getting rid of ich, without the blue stuff?

[melonhead]

is there any way, other than the blue stuff, to get rid of ich? i just turned on my lights and noticed one or two dots, on a few fish (a hatchet, a swordtail and a few botias). any way to nip this in the bud without resorting to the blue stuff? i've heard to raise the temp, but it's already kind of high.

i just replaced all my stuff, and i'd hate to have to re-stain my tubes and silicone and stuff.
i dunno about you guys, but that stuff never came off the seams of my other tank.

PLEASE? ANY SUGGESTIONS ASAP WOULD BE MUCH APPRECIATED.

peace.
LP

[Lexus]

Turn up the temperature and add salt.... depending on what kind of fish you have

[melonhead]

i have a pleco, botias, cories....i've heard NOT to add salt to their tank.

and the temp is already at 78 F. i don't know if i should make it any warmer.
i'm pretty sure the pleco doesn't like it hotter, cuz whenever it goes up too high, he stops sucking and just sits there.

still need advice!!
thanks.
LP

[DavidDoyle]

Freshwater Ich
Symptoms: Fish look like they have little white salt grains on them and may scratch against objects in the tank.
White spot disease (Ichthyopthirius multifiliis) is caused by a protozoan with a life cycle that includes a free-living stage. Ich grows on a fish --> it falls off and attaches to gravel or tank glass --> it reproduces to MANY parasites --> these swarmers then attach to other fish. If the swarmers do not find a fish host, they die in about 3 days (depending on the water temperature).

Therefore, to treat it, medicine must be added to the display tank to kill free-living parasites. If fish are removed to quarantine, parasites living in the tank will escape the treatment -- unless ALL fish are removed for about a week in freshwater or three weeks in saltwater systems. In a reef tank, where invertebrates are sensitive to ich medications, removing the fish is the only option. Some people think that ich is probably dormant in most tanks. It is most often triggered by temperature fluctuations.

Remedy: For most fish, use a medication with formalin and malachite green. These are the active ingredients in many ich medications at fish shops. Some products are Kordon's Rid Ich and Aquarium Products' Quick Cure. Just read the label and you may find others. Check for temperature fluctuations in the tank and fix them to avoid recurrences. Note that tetras can be a little sensitive to malachite green, so use it at half the dose.

Use these products as directed (usually a daily dose) until all of the fish are spot-free. Then dose every three days for a total of four more doses. This will kill any free-swimming parasites as they hatch out of cysts.

Another remedy is to raise the tank temperature to about 90 deg F and add 1 tsp/gallon salt to the water. Not all fish tolerate this.

Finally, one can treat ich with a ``transfer method.'' Fish are moved daily into a different tank with clean, conditioned, warmed water. Parasites that came off of the fish are left behind in the tank. After moving the fish daily for a week, the fish (presumably cured) can be put back into the main tank. The disadvantage of this method is that it stresses both fish and fishkeeper.

[JohnPaul]

The best ich treatment out there is upping temp to 86-87 (no, it doesn't have to be 90) and adding 1 tsp salt/gal, and keeping those water conditions there for about 2 weeks. Technically speaking, the salt is not absolutely necessary--what the salt does is forces the ich parasites to detach from the fish. It is the temperature that actually kills the ich.

Unfortunately, a lot of your fish are probably salt and temperature sensitive. Seems to me you have a couple of options.

One would be to keep all your fish in your main tank. Add a small amount of salt and gradually up the temp to 86, keep it there 2 weeks. Periodically vacuum the gravel too, since that is there the parasites will be living. And hope the high temp doesn't stress the fish.

Option #2 is to treat main tank with ich-removing chemicals. Problem here is they often stain stuff (as you know), plus, many of them will wipe out the good bacteria in your filter, leading to a mini-cycle or even meaning you would have to start all over on cycling your tank.

Option #3 is to remove all the fish to a quarantine tank. Keep the temp in there normal and use a medicine to kill the ich on those fish. At the same time, since there are now no fish in your main tank, up the temp to 87 or so and let it sit there for two weeks, killing any ich in the tank.

[turtlehead]

turn up the temp to mid 80s - high 80s and the bule stuff is called metaflix.

[Lexus]

melafix is not blue, cure all is....

[Vivid-Dawn]

I tried a little bit of all options...and then some! This is my first time keeping fish, so that's why I might have gone a little over-board, since I wanted to make sure it was totally gone.
I put my fish (at the time, it was a male guppy (the other two males had already died), a pleco, and a Molly) into a quarantine tank (one of those Cheese Ball buckets)... it had no gravel or decorations. I put RidIch (Kordon's) in the water, raised the temp from 75 to 80 and put in a normal dose of salt. I changed the quarantine water every 24 hours.
In the infected display tank, I just took everything out and washed tank and decorations in a mild bleach solution (followed the instructions on the bottle for house cleaning, 3/4 cup to a gallon), and then rinsed everything really, really well. I let it air out a few days, and set it back up, with new gravel (that I wanted anyway, since I found pebbles that were smoother). Of course, this means a new cycle... but now all my fish seem okay.
My pleco didn't seem to mind the high temp or salt too much... didn't change behavior or anything, that I could tell.

...and now, three weeks later, they have fin rot *sigh*
So maybe I didn't clean everything so well after all LOL But hey, at least they don't have Ich!