# I handle ich like a pro.



## Kelso (Oct 28, 2009)

Assuming this is my FOURTH case of ich now, I defeated it in a week flat. Switched fish from my 28 to my 75 and moved the puffs to the 28 and was able to use it as a quarantine tank. Once I started proper treatement it's pretty much gone!


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## Romad (Jun 28, 2009)

Good on ya 

What's your treatment exactly? I'm currently in the middle of my first outbreak.


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## Angel079 (Feb 14, 2007)

Your puffer's are under attach now? Take it your new fish & them shared a home huh? It really does seem ich these days is much more common then back int he day :-(


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## Kelso (Oct 28, 2009)

I use ich attack and for them the temp is at 86. And what happened Natalie was they acquired ich about 2 weeks ago but I hadn't started any treatment until last week. I did some movement among my tanks so now they are alone in the 28, which makes treatment a lot easier.


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## Angel079 (Feb 14, 2007)

I hate it by now, I just plain hate it by now LOL I'll finish medication my 45g (for the 2nd time around) tonight, been pretty stubborn this time took me almost 3 weeks to get rid of it, I hate that stuff!


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## PaperclipGirl (Feb 7, 2010)

I just finished a second round of treatment for my first case of ick ( but I think the previous user had tons of it since the pharmacy that came with the tank had several types of ick treatments). I just turned the heat up on my tank a little so hopefully this will help. Per the bottle of instructions I have one more round to go - but I still have the white spots. URG!

Bottle up some of that luck and send me some, k?

~cheers


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## n1zjd (Jan 25, 2010)

Ive only had Ich once and it only lasted about a week. Its my understanding that you should do NOTHING special to treat it unless its severe. Raising the temp just causes more stress. Stress is what brought on the Ich in the first place right? The fish should be able to fight it off by themselves from what Ive been told/read. Just keep the water conditions perfect and wait it out. Obviously if its bad enough then treatment may be necessary though


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## Mean Harri (Dec 14, 2009)

Go Kelso go Kelso. woop woop
Ich, the parasite, is unaffected by medications until it leaves the fish. Higher temps speed up the life cycle of Ich. There is about a 3 day window to get the parasite killed with meds before it surrounds itself with a secretion in the gravel after leaving the fish and respawns to attack again. Once back inside the fish it is untouchable by meds in the water. Thus the longer treatment regimen and recommended raising of temp. Just an fyi. While ich is stressful as is raising the temp, the higher temp is not as much stressful as most tropical fish can handle the higher temps. Lower temps extend the ich life cycle. http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/disease/p/ich.htm


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## Kelso (Oct 28, 2009)

n1zjd said:


> Ive only had Ich once and it only lasted about a week. Its my understanding that you should do NOTHING special to treat it unless its severe. Raising the temp just causes more stress. Stress is what brought on the Ich in the first place right? The fish should be able to fight it off by themselves from what Ive been told/read. Just keep the water conditions perfect and wait it out. Obviously if its bad enough then treatment may be necessary though


I hear what you're saying, and it's how I have handled ich before. However, with puffers, they take ich to a whole new extreme. For some reason they are incredibly susceptible AND it takes forever for them to lose it.


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## n1zjd (Jan 25, 2010)

Kelso said:


> I hear what you're saying, and it's how I have handled ich before. However, with puffers, they take ich to a whole new extreme. For some reason they are incredibly susceptible AND it takes forever for them to lose it.


I kinda figured there was a good reason for the method your doing. I just wanted to also share what I had learned from my run-in with Ich. For all I know I was lucky with how easily it went away, and for all I know I may not be done with it yet! I did know that raising the temp speeds the life cycle. Just also wanted to point out that it adds additional stress to some species of fish even further weakening their immune system. I read everything I could to try and save my fish when they got it. Theres many different methods of getting ridding of it/speeding up the process however not all are safe for all species. I lost two fish with my Ich outbreak that could have possibly been prevented had I properly quarantined!


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## Pep (Dec 29, 2009)

n1zjd said:


> Ive only had Ich once and it only lasted about a week. Its my understanding that you should do NOTHING special to treat it unless its severe. Raising the temp just causes more stress. Stress is what brought on the Ich in the first place right? The fish should be able to fight it off by themselves from what Ive been told/read. Just keep the water conditions perfect and wait it out. Obviously if its bad enough then treatment may be necessary though


Interesting website. I wonder just "too bad" is though. I have two gourami's who have a 2-3 small spots each which I "think" is ich. 9 neon rainbowfish and 10 cherry barbs and 2 bn plecos show no signs of it at all. The Pearls have had the spots for a couple days each. Is that "not bad" or should I start treatment?

I see Kelso uses Ich Attack so that is good to know. Is this a popular choice or is everyone useing something different heheh?


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## Kelso (Oct 28, 2009)

I have tried a variety of medications, and nothing works as well as Ich Attack in my opinion.


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## Mikaila31 (Dec 18, 2008)

I use aquari-sol which always gets rid of it.


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## Pep (Dec 29, 2009)

Went looking for Ich Attack but the only Kordon product I could find today was Rid Ich which I understand is a chemical treatment as opposed to the ogranice Ich Attack is. I might not have much choice but to try it. Fish still look the same today, no worse but no better.:shock:


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## aunt kymmie (Jun 2, 2008)

I've used Kordon"s Rid Ich+ and it was totally successful. My fish dealt with it just fine. Should I ever have another case of ich I wouldn't hesitate to use it again. 
(I may have already posted this info? I'm old and forgetful. :-()


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## Bacchus (Mar 8, 2010)

Mean Harri said:


> Ich, the parasite, is unaffected by medications until it leaves the fish.
> Higher temps speed up the life cycle of Ich. There is about a 3 day window to get the parasite killed with meds before it surrounds itself with a secretion in the gravel after leaving the fish and respawns to attack again. Once back inside the fish it is untouchable by meds in the water. Thus the longer treatment regimen and recommended raising of temp. Just an fyi. While ich is stressful as is raising the temp, the higher temp is not as much stressful as most tropical fish can handle the higher temps. Lower temps extend the ich life cycle. http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/disease/p/ich.htm


this is all very good information and i agree with it.

raising the temps speeds up the life cycle and it is one thing you can do to speed up the treatment. you have to catch it in its free-swimming stage and that could take you a week or more at lower temps, and you would have to treat all that time. raising temps can shorten the life span significantly, and can outright kill the ich if your fish can tolerate very high temps, but that is varying. it is true that higher temps will lower oxygen levels and could add stress to your fish, but there are things to make it easier for them. first of all, leave the lights off during treatment unless you are observing for symptoms. also, you can drop the water level some to create more surface agitation and that will help with oxygen levels. you could also add an airstone. 

rid ich is a very good medication, but it has some drawbacks. it will stain the seals of your tank blue, and you could also notice it on your decor. so, it is best to take things out that you wouldnt like stained. for this reason and more i like to set up a hospital tank. you can use a cheap ten gallon tank or even an old cooler or large plastic bin. a hospital tank helps lower the amount of water you will need to change out during treatment. just move your filter to the hospital tank. what i like most about doing that is that in your main tank, without any fish in it, you can raise the temps as high as you can, and without a host fish present, all ich in the tank will die within days. then, you only need to treat the ich that are actually present on your fish...i hope that was clear. make sure you remove any carbon during treatment, and add it afterwards to absorb any meds.

that said, you need to figure out why your fish are getting ich. ich is pretty much always a result of stress. if you have had four outbreaks there is probably something going on that is causing stress.


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## Kelso (Oct 28, 2009)

It's not that I'm necessarily doing something wrong - puffers for some reason get ich for no reason I can tell. None of the other twenty something fish in the tank they were with got it...it was just them, they're weird like that.


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## Angel079 (Feb 14, 2007)

Maybe puffer's are just more sensitive. I had 2 outbreaks in the 45g and the oldest of the Rummy's (spc the big guy) never seems affected and neither is the pleco. So far any & all ich exp I had was really all with Tetra and I donno if that was a pure coincidence or if its really a sickness more prone to sensitive fish the stock of the 55g never had a single spot in their lives.
Hope your treatment is going successfully and you are not dealing with losses there.


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## bex101 (Mar 3, 2010)

Have you tryed adding salt to the tank? You will hear mixed reviews but most of the pet stores keep all the fish with low levels of salt now and apparently ick doesn't do well with salt or higher temps. We ended up useing copper-safe on our tank, I was not sure if it was ick or velvet or both. I just slowly increased the amount of copper in the tank so the cory's would get used to it.


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