A good article about Ich

Since there was a post about Ich a while ago, I thought I would post a link for everyone to an article I just found that is about the best I've ever seen about the parasite, have a look:


http://cichlid-forum.com/articles/ich.php

 

A ggod article about ich

Thanks for posting this! I wish I had read this before I had the problem with ich in my tank. I finally did lose my turquoise sevrum, and a couple of others. But the rest of the fish are doing well. I read in the article not to raise the temp. when you give the meds, and unfortunately, that is what I did. I went to my pet store to buy the salt for the treatment, and he instead had talked me in to buying coppersafe. Which, I am glad I did, because that really got rid of the ich. But I didn't lower the temp. and it was set at 84 degrees. Between the meds and higher temp., probably is what did them in. Thank you soo much again for the posting, I will know better next time.

 

I've always had really good luck raising the temperature and using salt. With the recent outbreak in my goldfish, I found that a temperature of 90* got rid of the spots in 3 days (I continue treatment for a week afterwards to be safe). That said, my fish did okay with that high of a temperature, but if you try it, really watch for signs of labored breathing.

In my planted tank, where I can't use most meds (because of the plants, clown loaches, and snails), I've had good luck with Maracide & raising the temperature (I know the article says not to, but I really watched for signs of labored breathing and they were all fine). It killed the ich but didn't seem to bother the plants, clown loaches, or snails.

-Chelle

 

Sorry to hear about the severum

Nano, sorry to hear you lost the severum. Sometimes the cure is as bad as the disease, and there's so many opinions floating around out there that it's hard to tell what the best thing to do is sometimes. Especially if, like Chelle, you have a tank with mixed species, some of whom may not be tolerant of some of the treatments.

I'm glad you liked the article, I know I'm printing it out and keeping a copy around.

 

Re: Sorry to hear about the severum

I copied it right after I read it, just in case!! I also learned, be careful where you go to buy fish. I usually go to the same pet shop to get my fish. This time, I went somewhere else and bought 2 plecos, and within 2 weeks, worst case of ich I've ever dealt with! Lesson learned the hard way!!!

 

It's really important to quarantine new fish.

I bought some new goldfish for my pond a couple months ago. Had them in quarantine for a couple days, figured they looked perfectly healthy (and my family was getting impatient) so we went ahead and put 3 of them in the pond and one in my 20 gallon (with the plants, loaches, & snails) to grow out a little. Ended up with ich in both.

The 20 gallon was easy enough to treat, but I can't put any chemicals in the pond because my dog drinks out of it. I had to catch every single goldfish (not easy because the pond is lined with rock - took nearly 3 weeks to catch the last one), keep them in a 35 gallon temp tank/storage bin (biggest I could find on short notice), had to dig out every single spare filter I had (300gph won't cut it for 11 goldfish in a 35 gallon tub), then do daily water changes until it finished cycling, and now I'm waiting 2 weeks for all the ich in the pond to die without a host.

All that hassle because I was impatient and didn't finish the quarantine.

-Chelle