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Tank:

55g Planted - and yes, it's cycled. No carbon in any filter. EDIT: Ammonia is zero.
9 Neon Tetras
6 X-Ray Tetras
5 Platys
4 Gold Zebra Danios
1 German Blue Ram

Fish with Visible Ich:

1 Neon Tetra
1 Platy
1 German Blue Ram

What I've been doing for treatment:

Day 1 - Ich diagnosed based on salt-grain appearance
Days 2-7 - Gradually raise temperature from 75 to 82.
Day 2 - Add 1/2 dose of Jungle Ick Guard (based on Victoria Green)
Day 5 - Add a second half-dose
Day 8 - Change 50% water, add a third half-dose. The bottle is empty.
Day 10 - Today

Symptoms and Results:

I started out with three fish showing visible signs - the lone neon, the platy, and the ram. The ram is the only fish that ever showed serious amounts of Ich. The neon has always had a mild case, and the only spot I can find on the platy is a small one on the tail.

Since then, the ram's gotten somewhat better but still has eight spots. The neon shows one, on the tail, and so does the platy.

Other fish have shown signs of irritation, on and off, but they've decreased over time, so now it just looks like those three fish are still affected.

Short form: I'm basically where I started.

What I want to do now:

The LFS I went to this morning, disappointingly, didn't have any Ick Guard. Well, I've been losing confidence in the stuff anyway. If it was working well, I should have seen completely clean fish three or four days ago, and instead what I have is exactly the same three fish with exactly the same symptoms, and a bunch of other fish that don't even seem to care.

So I got some Quick Cure instead (traditional Malachite Green and formalin). What I plan to do is put in carbon now, leave that for a day, do a 50% change tomorrow, and Saturday morning, start adding Quick Cure at a rate of 25 drops per day for 7 days (under the assumption that it'll only take 3 days for all Ich to get to the free-swimming stage).

What I want to know before I act further:

1. Will Quick Cure kill the bacterial filter? If so, I'll have to get another filter sponge going on my 20g.

2. Should I instead just go find more Ick Guard?

3. Is it possible that this isn't Ich? It looks just like it, except my fish aren't completely covered in salt, which seems like par for the course with a stubborn case of Ich.

4. Recommendations on a dosing regimen?

5. Should I just boost heat to 86-88 and wait, instead? Hazards: my current heaters (2 x 100 watt) simply can't handle that load, 82 is already stressing them, so I'd have to get a bigger 200-watt heater solely for the ability to boost temperature through the roof.

Any other ideas are welcome.

Last edited by Silverlight at 28-Oct-2004 14:18

Various ich meds do not work the same for everybody...

That's why some will say they cured ich with a certain med while another claims the same med did nothing.

Heat is the number one treatment since the ich parasite hates warm, excessively warm, tanks.

Purchase the new heater and slowly, over a 24 hour period, crank the temp up to 90 degrees and dose "Rid Ich Plus" according to directions.

Because high heat robs some oxygen content from the water, make sure you increase surface movement to allow for a quicker oxygen/gas exchange.

Treatment continues for seven to ten days or until all spots are gone.

--garyroland.

--Vero Beach, Florida.

- Its important to dose the meds according to directions as anything less with not be sufficient to kill the Ick. Half doses - when trying to consider those fish perhaps more sensitive than others - will not do the job.

x

Mal has it right...

When we go out for a steak dinner she pays half and makes me pay the other half.

--garyroland.

Increasing temp simply speeds up the life cycle, the temp has to be in the 90's and above to actually kill ich.

You won't always see alot of spots when it's ich. I've only ever seen a few spots each of the times I've had ich. I've always treated with maracide, which worked, only had to do a second dose in one case. You can try changing meds after running carbon and doing a water change.

^_^
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..."Increasing temp simply speeds up the life cycle, the temp has to be in the 90's and above to actually kill ich."

Exactly what temp is "above the 90's"??

Are you suggesting the 100's??

Fish fry time.

--garyroland.

Although there are reported incidences (not widespread) where the protozoa survived temps up to 92F, normally the protozoa's life cycle becomes affected above 87F, and may well be killed by temps of 88/89F, and extremely probably at 90F, unless you are the lucky one with the rare super-strain who survives temps this high.

x

Update:

I've had carbon running all night, and I'm up to about 87 degrees. I'll probably be able to make 90, but not 92 (I'll have to see how it goes). I realized yesterday that my biggest heat sink was evaporation, so I covered the top.

I'm worried about the formalin/malachite green combination with neons. Right now my plan is to dose ten drops at 1-hour intervals over five hours, to bring it up to full dosage - or to bring it up to the point where my tetras start to visibly stress, at which point I'll probably stop, and use that many drops daily.

Have you bought that new batch of meds yet? If not, get one without the malachite green in - I just treated neons with formaldehyde, and they all did very well except for one.

Right now I'm getting extremely tempted to just try to keep the heat at 88-90 for a week and forget the meds. Meds scare me. (No salt either.)

I don't remember even seeing a straight formaldehyde solution at my good LFS. The only other significant remedy they had was Nox-Ich, which I've learned is just malachite green. Every other remedy was extremely cost-ineffective, to the point where I seriously considered ordering a UV sterilizer.

As for the rest of the LFSes...low fish stock, low dry-goods stock, high prices. I'm sure you guys know the drill. And if I order online, I may as well see where a straight heat treatment gets me. It's a pretty mild case compared to other tanks I've seen (including my poor head-and-tail-lights from who knows how many months ago).

I hate strategic paralysis....

The high-heat treatment for treating Clown Loaches, who are susceptible to ich, is 95 degrees, 35c, for a week to ten days with no meds...

Clowns prefer a normal tank temp of 86 degrees so they have no problem with the increase.

Other hobbyists who have tried the high heat treatment reported success with other species but some stress was apparent on smaller trops.

Increased water surface movement is mandatory since high heat tends to decrease the oxygen content of water.

Although we're not dealing with Clowns here, you should be aware that more Clowns have been killed by meds than ich.

--garyroland.

I'm going to try heat at 90 for a week then, with extra powerhead circulation, and see where it gets me. I won't post again until I actually have something new to report.

I thought I'd provide an update for anyone who was interested.

On the 29th I put carbon in the HOB filter to pull out the remaining Jungle Ich Guard, and pushed the temperature all the way to 90 by the next morning.

For the next few days, there were still ich spots, but on the 1st, I couldn't find a single one. What's more, all of my fish seemed happy and unstressed, if a little active, and there were no signs of flashing or anything like it.

As of this morning, the 4th, I haven't seen a single sign of Ich, so I'm going to slowly lower the temperature back to 75 over the course of the next day.

I haven't done any water changes during this time, primarily because I wasn't confident of my ability to temperature-match the water.

A few things I found out and/or realized:

Victoria Green is actually an alias for Malachite Green. Who knows why they do this, but it bugs me because the chemical is suspected of being carcinogenic and it's irresponsible as hell not to give the right chemical name so people can find these things out.

Ich Guard contains salt, so it's impossible to say if heat alone killed the ich. I don't believe the salt helped, because it didn't help for the preceeding nine, but this wasn't a scientific test. However, the next time I get an ich outbreak, I am only going to treat it with increased temperature, and see how that does.