Ich

[Aqua Tom]

Hi all.

Bad day today, my whole shoal of tetra have caught white spot. i got some treatment today & dosed the water as per instructions. i also read that i should raise the tempreture. I do not have a q tank so it would mean warming up all my fish, angel, sterba corys & BN. is this ok & what temp do i raise it to?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Raise the tank temp to around 28/29 degrees, the fish will be fine at this temp. Its very important to treat all the fish in the tank as a whole as whitespot/Ich is very infectious fish parasite.

The point to warming up the tank water is that the parasite has 3 life cycles, not all of which are visible to the naked eye. When the parasite is on the fish (visible as white spots) it can not actually be affected by the meds, but it eventually drops off the fish and becomes free swimming again (not visible) and this is when it can actually be killed by the medication. The warmer the tank the quicker the parasites life cycles and thus the quicker you can get rid of it.

Because of its robust & tricky nature its generally advised that you treat the tank for a minimum of 2-3 weeks (otherwise you may risk not killing it off properly and having it make a revival in the tank). Cleaning the tank glass with a sponge, cleaning the substrate & doing lots of small water changes etc can help reduce the background levels of the parasite a lot (make sure you replace any meds lost from the water though etc) v .

 

[Rynofasho]

Only the Corys would be intolerant of high heat.

I'm treating Ich right now in a tank with Corys, and I have the heat at 81F. It is enough to considerably speed up the lifecycle of Ich, and not too much on the Corys. As the medicine you got may or may not oxidize in the water, and heating it up will make for less free oxygen, be sure you either have plenty of surface agitation from your filter (perhaps keep the tank level a bit lower to create more of a splash) or have an airstone going to at least help some.

I'm using Rid Ich +, dosing at 1/2 strength because of the Corys, and today I had no spots for the first day. Seems to be going well and everyone looks like they will pull through (after the first three losses).

I'm also vacuuming the heck out of the substrate on every change, and changing my filter floss every couple of days to try to get rid of as much as I can that the medicine isn't treating.

 

[This Old Spouse]

I have several tanks. Only the 55g has a fish with Ich right now. Would it harm the other fish if I treated all the tanks for Ich? I just can't see how I can avoid the other fish getting it.