Treating ich
- Thread starter jplmruss
- Start date
I presume you meant 1 tablespoon of Salt to 5 gals of water ????.
Basically raising the tempreture of your water speeds up the ICH lifecycle, therefore the ich spends more time in its free swimming/vulnerable stage.
Goldfish can tolerate 80 degrees however you want to bring them up to that temp slowly. I presume you have your fish in some kind of tank, if you have a heaqter available. Bring your water temop up to that level slowly dont just suddenly make the water jump 10C in an hour thats way too much.
Ensure the salt is aquarium salt too, dont use ordinary salt.
What has me a little concerned though is your only speaking about one fish,i.e. your goldfish. If you have only one fish then disregard what I say next but if you've iscoloated that fish from the rest of the fish in another tank this is pointless. although you might have one goldfish that looks sick and the rest look alright odds are the ich is still in the main tank and as such you should treat infected tanks instead of infected fish as and when they start to look ill.
There are loads of medications too which help with ich, just make sure your tank is getting plenty of oxygen and add an airstone if you possibly can.
Hope all goes well, let us know how you get on.
Basically raising the tempreture of your water speeds up the ICH lifecycle, therefore the ich spends more time in its free swimming/vulnerable stage.
Goldfish can tolerate 80 degrees however you want to bring them up to that temp slowly. I presume you have your fish in some kind of tank, if you have a heaqter available. Bring your water temop up to that level slowly dont just suddenly make the water jump 10C in an hour thats way too much.
Ensure the salt is aquarium salt too, dont use ordinary salt.
What has me a little concerned though is your only speaking about one fish,i.e. your goldfish. If you have only one fish then disregard what I say next but if you've iscoloated that fish from the rest of the fish in another tank this is pointless. although you might have one goldfish that looks sick and the rest look alright odds are the ich is still in the main tank and as such you should treat infected tanks instead of infected fish as and when they start to look ill.
There are loads of medications too which help with ich, just make sure your tank is getting plenty of oxygen and add an airstone if you possibly can.
Hope all goes well, let us know how you get on.
Regular salt is fine. Table salt will do. Just make sure it is NaCl and not KCl (ie not fake salt). 1 tsp per gallon is fine. I suggest reading the ich article on this forums article section. It is filled with great information.
And don't forget to keep treating for at least 1 week after all the ich is gone.
And don't forget to keep treating for at least 1 week after all the ich is gone.
Table salt can be used, but I've always had a funny feeling about the anti caking agnets they can sometimes use. If you want to give table salt a try then feel free its just that I say to use aquarium salt because you can be sure its safe for your fish.
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Well we don't really know what is in aquarium salt, at leats the boxes I have don't say. And generally the anti-caking agents in salt are silica based. They are meant to be safe for us humans to eat, but the aquarium salt isn't.
Thank you for everyone's help. I have started treating my tank (which has two goldfish one 3/4 inch and one 1 1/2 inch) by adding 1 teaspoon per gallon and increasing the water slowly to 80 degrees.
There is more dots on the first fish now than before and I am starting to see dots on the other fish as well.
This is a fairly new tank. It is just a week old. I didn't know about cycling. The sales person at the local fish store told me to set up my tank for two days by adding a product called "Cycle". Then put my fish in. I didn't know cycle doesn't really cycled me tank. So I think the stress of being in a new uncyled tank is one of the reasons why they have ich.
I hope this treatment works and they'll both pull through.
I have a few more questions I hope someone can help me with:
1. I have been changing 50% of the water each day even before I found out they have ich. Should I do more water changes now that they have ich to ensure that they have an even cleaner environment to heal?
2. Also, I've read about bio spira on one of the post. I heard it needs to be refrigerated so that the bacteria will not die off. None of my LFS has the product. Most have not even heard of it. I found a site that has it, but I am worried that the bacteria will die off if I get it through the internet and the product is shipped to me. Has anyone used it by purchasing it through the internet?
3. Did it work even though you got it through the mail?
4. What site did you use?
5. Can you add the bio spira while treating your fish for ich?
6. Does the constant water changes decrease the effectiveness of bio spira?
I know I am asking a lot of questions, but I feel sooooo awful that I have caused my fish pain
. I am trying to make them as comfortable as I can right now. Any help I can get will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
There is more dots on the first fish now than before and I am starting to see dots on the other fish as well.
This is a fairly new tank. It is just a week old. I didn't know about cycling. The sales person at the local fish store told me to set up my tank for two days by adding a product called "Cycle". Then put my fish in. I didn't know cycle doesn't really cycled me tank. So I think the stress of being in a new uncyled tank is one of the reasons why they have ich.
I hope this treatment works and they'll both pull through.
I have a few more questions I hope someone can help me with:
1. I have been changing 50% of the water each day even before I found out they have ich. Should I do more water changes now that they have ich to ensure that they have an even cleaner environment to heal?
2. Also, I've read about bio spira on one of the post. I heard it needs to be refrigerated so that the bacteria will not die off. None of my LFS has the product. Most have not even heard of it. I found a site that has it, but I am worried that the bacteria will die off if I get it through the internet and the product is shipped to me. Has anyone used it by purchasing it through the internet?
3. Did it work even though you got it through the mail?
4. What site did you use?
5. Can you add the bio spira while treating your fish for ich?
6. Does the constant water changes decrease the effectiveness of bio spira?
I know I am asking a lot of questions, but I feel sooooo awful that I have caused my fish pain
. I am trying to make them as comfortable as I can right now. Any help I can get will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.Hey man....don't worry too much about the ich. My tank has it right now, and i'm using the salt/temp method....at first they seemed to get worse (which is normal) but after a few days, the spots have started disappearing. funnily enough, a couple of them managed to get velvet at the same time, so i've added copper sulphate as well. I'd recommend picking up some of that if the salt doesn't seem to be working after several days - some people don't like copper sulphate because it can harm invertebrates without exoskeletons, but since I have none, i gave it a shot. Don't feel bad - everyone gets ich at some point, and unless it gets to the advanced stage where they have trouble breathing, its nothing more than a bit of skin irritation.