Successful ich treatment

[Balvenie]

Great website! I'm glad to have finally stumbled across other loach fans.

After reading the various posts on the treatment of ich, I thought I would share with you my recent experience. Over the seven years that I have kept freshwater aquariums, I have experienced ich a handful of times, usually after shortcutting the introduction of new fish to my main aquarium without properly quarantining first.

In the past, I would go to the pet store, buy whatever chemical the pet store staff recommended, and start dosing. I would often continue to lose fish, watching as a an aquarium-based version of "Survivor" unfolded in front of me.

More recently, I introduced some cardinal tetras into my aquarium and noticed whitespots on all of them as well as my clown loaches after about 5 days. After much reading and soul searching, I simply raised the temperature to 86 degrees fahrenheit. At first, nothing happened. On the third day, the number of whitespots on various infected fish seemed to lessen. By the fifth day, a few fish were entirely clear of the ich, while the others were improving. By the tenth day, I could not find any signs of ich. Over the course of the ten days, I did not lose a single fish.

While raising the temperature may not work for everyone, it clearly worked for me.

[andre]

Hi Balvenie

Welcome to LOL. Thank you for sharing your experience. Fortunately in many years I never experienced ich or other disease but I know that my luck won't last and I am very interested in the subject. My questions are:

For how long have your fish been ich free?

Do you vacuum your gravel regularly?

As far as I know high temps don't kill the parasite but simply accelerate its cycle. It may be possible that the "tomonts" are still in the tank and may attack your fish at a later stage.

Last question, do you have an UV sterilizer by any chance?

Regards
Andre

[Diana]

For many years it was known that Ich did not survive temperatures over about 86*F. (30*C).
The problem was to get the whole tank up to that temp, even the lowest corners under the substrate. One way was to raise the temp in the tank to about 90* F, hoping that those colder corners were also getting at least up past 86* for long enough to kill the Ich.
Attendant problems were oxygen in such a set up. Hot water holds so much less O2..

Anyway, this method worked until someone found out that it did not always work, that some Ich did not die at that high a temperature. I noticed a write up on this from the University of Florida about 3 years ago.

While heat may still be used against Ich, if the fish survive the heat, it is not a 100% way to deal with the situation.

Here is another method that can work.
Constant gravel vacs. Especially in a bare bottom tank. Removes the Ich before it can re-infest the fish. This will work with whatever temperature and water chemistry the fish thrive in, so there is no added stress from high temperature or salt or medicine.
Of course in a cool water tank you are likely to be doing a month or more of daily gravel vacs!

[Balvenie]

Hi Andre, Diana,

I kept the tank at about 86 for 10 days after reviewing a number of sites that discussed this method. The last day of that 10 day period was about 4 months ago so I'm hopefully the ich is completely gone. Throughout the 10 days, I kept my waterflow pretty high to ensure good water circulation. As mentioned by Diana, I watched for any telltale signs of oxygen-related stress. The corys are great for that given their surface gulping when times get tough.

All in all, I think the treatment was a success.

[Balvenie]

Just realized I didn't answer Andre's questions about vacuuming and UV. Yes, I vacuum my tank once a week, although I was doing it twice a week during the ich problem. No, I have never used a UV sterilizer. By the way, I friend of mine just built one for a fraction of the cost of what the stores typically charge. He used PVC pipe and a UV lamp. It seems to be working quite well for him.