that sometimes they just scratch -- like we do. Of course, repeated scratching is indiciative of health problems, but check out a book or trusted website, these are several several reasons.