ugh... got ick now

[tszabo86]

Just noticed small white spots on my fish's fins this morning. I added 4 tablespoons of salt (iodized, hope thats not too bad) and i'm raising the temp to 85ish... any other tips?

[A. Crispus]

Nope. That should do it.

Well done you. :)

[SubRosa]

Change half of the water daily until you die! Seriously, if ich breaks out and runs rampant through your tank you have water quality issues. All the meds and treatments in the world won't cure bad water quality.

[Lupin]

Subrosa, that's not true. Ich cannot magically appear by mere poor water quality alone. It has to be introduced by not quarantining new fish which are potential disease carriers. Ich can stay as low lying infection. Dormancy period is a myth that should be debunked because they don't stay dormant, simply continuing their lifecycle quietly in sustainable number while residing in gill tissues.

Ich prefers to appear instantly only when they begin to sense the weakened immune system of the fish due to stress. Stress is indeed the cause of most health problems and you have to ask yourself why the fish got stressed in the first place. Poor water conditions, constant traffic area, overcrowding and many other factors should not be overlooked.

I prefer to do a tablespoon per 5g of salt treatment. Before you add to the tank, salt must be dissolved thoroughly first and you have to add it slowly to avoid osmotic shock. Salt itself burns the skin of most bottom dwellers if not dissolved. I had to dissolve it since I kept several bottom dwellers and once I did, I never had issues with using salt treatment to them at all.

Regarding the iodine issue, such is not an issue at all contrary to popular beliefs. You're fine. Some people are too paranoid to even answer what exactly makes iodine an issue especially as the amount used is not too high to make it extremely toxic to both humans and fish.

[SubRosa]

I didn't say it did. But you neglect the fact that the parasite can be present in a tank and not run rampant. It comes down to the Holy Trinity of fishkeeping. Good water quality, good diet and proper physical environment. After all fish and ich cohabitate in the wild, yet all fish in the wild don't die of ich.

[Slappy*McFish]

Well, that's because of the sheer volume of a body of water in the wild and/or it's constant movement through an area preventing a buildup of parasites in that area along with the fact that fish populations in the wild are much more sparse than that in our aquariums. This simply makes it harder for free-swimming parasites to find a host. In the wild, many fish host a few parasites but it would be highly unlikely that they would become infested with a multitude of parasites to the point of causing severe tissue damage, infections or death. In the aquarium, parasites don't have too much trouble finding a host. (This is especially true in over-crowded tanks.)

[SubRosa]

That's certainly part of it. But the real point is that healthy fish don't get sick. Their immune systems are able to fight off infections that not so healthy fish succumb to. Haven't you ever seen a situation where one or a couple of fish in a given tank get infected while their tankmates remain unaffected? Or seen a fish recover from ich without treatment?

[Slappy*McFish]

I wouldn't say healthy fish don't get sick, but I do agree that they are more likely to fight off infections/infestations. Some fish do build up a resistance over time.

Unfortunately, most of our fish that succumb to an ich infestation are newly purchased fish that are stressed and/or weak stock.
However, if you introduced ich to a tank full of 'healthy' fish, I can almost guarantee that more than half of them would die without proper treatment. The ich would simply keep multiplying in numbers to the point of swarming the fish and eventually killing them. When the population of hosts declines, so will the parasite. One or two fish in this tank probably would survive and permanently host a couple of parasites which could eventually explode into another deadly population if the tank is restocked once again with new (potentially stressed) fish.

[SubRosa]

Sorry but that has not been my experience. I've seen infected fish introduced into good systems recover without treatment. But the odds are that I've dealt with many times more fish than the average aquarist as I've been working in the trade pretty much continuously since '81.

[Slappy*McFish]

Your success was probably due to reasonable stocking levels along with your diligent maintenance practices. Bravo. ;)
Of course the species of fish involved do play a big role in how quickly an outbreak can occur. A tank full of Pictus cats or loaches would fare far worse than a tank of armored catfish or big cichlids. The same applies to the big systems in the trade down to the single tanks at home. Higher water volumes along with big water changes and a fast turnover rate of fish populations being sold/removed from the system daily surely has an impact on the potential severity of an outbreak.

[ksane]

SubRosa, ich doesn't just sit in the water for years waiting to strike when it senses a lapse in water quality. And healthy fish DO get ich if exposed to it. I promise you that. Ich can sometimes affect the gills where it's not noticeable immediantly. But within 1-2 wks it'll be noticeable because there'll be an ich outbreak. Differences in slime coat thickness, whether a given fish got 2 parasites on him or 10, where on the fish the ich parasite resides and matures...those are the things that affect whether a fish gets ich 'bad' or not.

[sushiray]

Salt + Kordon Rid Ich + W/C + raised temps helped my stendker discus just 2wks ago. they got Ich b-4 intro of any new fish. must have caught it from my angels who were in tank 1st.

[SubRosa]

Ksane are you familiar with the term "sub-clinical infection"? Yes the parasite can host on the gills. And it can remain at a very low level of infestation for an extended period of time without killing the fish. All the forum posts in the world won't alter my own observations. I stand by what I said. If ich runs rampant through your tank it's a sign of less than adequate maintenance.

[Lupin]

Change half of the water daily until you die! Seriously, if ich breaks out and runs rampant through your tank you have water quality issues. All the meds and treatments in the world won't cure bad water quality.
I should have clarified myself as I guess. The sentence in red font is why I posted ich doesn't "magically appear" out of nowhere due to poor water quality. Perhaps I may have taken this out of context but that was how I interpreted it. Stress does help allow the ich to progress quickly but it's not just poor water quality that is causing it. There are various factors that sideline it.

[SubRosa]

I should have clarified myself as I guess. The sentence in red font is why I posted ich doesn't "magically appear" out of nowhere due to poor water quality. Perhaps I may have taken this out of context but that was how I interpreted it. Stress does help allow the ich to progress quickly but it's not just poor water quality that is causing it. There are various factors that sideline it.Like I said, the Holy Trinity of keeping fish!