# Ich from hell, but I have another question



## Kaddock (Oct 23, 2007)

Well, I have a large barb and a large catfish that just can't shake the ich. I believe at this point it is stress due to the tank being too small. I've battled it back several times now, and the other fish have no symptoms... If you have any suggestions aside from upgrading tanks (I will when I can), I'll take them. I've mostly used quick cure recently.

The actual question is this- do snails carry ich? I have an assassin snail breeding colony that has dropped to 10% of it's original size with the addition of a crayfish (who is eating all their food). Since they have gone cannibal, and I haven't figured out the feeding situation yet, it seems the best way to solve this is add feeder snails. I have a ton of them in the tank with the ichy fish! Is it safe to pull these out? There are no fish in the assassin tank, just a crawdad and a bunch of plants.


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## nicolaas (Jan 15, 2012)

Wat sort of barb and cat fish?
Try to rays the temp to 30C.

I rely don't know if snails carry ICH.


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## Kaddock (Oct 23, 2007)

Well, now that I've researched this, it wasn't hard to find. I'm kind of surprised that no one has input on this though. Anyway, I'll answer my own question, and that way any curious folks will have access to the best answer I could find-

"Without a host (fish) the Ich will be starved out after 8 weeks. You can keep your inverts in. Ich parasites can attach themselves to inverts but they don't get what they need from them to survive - food."

I have found this same answer several places, and will be transferring a large amount of snails from my ich infected tank to a small, invert (assassin snail / crayfish) tank. I hope this works... If not, my assassin colony is almost gone. I find new empty shells daily. :-(


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## Kaddock (Oct 23, 2007)

Well, I don't think it's ich anymore, and the crayfish died a couple days after I added the snails. Now it's all a mystery. I've decided to keep all visible creatures besides snails out of this tank. I don't know why, but it seems to be cursed when it comes to fish and crusties. It's never worked out!!! Argh.


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

Ich is very easy to treat. The fact that it keeps coming back means one of two things - either you reintroduced it into the tank somehow, or you never really got rid of it in the first place. Just because you don't see spots anymore doesn't mean it's not there - the parasite can live in the gills, out of sight, for a long time. Parasites are symbiotic, so ideally they and their host strike a balance and live in harmony. However, in adverse conditions, the fish is no longer able to contain the parasite and it starts spreading. 

Posting pics would be immensely helpful.


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## Kaddock (Oct 23, 2007)

Hi there! I'm pretty sure it's not ich, because it hasn't spread or affected any fish in the tank besides two. I've been observing these bumps for a very long time. They neither spread nor change position, but they do recede and swell (on the barb at least). These two fish are a large male barb and a sun catfish. According to the guy at the fish store, bumps in this area come and go naturally with both male barbs and catfish. He said they protrude more on the male barb when he's ready to mate. 

Any feedback? I'm not really that worried about it anymore. I do need a bigger tank, but they don't seem super stressed or have any other symptoms of disease. 

I just thought it was coincidental that my crayfish happened to die so soon after I added those snails... I can't think of a good reason why he would have. I didn't add water from another tank, and ich doesn't aggressively attack arthropods anyway so... I think there was an ammonia spike honestly. I haven't been doing much water maintenance in that tank since I got my canister filter and have been using it pretty exclusively for raising assassin snails.


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## Kaddock (Oct 23, 2007)

I hate to bump, but does anyone have any feedback on these issues?

The barb and cat seem fine, but I have yet to confirm this assumption with more than one person (and the fish store has sooo many opinions...). My friend is talking about gifting me a 200 gal aquarium, so their stress may soon be mostly gone!!! :-D

As for the small tank, I'm about to launch a shift in the water levels, which I'll post about elsewhere.


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

Again, a picture is worth a thousand words. Without one, it's very hard to know.


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## Kaddock (Oct 23, 2007)

jaysee said:


> Again, a picture is worth a thousand words. Without one, it's very hard to know.


I just took about twenty pictures with my crappy camera. I can't even see any of the symptoms in the pictures, so it's kinda pointless really. I tried my girl's camera too. I can't even see the symptoms in a video.

I'm interested to know if this thing about male barbs is true... I've had a lot of barbs over the last 20 years of fish keeping, and have never seen this before. :hmm:


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

I have kept many barb species and have never seen anything like that. Male goldfish have the bumps, though, and they are in the same family.


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## Kaddock (Oct 23, 2007)

jaysee said:


> I have kept many barb species and have never seen anything like that. Male goldfish have the bumps, though, and they are in the same family.


Then perhaps this is just a weird barb. I can't remember the name, and I have never seen them anywhere else besides my tank. I've never seen them in a store since!


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