Salt for Ich

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DaisyTattoo

DaisyTattoo

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Jan 11, 2006
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I was posting on another site about ich and this is the response I got.

Salt does absalutly nothing to cure ICH, People use the Heat and Salt treatment to cure it, But The heat is what takes care of ICH, at temps of 85-86, the ICH cannot reproduce. Thus far killing all the ICH in the tank, the salt is more less a myth that supposidly helps the fish recover, But many including my self, Feel that salt does Greater harm than good! As Joe said, I would treat with a ICH med. Quick cure by Aquarium products is one of the best and is available at most petstores or wal-marts.

Any Comments on this?
 
I have used salt and heat and found it most effective. I would use the least noxious med as possible to treat a condition. WHat the salt does , IMO is to stimulate the slime coat production and get it off your fish sooner, which is a good thing. Daveedka had a great article about treating ICH here in the article archives. I followed it to a T...had no reoccurence since, lost no fish, and was very pleased.
I do watch my fish a lot, and I jumped right on it when I saw it and figured out what it was, so it was only visible on a couple of fish. I removed the obviously infected victims to a Q-tank, and treated them there and in addition treated my main tank.
 
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well i just used the heat and salt method for treating my quarentine tank and so far so good no more ich and its been 2 weeks.
 
As I recall, it's the heat that kills it. What do you have that you are concerned about keeping warmer or with salt? It's temporary...not permanent, list and maybe we can help

here is Dave's article. I had questions and pmed him, and he was a great help :D and a nice guy :bowing:
 
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the heat is used to speed up the cycle, thus taking less time for it to stay on fish and then become freeswimming, which is the only time you can kill it. You can treat just with salt and achieve the same thing, just takes longer.
 
I treated my Pictus with heat and salt (actually...only salt did the job). At first I raised the temperature (slowly), but the fish were gaspering for air (I have an air pump), then I lower the temp. to the initial number and used only salt.
 
ele said:
I treated my Pictus with heat and salt (actually...only salt did the job). At first I raised the temperature (slowly), but the fish were gaspering for air (I have an air pump), then I lower the temp. to the initial number and used only salt.
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What was the temp of the tank? Was it higher than 75*?
 
jodimartin2003 said:
I was posting on another site about ich and this is the response I got.

Salt does absalutly nothing to cure ICH, People use the Heat and Salt treatment to cure it, But The heat is what takes care of ICH, at temps of 85-86, the ICH cannot reproduce. Thus far killing all the ICH in the tank, the salt is more less a myth that supposidly helps the fish recover, But many including my self, Feel that salt does Greater harm than good! As Joe said, I would treat with a ICH med. Quick cure by Aquarium products is one of the best and is available at most petstores or wal-marts.

Any Comments on this?
Click to expand...

This is pretty much the opposite of Daveedka's article.

ICH Article

One of the key points here is that heat does nothing more than speed up the life cycle of the ich. Once the cycle is sped up, the parasite doesn't spend much time in its virtually indestructible state and moves into states where the salt can kill it. Keep in mind, its a pretty general statement to claim that heat kills ich, since heat at some level will kill any living organism. For ich, I don't think there is a safe heat level to kill it that won't kill your fish too. I consider 86 too hot for my fish & some strains of ich can survive to 90.

I recommend sticking to the precise instructions of this article. I've used it also and no ich has returned. In my case, I raised the temp to 84 degrees and used 2 tsp/gallon salt for a few months.

Jodi, I'd suggest giving the salt treatment more time, as eventually it will kill the ich parasite. Since you can't heat the water, you're going to have to be more patient as there is no way to speed up the ich life cycle.

I don't think I'd subject my fish to malachite green when such a passive cure as salt exists. Be sure to read this article about the bad points of medications.

Here's the link again

btw, send a link to the other site who claimed salt has no effect plz. Thx.
 
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