How do you know when Ich is gone?

M

morleyz

This space for rent
Sep 26, 2002
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Illinois
www.allaquatic.com
OK...I never had ich before and I stupidly added a petsmart fish right into my tank without Q-tanking it first, and it seemed to have been nice enough to have brought Ich with it. I observed the new fish rubbing for a day or 2...then when the other fish started rubbing, I cranked the temp up to 85-86 degrees over a couple of days and added 1T of salt/gallon. The "new" fish was the only one who ever showed visible signs of ich, so I'm pretty sure I'm not dealing with a different parasite.

My question is, how do I know when Ich is totally gone? I'd like to make sure that re-infection doesn't occur. There are no visible signs of ich on the fish that I can find. I only see very occasional rubbing.

How long do I keep the temp cranked?

Should I remove the salt with water changes, or just let it get diluted with my normal water changes?
 
It's hard to tell whether the continued flashing is from some parasites still attacking the gills, or whether the gills are still inflamed from the former attack. Your salt concentration seems low to be effective. Still-- what works, works.

Because we can see the final stages of some of the embedded mature Ich on the host fish, we tend to be overconfident about when the invasion is "over." Hard to tell you. But keep up several days after all your fish really seem normal, and get those last swarmers.
 
OK...well everyone seems happy with the temp, so I don't see a problem with leaving it for now.

OK...one more question. Would a week be a good, round figure for the amount of time I treat past the time I decide that everyone is acting normal?

This is just so annoying...I'm usually much more careful about this...and then I go and drop a petsmart fish in..."yeah...he looks fine to me."
 
The raised temperature only speeds the life-cycle of the parasite. Combined with the meds, you can zap the critter at its weak life-phase. Very high temps-- over 86 to 90oF-- would stress the parasite, but perhaps stress the fishes too-- which would be counterproductive.

Keep a month's quarantine with your eye on the former victims. I think after a week you can ease down on the heat...
 
I agree with Wetman. I'd like to toss in my 2 cents too.
Even my favorite LFS has had fish with ich.
Therefor, EVERY fish I bring home goes into a q-tank with a temp 80-85 and gets an ich treatment. If the fish is temp. sensitive, well then I just treat for ich w/o high heat. I've picked out fish b4 with no signs of ich, from a tank with no fish with signs of ich (well the tank had fish in it, but they did not have any signs of ich - you knew what I meant :) ), put them in the q-tank and waited a week or so and then had to treat for ich! Not to mention the catastrophy I had with ich when I first started this "hobby"! If only I could have enlarged one of those parasites so I could beat the tar out of it!!!!:mad: Ooh, but then if it multiplied...the whole world would be in trouble!!:eek:
 
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