do fish need to be removed when treating for ich?

bluemeate

bluemeate

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Sep 9, 2008
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this is my first ich outbreak... didnt QT my petmsart fish :/ not very smart of me, huh?
bought 4 serpae tetra and 8 neon tetra from petsmart on black friday. i guess they brought me over some ich.

its planted 55gal with shrimp
the ich killed off 5/8 neon tetras
the ich has killed 2/3 my previously owned serpae tetra and 2/4 of the new petsmart tetras
it has infested 1 of 3 BN plecos
all my sterbai corydora look fine although they havent been swimming around as much since I got the petsmart fish
also there is a rosy red minnow who seems fine


im gonna do 50% water changes twice a day and add a bit of salt and raise my tank to 82 degrees and added an air pump. any other advice?

I kinda dont wanna bother throwing my fish in the QT tank since it is really the only thing I have that isnt infected and there is currently a betta and two minnows already in there
 
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Just leave the fish in their current tank as you treat. You'll use more salt and water in the process, but that's not a big expense. There is a free-floating stage of ich, and you'll want to get rid of that in the big tank anyway. Certainly do NOT risk contaminating your other fish that are in the QT.
 
Danny-O said:
Just leave the fish in their current tank as you treat. You'll use more salt and water in the process, but that's not a big expense. There is a free-floating stage of ich, and you'll want to get rid of that in the big tank anyway. Certainly do NOT risk contaminating your other fish that are in the QT.
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:iagree:
Just keep in mind that the plecos & cories aren't going to appreciate the salt much & unfortunately most Ich meds contain copper sulfates which are harmful to inverts so you couldn't them with shrimp or snails in the tank. The recommended dosage of salt per gallon of water is 2 teaspoons. But since you have scaleless fish in your tank (i.e. plecos, cories...) you can start off with 1 teaspoon per gallon & observe your plecos & cories to see how they react to it. Once you see them not reacting negatively to 1 tsp per gallon you can try adding the 2nd tsp per gallon. They should be fine with short term exposure to salt (e.g. 2 - 4 weeks), just make sure that you dissolve the salt in water BEFORE adding it to the tank.
 
what is a negative reaction? them sitting there doing nothing? cuase if thats the case theyre already reacting
 
I would leave all the fish in. Even though you may not see it on some fish they may still be effected.
 
You can treat ich with heat only, no salt needed. Just make sure that when you change the water you do a thorough gravel vac at least every other day to get all the spores that fall to the bottom of the tank. Never remove fish from a tank to treat ich, because the entire tank is infected. Even if some of the fish aren't showing symptoms, they have already been exposed.
 
bluemeate said:
what is a negative reaction? them sitting there doing nothing? cuase if thats the case theyre already reacting
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They're already reacting negatively to what? Salt or Ich? Did you add any salt to the tank yet?

Plecos & cories are scaleless so the salt will irritate their skin some. They'd look agitated i.e. a bit of rapid breathing, a bit of flashing (keep in mind that Ich causes fish to flash too so it could be a combo of both the salt & Ich). Ich would make them appear lethargic, salt would make them appear agitated.

sanjina said:
You can treat ich with heat only, no salt needed.
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Heat alone does not treat Ich, as a matter of fact some strains of Ich such as strains that infect temperate clime outdoor ponds have developed resistance to heat. What heat does is speed up the protozoan cycle so that the tomites are released from their cysts faster into the water column. It is when the tomites are released that they are susceptible to salt or med treatments in their free swimming state before they reattach themselves to a new host. You could even treat Ich without increasing the temp, it would just take longer. However to eradicate Ich you must use some sort of treatment on it, be it meds or salt.

If you're concerned about using salt with your plecos & cories (understandably so) you could try removing the inverts in the tank (your shrimp & snails, that is if you have any snails, I saw no mention of them) by siphoning them out into a net, giving them a quick rinse in clean water and transferring them over to your quarantine tank. Shrimp & snails are not infected by Ich & do not carry Ich so you can place them in your quarantine tank without worrying about them infecting the fish already in there.

After you've transferred your shrimp out of the tank you are treating you can use an Ich medication safely on your tank. I've used Aquari-Sol by AP-Pro successfully but there are many other meds that have worked well for others, you just have to ask around & do a bit of research. Just make sure that if you decide to use meds that once you are done with treatment that you perform adequate WCs to get all of the copper sulfate out before adding your shrimp back in, that is if you use a med that contains copper sulfates, most do but some don't.
 
sailedNJ said:
Heat alone does not treat Ich, as a matter of fact some strains of Ich such as strains that infect temperate clime outdoor ponds have developed resistance to heat. What heat does is speed up the protozoan cycle so that the tomites are released from their cysts faster into the water column. It is when the tomites are released that they are susceptible to salt or med treatments in their free swimming state before they reattach themselves to a new host. You could even treat Ich without increasing the temp, it would just take longer. However to eradicate Ich you must use some sort of treatment on it, be it meds or salt.
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Ich can indeed be treated simply by raising the temperature combined with water changes/gravel vaccuuming. I had ich in one of my tanks only one time. I had fish that shouldn't have salt. I did one dose of meds, but one of my fish had an instant bad reaction to it, so I diluted it out of my tank.

The temperature should go higher than 82. 86 is generally recommended (for two weeks), but 84 is fine as well. Air may need to be added to the tank if there is insufficient surface disruption. As stated above, the higher the temperature, the faster the lifecycle of the ich. Additionally, most strains of ich cannot reproduce at 86 degrees. Regular gravel vaccumming and water changes will remove ich from the system as it falls off of the fish.

I can't say that this would work every time, however, I for one am grateful to have found out about this way of treating it. This method easily took care of the problem for me, and I have not had a single instance of ich in the year and a half since, so I think it's fair to say that meds and/or salt are not necessarily required. Many other people have had success with this method as well.
 
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