Anyone who can you recommend an ich treatment

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reed99

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Nov 8, 2021
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One of my fish -might- have a case of itch. In the past, I used Rid-Ich+. It was very effective but it dyed tubes/plastic blue. :( Although I was happy the ich was gone, the remaining dyed plastic and tubes was upsetting.

I have never got good confirmation that salt works. There seems to be debate all over the place so I guess I would just like to avoid it.

In the event ich is in my tank, do you have a medication recommendation that does *not* cause any residue to form (e.g. color dye)?

The other catch is I have YoYo loaches and a pleco.

Thanks for your assistance!!!
 
Heat treatment!
Raise the tank temperature up to 86F for 2 weeks.
It speeds up the life cycle of ich, but doesn't give them enough time to properly breed, so the ich dies off before it can successfully reproduce.

Worth a shot.

If in 2 weeks it's not cleared up, then yeah you may need to go with meds.
 
It would appear that one of the best treatments for ich is the use of 1% salt combined with temperature at 30C (86F) for about 10 days. I have read several papers that come to this conclusion.

However, it was also important to achieve results that one must vacuum the bottom of the tank daily and also change 30% of the water. This matters because of the life cycle of Ich. The vacuuming and water change removes a lot of the Ich in stages where it is not on the fish.

Finally, not all fish can tolerate the salt or higher temps.

I have read a number of papers re Ich and various treatment methods. There are many more than most can even imagine. For the really curious here is a review paper on almost all of the chemical and non chemical treatments tried on ich.

Picon-Camacho, Sara M., et al. "An assessment of the use of drug and non-drug interventions in the treatment of Ichthyophthirius multifiliis Fouquet, 1876, a protozoan parasite of freshwater fish." Parasitology 139.2 (2012): 149-190.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.902.4342&rep=rep1&type=pdf
 
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So I've looked at this before TTA. What I saw said malachite green alone or with formeldahyde is very effective but NOT for food fish. Our pet fish are not usually eaten by humans. Copper is also effective with some caveats. Methylene blue too. Salt can be as well at high enough concentrations over time...again some caveats. I did not see any data for "natural" products nor have I ever including tea tree oil.

I did not see "high" heat as a treatment in the charts...but there have been many reports of "resistant ich" not being killed at even 92F...very stressful to many fish & reduced oxygen levels too. Adding water surface movement is always a good idea as both ich & many treatments reduce water oxygen.

This is why I still believe in the "old school" ich treatments...& quarantine for new fish. Vacuuming & water changes help to reduce the parasite load but not eliminate ich. Caught early & treated effectively ich is often very treatable. Allowed to reproduce or using ineffective or too short TX, it can be fatal.

My best advice is always to pick an effective treatment & follow through with it, change water often...& quarantine & observe new fish. Fingers crossed I haven't had ich in many, many years but I'm a very picky buyer too.
 
Yeah, nuking the tank with Malachite green has always been my first choice and it works well enough at half dose for scaleless fish too.

But the staining I could see being an issue (I use black equipment, so never really bothered to notice haha)
 
It is a rather long paper loaded with information. There is an entire table devoted to non drug treatments which included electricity, flow and mechanical methods. These were listed in Table 2. They considered salt to be a chemical treatment. The main advantage to he use of heat is to speed the life cycle of the Ich in order to expose the vulnerable stages to the drug as rapidly as possible.

Perhaps the most important take away from the paper, imo, is this:
there is the fact that different strains/genotypes of I. multifiliis can behave very differently in terms of infectivity (Elsayed et al.2006; Swennes et al. 2007; Ling et al. 2009), host specificity and susceptibility to treatment (Straus and Meinelt, 2009; Straus et al. 2009). Hence, a chemical
treatment demonstrated to successfully eliminate one strain might not exhibit the same efficacy when applied to treat a different one.

From this review, chemical treatments remain the principal method for controlling I. multifiliis infections in aquaculture, despite numerous attempts to develop and implement physical and farm management-based alternatives.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks to everyone.Im looking through all the comments and will give you the feedback
 
I had itch once, turned my tank heater up to 90 degree and it was all gone by two weeks.
Did not have to use any chemicals…
 
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