Been introducing some young Afican cichlids to my tank over the past few weeks, have been doing a two week quarantine for the new Africans. Apparantly it should have been longer because somehow Ich made its way into the 125 gallon tank. The clown loach is the second fish to show symptoms; he is being quarantined. The other fish to show symptoms is a 1 inch Mbuna that is impossible to catch. In the past Ich+ chemical treatment killed my Clown Loach but my Syno Cat survived but it did remove the ich from the tank. Water temp is 82, all other perams normal. Question is, will chemical treatment harm my half dozen or so baby Cichlids? The older guys I believe would be fine since they have been through Ich treatment before. And if you would recommend non-chemical treatment, if so what would you suggest as the safest and most successful way to remove Ich?
Complex Ich Situation
- Thread starter FishDad
- Start date
Well, the old-fashioned method is to crank the heat up, like you've done (or even higher), and vacuum daily to get all the spores. Some people also add salt. You might also want to add extra aeration because with the higher water temp the fish have less oxygen. I've never used a chemical ich treatment, so I don't know this method compares in effectiveness...
I'm sorry for the difficulty you have experienced.
At temps at or above 86degrees, if your fish can tolorate the rise in temperature, the ich spores cannot reproduce. As lauraf suggested, extra aeration is needed with increased heat.
You said you kept the new fish in a quarantine tank. What temperature did you keep the tank at, and were each new batch of fish kept in for the two weeks, or did you add more during the two week time period?
The tank itself is infected, so quarantining just the clown loach will not fix the problem at this point. Scaleless fish do not handle medication as well as other fish, so unless you want to do a medication on the entire tank but use only heat with the loach, it doesn't help to keep the loach isolated from the others.
At temps at or above 86degrees, if your fish can tolorate the rise in temperature, the ich spores cannot reproduce. As lauraf suggested, extra aeration is needed with increased heat.
You said you kept the new fish in a quarantine tank. What temperature did you keep the tank at, and were each new batch of fish kept in for the two weeks, or did you add more during the two week time period?
The tank itself is infected, so quarantining just the clown loach will not fix the problem at this point. Scaleless fish do not handle medication as well as other fish, so unless you want to do a medication on the entire tank but use only heat with the loach, it doesn't help to keep the loach isolated from the others.
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Right, I quarantined the clown loach with intention of chem treating the tank. But I stopped at the last second because I'm worried that the younger africans wouldn't be able to handle the treatment. As far as my quarantining process they, in 2 separate groups were quarantined for 10 days to 2 weeks each at temps of 80 degrees. I think next time I am going to do a month at 82 degrees. Last night I decided to start heat treatment with temps at 86. I read that most fish can survive temps in that range for a time with little extra stress, so heres hoping. Aeration shouldn't be a problem, I have two large airstones and my two filters create lots of agitation. An article suggested 10 days with temps at 86... hows that sound?
By the way if i do decide at some point to do chems again my real concerns are the younger cichlids, all about an inch. Can they typically survive chems?
By the way if i do decide at some point to do chems again my real concerns are the younger cichlids, all about an inch. Can they typically survive chems?
I would do 14 days personally, then take the temp down 1 degree per day until its where you want it to be.
I've never used chemicals to cure ich personally, so don't have anything to offer. I have only experienced it twice in all these years (once with freshwater, once with saltwater).
The freshwater fish arrived from South America with ich, so I had to treat them as soon as I put them in quarantine. The saltwater fish was going to be destroyed by its owner when he could not cure it. I 'adopted' it and treated it with no problems. In both cases, I used only heat.
I've never used chemicals to cure ich personally, so don't have anything to offer. I have only experienced it twice in all these years (once with freshwater, once with saltwater).
The freshwater fish arrived from South America with ich, so I had to treat them as soon as I put them in quarantine. The saltwater fish was going to be destroyed by its owner when he could not cure it. I 'adopted' it and treated it with no problems. In both cases, I used only heat.