What is your preferred method of treating Ich?

[axelrod12]

I spoke too soon, the heat salt method has failed me. Apparently I got a strain that is resistant to salt and it killed off almost all my stock in only 1.5 weeks. I still believe the heat/salt is the best method as it seems to work 99% of the time. But, I would suggest keeping a med of some sort in stock as a backup in case this ever happens.

 

[pinkertd]

I use meds because they seem to work more quickly. Small fish seem more apt to die from even a mild case of ich. I've only had one case of ich in the last 15 years of fishkeeping (heater stopped working) and couldn't afford to risk the loss of the valuable baby fish. If I was home I could probably find what I used. It did not harm my snails, my cories or my plants, did not stain and didn't kill my filter. I did A LOT of research before I decided on the one I wanted to use. The whole tank recovered nicely. Over the past few years there have been many, many cases of the heat resistant variety of ich and it wipes out whole tank collections. I just wouldn't want to take the chance and lose the fish. Oh and plecos don't tolerate salt very well.

 

[wesleydnunder]

It's not the heat that ich becomes resistant to because heat was never the killer of ich, the salt was... The temp in the tank is raised to speed up the life cycle of the parisite to make sure that within 30 days time the entire population of the parisite had gone through the free-swimming stage which is vulnerable to salt. In non-salt-resistant strains, salt causes the parisites to lose the majority of bodily fluids through osmosis and die from dehydration.

Mark

 

[sailedNJ]

In the early days of fish keeping, and very specifically prior to 1944, there were no antibiotics commercially available. The first production antibiotics went to war. In 1944 they became available to the public. The antibiotics were one. Penicillin.
What fish keepers, and any medical practitioners, had were serums, salts, acids, heavy metals, sulphur compounds, dyes and other chemicals that were made into cures, tonics, and "medicines". Some of them worked. Sort of. Bleeding still works for some very specific medical conditions. That doesn't mean it's recommended for influenza.

Salts, and there are many salts, were used to treat fish because there weren't better options. A hyper-saline solution will kill or seem to kill many parasites and bacterial infections. Why? Some parasites essentially explode or implode. The working process is ion changes shut down the life of the parasite. Hopefully before the ion changes shut down the life of the fish. It was worth the risk as the alternative was to lose fish, but... It was the change in salinity that killed the infestation. The fish were always restored to their freshwater tanks after the treatment.

Unfortunately there are pet shops, Petco for one, that still recommend keeping salt in a freshwater tank. It's a great way to sell medications.
Keeping salt in a freshwater tank actually increases susceptibility to disease as the fish are always under stress.

More unfortunately, far too many pet books, web sites, and even forums, pass on lore not research.
There are still people who believe Xxxxxx can cure any number of things, despite reams of documented research proving otherwise because so and so said it worked.

Well dbosman, once again thanks for elaborating. When opinions are presented in a reasonably logical manner such as you've done it evokes thought. I see where you are coming from. Does salt work? Yeah it works but it isn't necessarily the best solution in every circumstance or for that matter in most circumstances being as there are far more alternatives for treating Ich in the hobby today.

I've had to deal with Ich a few times. Once was when I was new to the hobby, my tank got infested & I treated it with a med & it worked, but with some side effects that I didn't like. Later on I had to deal with Ich again on a couple of occasions, however by this time I had a quarantine tank set up. I've bought seemingly healthy stock that ended up having Ich. But by patiently using a Q tank I prevented introducing it to my "main/show tank(s)" & was able to treat it in there. I proceeded to treat with salt because I had heard good things. The salt worked like a charm, I just kept the stock in quarantine a bit longer & then introduced them to my show tank w/o further issues.

Both meds & salt work, but neither one is ideal all of the time. However with the advances that have been made regarding meds for the hobby I'm sure that salt will become an increasingly less ideal option. But I still think it's good to know about multiple options, if not for the purpose of applying them then at least to just gain a better understanding on how the Ich cycle works & what the parasites are vulnerable to & when they are vulnerable to it.

Thanks for elaborating on your opinion, it definitely gets you thinking & that's always a good thing.

PS - That big chain pet store you mentioned was a good example, I hate how some of them "advocate" the use of salt in ALL freshwater tanks yet if you ask an associate why exactly that is they cannot give you a straight answer (which is why I've never used salt in FW for anything other than treating Ich or disinfecting equipment in sodium chloride). I don't mind folks advocating their stance on something as along as they can qualify their statements.

 

[sailedNJ]

It's not the heat that ich becomes resistant to because heat was never the killer of ich, the salt was... The temp in the tank is raised to speed up the life cycle of the parisite to make sure that within 30 days time the entire population of the parisite had gone through the free-swimming stage which is vulnerable to salt. In non-salt-resistant strains, salt causes the parisites to lose the majority of bodily fluids through osmosis and die from dehydration.

Mark

Mark is correct, all heat does is speed up the cycle so that the Ich goes into its' free swimming cycle faster (tomite stage). It's at this stage & only at this stage when the tomites are free swimming that they are vulnerable to treatments (either to the change in osmotic pressure caused by the salt or to medications). I know that a lot of people refer to treating Ich with salt as the "heat & salt method" which has lead the the mistaken belief that heat plays a more significant role that it really does. I've read many posts stating "I treated with heat at first, it seemed to work but then the Ich came back so I decided to try salt in addition to heat & it worked the 2nd time around". The truth is that you'd be just as well served to increase the heat to 86° F whether you use salt or meds as long as you increase the surface agitation on the tank with a powerhead or airstone to make up for O2 depletion due to the higher temp.

It's because of this that I purposely omitted "heat" as an option in the poll to avoid any confusion.

 

[gordonw]

I used heat by itself, no salt, no meds. Tropical fish can handle high temps for a little bit, slowly raised water temp to closer to 90, 86-89 range for a few days and it was gone, an extra day of heat after observing the spots are gone to make sure its dead and it worked just fine.

 

[EmilyMarie85]

Salt and heat

 

[shaynablizard]

I picked other because I use salt + temp increase + food soaked in fresh crushed garlic cloves. I pull out the crushed cloves after a day of soaking and feed it to the fish. I treat for 7 days. It's been a really long time since I've seen ich in a freshwater tank, but that always worked for me.

 

[sailedNJ]

I used heat by itself, no salt, no meds. Tropical fish can handle high temps for a little bit, slowly raised water temp to closer to 90, 86-89 range for a few days and it was gone, an extra day of heat after observing the spots are gone to make sure its dead and it worked just fine.

If what you observed was indeed Ich then it might still be present in your tank & no visible symptoms have manifested (i.e. white spots resembling salt grains on fins/body). It could very well not have been Ich, only way to be 100% sure is to do a "skin scraping" & look at it under a microscope. However most people don't do that (myself included) & when we see white spots we just assume it's Ich. We can do so with a fair amount of success because Ich is so common that most of the time this is the case.

Every book, article, periodical, website page etc, I've ever read about Ich makes a point of noting the protozoan life cycle of Ich & how heat speeds up the cycle so that the cysts hatch & the tomites they contain enter their free swimming stage of the cycle. They also make a point of noting that heat only speeds the cycle but does not kill off the infestation & that other remedies must be applied (i.e. meds etc).

gordonw, I'm not doubting that you observed something in your tank & that you raised the heat & then observed that it was "gone". Just bare in mind about what I just shared. If your fish are submitted to any stressors in their tank & there is still Ich present then you could very well start to observe symptoms (flashing on rocks, spots etc). Then again you may have inadvertently treated the Ich if you ever applied meds to your tank on a different occasion due to different circumstances all together. At the very least it's worth a thought.

 

[sailedNJ]

I picked other because I use salt + temp increase + food soaked in fresh crushed garlic cloves. I pull out the crushed cloves after a day of soaking and feed it to the fish. I treat for 7 days. It's been a really long time since I've seen ich in a freshwater tank, but that always worked for me.

Interesting method shaynablizard, I've heard/read about hobbyists using crushed garlic cloves to treat other parasites such as tapeworms in fish but I've never heard/read about it being used on Ich. Is garlic just a viable remedy for parasites in general or is it limited to a few specific types of parasites? In any case this has piqued my interest & I intend to look into it a bit more. Thanks for sharing your method with us :thm:.