Ich

[sweetp544]

I have a 29 gallon tank, and a few days ago my betta had ich. All of the other fish were fine. We got Mardel brand maracide ich treatment and have been treating the tank like the package says. Every other day. Now this brand says you dont need to raise the temp or do water change, but we did anyway. It says to treat on days 1, 3 , 5 which we did. Now almost all of our fish last night, which was day 5, have ich. Is there some other brand of medication we can use?? Also our guppy just had fry yesterday so im a little concerned about them being in there too. Any help would be appreciated i have to get rid of this stuff.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

not sure for the USA, but the king british white stuff is supposed to be quite good. touch wood, I've never had ich in any of my tanks though so can't speak from experience.

 

[Marcos]

The med won't really work until the Ich has left the fish and is in the water, raising the temp to 29degC will help this and will also aid killing it as the Ich cannot live in this temp for any period of time. It may take a week for the Ich to leave the fish and die so be patient and keep up the meds.

 

[sweetp544]

I was keeping the temp up because i did read that about the ich had to be off the fish first. How long does this stuff normally stay??? And do you think it would hurt my new fry i dont really have a place to move them at the moment.

 

[oneponygirl]

I'm right there with you. My tank (also 29g) is also being treated for Ich. I am on day 6 of treatment and still seeing white flecks on some fish, on others it has cleared up. I've lost five fish so far, two before I knew it was Ich and three since. Hope you don't have any loses.

 

[Dwarfs]

Treating ich can be difficult. The reason for raising the tank's temperature is to speed up the ich's metabolism and reproduction rate. Now the ich imbedded under the fish's scales (That's why meds don't kill the ich attached to the fish) will produce much more larvae, which will be in the water column. The medication should be present in the water to kill off the larvae, and the ich living in the fish will die off eventually. The fish will be able to cope with the remaining ich fairly well because of the lack of new parasites to dig under the fish's scales.

Going by this information, I can cure ich very quickly with most anti-parasitic medication, even aquarium salt works in correct dosages.

Basically, you need to raise the temp to get the ich cleared up quicker, and the meds you use will work as long as they are designed to kill unprotected parasites.

HTH