Ich Won't Go Away

[Iron Man]

I have a 55 gallon with 6 Silver Dollars and 4 Pictus Cats. The SDs developed (obviously had it already) ICH shortly after introducing them to my tank and then the pictus. I have treated these fish with raised temp (82 degrees) AND 1 tbsp of salt per US gallon for well over 10 days and one of the fish just recently developed a spot that looks like ICH after not having it all this time and I thought it had been completely eliminated.

What have I done wrong? Salt and raised temp has ALWAYS worked like a charm! I'm obviously going to have to continue treatment, but I have subjected these fish to raised temp and high levels of salt for so long.....do you think prolonged treatment is going to hurt them?

 

[Tempestuousfury]

Has it been suggested that you not use medication? I would have thought that salt would be more bad than meds for SDs, if you are not treating because you were told not to.

 

[Fella]

Gravel vaccing I find is essential for treating ICH. Also, I'd rather use a medication than salt with fish like Pictus and SD's.

 

[Bloo]

Absolutley agree with what Fella has said. I was going to suggest Interpet but then realised you were in the USA. Not sure what the most popular/best ICH meds are there.

 

[brewyn]

hello Ironman.I had a simular problem recently when atleast a 100 of my fish were rubbing themselves constantly, It was causing me a considerable amount of stress having to watch them suffer. nothing seemed to work, salt, white spot and funguss treatments. it was recomended to me to use a treatment called protozin and also sterazin, combined they worked a treat, problem solved. you must follow the instructions carefuly as one is 4 doses while the other is 6 over a period of ten days, no water changes to be done in this time.
before using treatments you need to establish that your water perameters are fine and that this is not the cause of the problem. if you can get these treatments were you live, then give it ago. remember to add extra oxogine to your tank as some treatments can deplete the oxogine levels in the water.

hope this helps as theres nothing more annoying. (OH, except the missus)

 

[Iron Man]

The reason that I treat them the natural way is because its best to do things in as natural a way as possible, no matter what the situation is. In this instance, salt and raised temp are more healthy than meds (poison). People are too chemical happy these days if you ask me, and its one of the world's big problems.

But....since the salt isn't doing the job like I thought it would this time, perhaps I'll just have to use meds. Sometimes you can't win.

Thanks for all the help!

 

[Bloo]

Well I guess it'a a bit then like homeopathy versus the medical profession. If I had a serious illness I know without a shadow of a doubt which method of cure I'd take. In my tanks I can't use salt anyway because of scale-less fish.

 

[Iron Man]

Well I wasn't really talking about drugs, as most meds for humans aren't chemicals, they're plant extracts. I was more referring to insecticides, cleaning solutions, etc.

Most scaleless fish are fine with salt for short periods of time....its long term that bothers me.

 

[Iron Man]

Well...I'm headed out to the pet store to see what I can find. All the fish are doing just great, every pictus is fine....not spots or anything. There's only one fish left with a couple spots on it. Just don't understand.

Thanks again for all the help.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

The reason that I treat them the natural way is because its best to do things in as natural a way as possible, no matter what the situation is. In this instance, salt and raised temp are more healthy than meds (poison). People are too chemical happy these days if you ask me, and its one of the world's big problems.

But....since the salt isn't doing the job like I thought it would this time, perhaps I'll just have to use meds. Sometimes you can't win.

Thanks for all the help!

yeah I'm the same, for the most part i try to keep it simple and natural with my tanks..... but if it aint working sometimes you have to bite the bullet and go for some meds or something.

 

[Iron Man]

OK....got some Coppersafe from the local Petsmart. I've been reluctant to dump this stuff in the tank (of course), so I've waited. Since waiting, I've changed the water twice to empty out some of the salt in the water (was not changing water while salting the tank). There are no new spots, and the same spots are on the same fish, not going away. I'm wondering now are these spots not something else.

Oh well....time will tell. Until then the fish are probably much happier to have the salt gone.

 

[Synirr]

I've used ich meds (to treat velvet) on 4 week old betta fry, nothing is going to happen as long as you follow the directions, and feel free to underdose a little, it'll probably still fix 'em right up.

Homeopathic remedies, BTW, have active ingredients diluted far past Avagadro's number. This means you're not going to find a single solitary molecule of active ingredient in your medicine; it is basically just water and sugar. Had you an ocean full of homeopathic remedy, you would have less than a drop of active ingredient in it. The idea is that the water takes on the properties of the ingredient through shaking so all the water molecules come into contact with it, but this is... well.... a quack theory. Homeopathy is, in my opinion, one of those ideas that made perfect sense in the dark ages, like plague being spread by smelling the dead (carrying flowers around was the solution.) In the beginning they used ingredients that would, in a healthy person, produce symptoms similar to that of the disease, diluted it until it was just water, and were good to go... fight fire with fire. Now I think they actually use ingredients that would work in larger doses, but the fact remains that you're still stuck with water and sugar.
There's truth to faith healing, which is why homeopathy works -- because you expect it to work, the placebo effect -- but the actual "medicine" is completely worthless. Always check to see if the medicine you're buying over the counter is homeopathic, some are and don't advertise it (like Head-On the headache remedy that you roll on your head. How it's supposed to make it through your skin and skull and to the source of the problem in the first place, I'll never know.)

 

[Wanda hornsey]

Might be worth also looking into a UV set-up if you want to keep more or less to a homeopathic treatment regime, we have one and find it really really worth the money.

Good Luck

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I just want to make sure here Iron Man, that you are positive you have whitespot in your tank? There are a whole load of fish deseases out there that give the appearance of white spots on fish, so just making sure you actually have this desease, this is what it should look like;

http/www.fishkeepinguk.co.uk/Images/whitespot.JPG

http/203.116.88.76/content/phase1/Custom...(whiteSpot).jpg

http/thatfishshop.com/j_misc/ich1.jpg

In long-term/bad cases of the parasite, finrot symptoms may appear on fish.