Recurrent Ich - help!

[meera&tim]

Hello!

I know there are a lot of posts about Ich up already but we're completely stumped by the outbreak we're having and could really use some advice from more seasoned owners.

So the backstory is that about a month ago we bought 6 baby clown loaches (they're about 2.5cm long). We previously had two chiclids and 6 gold barbs in the tank but the chichlids started breeding and becoming extremely aggressive - to the point where the barbs were getting wounds which became infected. Fortunately we know of an aquarium that takes fish in so we gave them back to start anew. We left the tank empty for about 2 weeks to clear any bacteria. The only living things in the tank now besides the loaches are three snails and some java fern.

Almost immediately we noticed one or two of the loaches flashing and one quickly went quite grey and lackluster. We turned the heat gradually up to 30 degrees C as this seems to be the most common and safest form of treatment and we have kept it at this temperature for over 3 weeks now. We also tried a course of White Spot treatment (at half dose as we read that it's very toxic for loaches). That didn't seem to work so we tried another remedy that was recommended which was to coat their food (we feed them a mix of flakes and fresh prawn) in garlic.

The grey loach died quite early on but the others seemed to recover. Then one got very skinny and his swim bladder seemed to go wrong. He has now passed away too. The others were starting to look healthier, having noticed the tell-tale white spots during the first week they seemed to have gone and we thought perhaps the cycle had completed and the ordeal might be over. Then two days ago we noticed more intense flashing and the spots are back - only now there are even more than before!

We haven't changed the temperature or their diet. We have done water changes every other day since the problem began. We've been testing the water parameters since before we introduced the loaches and they've remained stable and all at normal, healthy levels.

A few years ago we kept loaches and they were fine for several years until Ich wiped them all out. I was really hoping that this time around if we were extremely vigilant we could avoid (or at least successfully treat!) another outbreak. We just can't work out if we are doing something wrong or if these poor fish are just extremely unlucky. We will be so grateful for any advice you may have.

Many thanks

[mikev]

Well, if you are actually treating ich for three weeks and not getting the results, either you have an extraordinary difficult strain or you are not doing this right. The latter is far more probable. Given that you are not naming the meds you are using it is not possible to comment on them but 30C=86F is usually insufficient to eradicate ick on its own. And if you were treating with malachite green based meds you possibly created resistance to it in your ich strain, meaning that most of the common meds will no longer work.

Good alternative meds that in most cases (never 100%!) yield full Ick disappearance in 4 days are quinine and flubendazole.

[meera&tim]

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. The medication we used is called 'King British White Spot Control'. It specifically says on the instructions to only use half doses with loaches. It contains malachite green (4% solution) Acriflavine (0.0005%w/w) and quinine sulphate (0.0004% w/w). The medication could have made the strain resistant? How could this have happened? I'm not questioning your judgement, I'm just trying to figure out how this happened and what to do next!

Many thanks again

[mikev]

No, you should always question my (and everyone else's!) judgement, this is the only sane approach.

I take what I said back. The med you are using (White Spot Control) is an unusual formula, it is the first time I see quinine mixed with dyes, and I do not have any idea whether what I said is true for it (It is definitely true for more common formulas based on malachite green)... simply if you areunderdosing and not fully killing the parasite it stays and gets stronger.--- personally seen this happening.

The combination of mal.green and quinine is actually a very good/powerful tool.... if the concentration of both is enough.

It is still quite possible that the dose you have is just insufficient... halfdosing with some meds results in ineffective med.... what is the mg/L amounts actually used by you? (one logical problem in the recipe i see even without these numbers: quinine component must not be half-dosed!).

Regardless of all this: clearly the med is not working, perhaps because of half-dosing. I'd switch right away to something like RidIch+ (conventional formula, malachite green+formalin, known to be still effective when half-dosing). If the disease is not eliminated within 5 days, Quinine (but no halfdosing), or a derivative of it (usually, chloroquine ), and/or flubendazole.... you will have mounting losses if you let this continue for too long.