robbob2112
08-17-2008, 3:35 PM
Title says it all and I thought I would take a moment to ramble on. I have everything under control now.
It is a long read with lots of detail that most people wont care for. I found many people suggesting various things with some good advice, but I always want to know WHY something is done verse just taking things at face value.
I've been keeping fish for several years and never had to fight any sort of parasite.
Since I have kept mostly mollies and swordtails in a planted tank I always have to many fry hanging around. This gave me the excuse to setup a cichlid tank to feed them to. The initial idea of a 30 gallon quickly morphed into a 75 gallon with crushed coral, stacked slate, and Malawi cichlids (mostly different varieties of peacocks) and 3 spotted loaches. Cloned the filter with half the media from another tank, never saw a NH4/NO2 spike so instantly cycled is a good thing.
The LFS deals almost exclusively with African cichlids and had been in business selling them for 25+ years, so I took most of their stocking recommendations. Their tanks are on a common air supply, but no mixed water. I am assuming the Ich came in with the loaches since they were from a different tank and were basically alone in that tank. All the cichlids were in species specific tanks.
Needless to say I have learned a ton from AC about keeping cichlids.
Of course a week after the fish are added to my they broke out with a case of Ich. The loaches were hardest hit, I assume because they are scaleless.
Swung by the LFS and they had me boost the temp 2 degrees to 82F, add 6 tablespoons of salt and they gave me enough "clout" to treat the tank for 2 days. Followed their instructions and the ich from the cichlids disappeared. The loaches still had white spots on them and were NOT happy.
Now to things I learned about Clout:
1. Clout works great for parasites, but according to mfg should be 4 days worth of treatments not two.
2. Clout WILL stain the silicon in the tank blue, not a huge issue to me since I have solid blue background. I did change out the air lines afterwords since they were a much darker blue.
3. Clout will stain some of the crush coral blue.
4. Clout's toxic effect dissipates after roughly 2 hours and light doesn't affect it.
5. Mfg warns NOT to use with scaleless fish like loaches, loaches.com say it works ok on them unless they are already weak.
6. Clout KILLS any inverts including the snails I had put in there for loaches to eat.
Things I learned about Ich:
1. It has a 3 stage life cycle and is only vulnerable in the swimming stage.
2. It MUST find a host pretty quick to survive once it starts swimming.
3. High temps 80~85 only increase the speed of the life cycle, i.e. 2~3 days to go through all 3 stages instead of 14 days at 75 degrees. Varies according to temp.
4. Temps above 85 degrees inhibit the reproductive stage of Ich (i.e. when the white spots fall apart and settle into the substrate before they become free swimming)... (got that from a grad study from University of Florida on breeding fish for commercial uses)
5. Salt... NaCl to be exact since there are many types of salt.... People say to add X amount of "Salt" to kill the Ich... Well, the devil is in the details. From a different study, the actual amount added "should" bring the specific gravity of the water up to 1.002~1.003. Once you are at that level the osmotic pressure causes the free swimming stage of ich to rupture its cell walls. Other types of salt have no effect, so marine salt, cichlid salt, Epsom salt, etc won't help until the NaCl concentration is up there.
6. The free swimming stage of Ich is between 30 and 50 microns in size. So, it is possible to mechanically filter it out using a H.O.T. magnum (30 micron filter) or Aqua Clear "Quick Filter" (1 micron) with power head since they both go down below that. Not sure how effective that is, but is sure does make the water CLEAR when there is nothing floating around. There are probably others out there to.
What I did:
Clout for two days, temp to 82 degrees, 6 tablespoons of NaCl.
Result: The loaches were NOT happy with it at all, but they are still alive. Still signs of Ich on the loaches, but the cichlids were all clear.
Research over those two days says Clout should be a last resort not the first one. Says should try "Heat and Salt" method without being very specific about what that means...
More research on salt: I find the specific gravity listed several places and since I have a refractometer I add salt to get it to 1.002. This works out to about 2.25 teaspoons per gallon, so WAY more than the LFS originally said. Added it over a period of 3 days with 20% water changes/gravel vacs to remove as much ich as possible. The loaches are not happy with salt any more than they were with the Clout.
More research on heat this whole time trying to find the what and why it helps verse just someone repeating what they heard. Run across that study that not only tells how high to turn it, but WHY so now I know 85 degrees is my target.
Day 5 and the ich has fallen off the loaches now, but one is clearly distressed and looks all sunken in. Moved that one to a QT tank with NO salt and normal temp in it along with lots of snails for food. He is doing better now.
Added Quick Filter along with power head, digital thermometer, and additional heater. Digital thermometer is SO much easier to read than the old style. The original 200 watt heater was not capable of giving me 20 degree rise from ambient and maintaining it, so added a 250 watt. Cold snap here an I had SNOW yesterday, 35 degrees outside 65 degrees inside. I refuse to turn on the furnace in August, that is just crazy.
Did 50% water change without replacing the salt and finished boosting the temp to 85~86 degrees. One of the cichlids was starting a slight case of bloat and I found that high NaCl can cause that... so lets get rid of it.
Day 8 - still no signs of new ich so I think I am in the clear. Another 20% water change without replacing the salt. Leaving the temp at 85 degrees. The sick loach is much happier now and starting to fill out again. No signs of ich on him either and it had all dropped off before I moved him, so here is hoping he is done with it as well. I'll let him stay in the QT tank for a few weeks just to see.
This is where I am at...I plan to keep changing the water and gradually removing the salt about 20% at a time and lower the temp over the a couple of days starting about day 14. The fish with the slight case of bloat seems to be normal now, maybe he just needed to poop.
So, back to my original statement ... Ich Sucks.
It is a long read with lots of detail that most people wont care for. I found many people suggesting various things with some good advice, but I always want to know WHY something is done verse just taking things at face value.
I've been keeping fish for several years and never had to fight any sort of parasite.
Since I have kept mostly mollies and swordtails in a planted tank I always have to many fry hanging around. This gave me the excuse to setup a cichlid tank to feed them to. The initial idea of a 30 gallon quickly morphed into a 75 gallon with crushed coral, stacked slate, and Malawi cichlids (mostly different varieties of peacocks) and 3 spotted loaches. Cloned the filter with half the media from another tank, never saw a NH4/NO2 spike so instantly cycled is a good thing.
The LFS deals almost exclusively with African cichlids and had been in business selling them for 25+ years, so I took most of their stocking recommendations. Their tanks are on a common air supply, but no mixed water. I am assuming the Ich came in with the loaches since they were from a different tank and were basically alone in that tank. All the cichlids were in species specific tanks.
Needless to say I have learned a ton from AC about keeping cichlids.
Of course a week after the fish are added to my they broke out with a case of Ich. The loaches were hardest hit, I assume because they are scaleless.
Swung by the LFS and they had me boost the temp 2 degrees to 82F, add 6 tablespoons of salt and they gave me enough "clout" to treat the tank for 2 days. Followed their instructions and the ich from the cichlids disappeared. The loaches still had white spots on them and were NOT happy.
Now to things I learned about Clout:
1. Clout works great for parasites, but according to mfg should be 4 days worth of treatments not two.
2. Clout WILL stain the silicon in the tank blue, not a huge issue to me since I have solid blue background. I did change out the air lines afterwords since they were a much darker blue.
3. Clout will stain some of the crush coral blue.
4. Clout's toxic effect dissipates after roughly 2 hours and light doesn't affect it.
5. Mfg warns NOT to use with scaleless fish like loaches, loaches.com say it works ok on them unless they are already weak.
6. Clout KILLS any inverts including the snails I had put in there for loaches to eat.
Things I learned about Ich:
1. It has a 3 stage life cycle and is only vulnerable in the swimming stage.
2. It MUST find a host pretty quick to survive once it starts swimming.
3. High temps 80~85 only increase the speed of the life cycle, i.e. 2~3 days to go through all 3 stages instead of 14 days at 75 degrees. Varies according to temp.
4. Temps above 85 degrees inhibit the reproductive stage of Ich (i.e. when the white spots fall apart and settle into the substrate before they become free swimming)... (got that from a grad study from University of Florida on breeding fish for commercial uses)
5. Salt... NaCl to be exact since there are many types of salt.... People say to add X amount of "Salt" to kill the Ich... Well, the devil is in the details. From a different study, the actual amount added "should" bring the specific gravity of the water up to 1.002~1.003. Once you are at that level the osmotic pressure causes the free swimming stage of ich to rupture its cell walls. Other types of salt have no effect, so marine salt, cichlid salt, Epsom salt, etc won't help until the NaCl concentration is up there.
6. The free swimming stage of Ich is between 30 and 50 microns in size. So, it is possible to mechanically filter it out using a H.O.T. magnum (30 micron filter) or Aqua Clear "Quick Filter" (1 micron) with power head since they both go down below that. Not sure how effective that is, but is sure does make the water CLEAR when there is nothing floating around. There are probably others out there to.
What I did:
Clout for two days, temp to 82 degrees, 6 tablespoons of NaCl.
Result: The loaches were NOT happy with it at all, but they are still alive. Still signs of Ich on the loaches, but the cichlids were all clear.
Research over those two days says Clout should be a last resort not the first one. Says should try "Heat and Salt" method without being very specific about what that means...
More research on salt: I find the specific gravity listed several places and since I have a refractometer I add salt to get it to 1.002. This works out to about 2.25 teaspoons per gallon, so WAY more than the LFS originally said. Added it over a period of 3 days with 20% water changes/gravel vacs to remove as much ich as possible. The loaches are not happy with salt any more than they were with the Clout.
More research on heat this whole time trying to find the what and why it helps verse just someone repeating what they heard. Run across that study that not only tells how high to turn it, but WHY so now I know 85 degrees is my target.
Day 5 and the ich has fallen off the loaches now, but one is clearly distressed and looks all sunken in. Moved that one to a QT tank with NO salt and normal temp in it along with lots of snails for food. He is doing better now.
Added Quick Filter along with power head, digital thermometer, and additional heater. Digital thermometer is SO much easier to read than the old style. The original 200 watt heater was not capable of giving me 20 degree rise from ambient and maintaining it, so added a 250 watt. Cold snap here an I had SNOW yesterday, 35 degrees outside 65 degrees inside. I refuse to turn on the furnace in August, that is just crazy.
Did 50% water change without replacing the salt and finished boosting the temp to 85~86 degrees. One of the cichlids was starting a slight case of bloat and I found that high NaCl can cause that... so lets get rid of it.
Day 8 - still no signs of new ich so I think I am in the clear. Another 20% water change without replacing the salt. Leaving the temp at 85 degrees. The sick loach is much happier now and starting to fill out again. No signs of ich on him either and it had all dropped off before I moved him, so here is hoping he is done with it as well. I'll let him stay in the QT tank for a few weeks just to see.
This is where I am at...I plan to keep changing the water and gradually removing the salt about 20% at a time and lower the temp over the a couple of days starting about day 14. The fish with the slight case of bloat seems to be normal now, maybe he just needed to poop.
So, back to my original statement ... Ich Sucks.