First Time Ich

[Geradmg513]

I recently discovered on Sunday my Clown Loaches and one of my Opaline Gouramis had Ich. I'm not sure sure where it came from but my local fish shop told me to try Formalin MS and Nox-Ich at half dosage so it wasn't hard on my clown loaches. II tested the water and it was fine. I did a 20% water change, used both medications and kept my tank at 80 degrees. As of today am really not seeing any thing clearing up either. It also looks like it may be spreading to my other fish. At this point I am not sure what to do.

[lohachata]

take the temp to 86 F......right now.....some folks say to do it a couple of degrees a day..by then the entire tank will be dead...do it now...keep treating and doing water changes before every treatment....after that keep the temp at 82........

[Geradmg513]

Keep it at 82 after the Ich is gone?

[Angelclown]

I have had to deal with ich with my clown loaches. What I did is raised the temp to 86 degrees F slowly, every one to two degrees every 2 hours or so. Do not do water changes before every treatment as that will make the medication ineffective. Treat for however long the bottle says the treat for, for example 3 days, with no water changes. Then after 24 hours after the third treatment, do a 50% water change. If ich is not gone, start treatment again. Oh during treatment, you should remove the carbon from your filter. The carbon will make the treatment ineffective. After the ich is gone and treatment is done, leave the temp at 86 degrees F, do not lower it as this will bring back the ich and you will be treating for ich again. There are strains of ich that are resistant to medication. If you can get your hands on quinine sulfate, that would be a good thing.

Each treatment use the same half dose, same amount, that you dose the first time/dose, that is if you can't get your hands on quinine sulfate.

[Geradmg513]

Isnt that temp stressful on tge fish to leave it on? I have Angels, Gorami, Sword, Mollie, and Platy

[kcrunch]

From what I have read and heard the temp will be more detrimental to the disease and not the fish. The lower temp allows the Ich to thrive.

[Obsidian]

You really need to raise the tank temperature if you want to deal with the ich. You can drop it back later- but later is a bit down the road. It will not harm your fish to have the temp higher for now, and that will be much less stress than the ich. First step is to get rid of the ich. You want your tank at 86 degrees to treat ich.

When I get ich I will up temp for at least a month past last symptom. So once all the ich parasites are gone off of the body- leave it up for a month after that, then I start lowering back to 78-80.

You want the heat because it makes the ich parasite more susceptible to treatment over the shortest period of time. The parasites life cycle is 2 weeks. It can only be killed in free swimming stage. Because it takes a while for them all to die off and go through the living cycle I go the full month. That gives 2 weeks to even the hardiest hanger oner

I treat ich with Freshwater Salt and increased heat. Some will use ich medications in which case you will follow directions on the bottle.

With salt and increased water temperature you can do water changes more regularly to get them as much clean water as possible. But no need to overdo it. If you are using salt for treatment then you will want to add salt back in with the new water BUT add less than you would add when first starting. Why? Water evaps off, salt does not- therefore the salinity will slowly climb if you do not adjust for it.

When I am done with the "treatment" phase- ie starting to lower temperature and all signs of it are gone- I will then decrease salinity the easy way- stop adding salt. Eventually your tank will be salt free with just regular water changes. And being in there in the meantime will not hurt the tank.

With scaleless fish use medications INCLUDING salt at half strength unless directed otherwise specifically on the meds label. If it does not give directs specific to scaleless fish then use it half strength. Fish that appear "smooth" are scaleless- like a loach.

[Geradmg513]

I pulled all the carbon out and turned the temp to 86. I am going to do another treatment tonight. I would use salt but I was told Angels are, sensitive to salt. How can I prevent Ich in the future

[Geradmg513]

Also do I still feed them daily or every other day?