What do I do about Ich?

Question

I know what ich is but have never had a problem with it in any of my tanks before so I'm not sure what I should do. In my 20G tank I have a sand base, and assortment of danios, tetras, corys, and 1 pleco. No live plants are in this tank, I have an assortment of paper and plastic plants, shells, rocks, a rock formation decoration, and a piece of drift wood. It has been established for months with no new fish being added after my pleco maybe three months ago. I cleaned it saturday (so 5 days ago) and when I came home for lunch today I noticed that one of my candy-cane tetra has what I can only assume is ich. The only thing that is different in my tank is the piece of drift wood, bought from the pet store, that I added when I cleaned my tank over the weekend, and I have been soaking/cleaning it for the past month (to remove anything that would discolour the water).

So, now my questions: Should I remove my candy-cane tetra from the tank and put it in a hospital tank and treat both tanks? or, Should I leave it in the 20G and just treat just the one tank? Should I remove all the plants, shells, rocks and drift wood from the tank while treating? Should I, along with treating the tank, slowly increase the temperature of the tank? Should I, when the ich is gone, replace all of my sand/rocks/plants/shells? Should I, before the ich is gone, remove all of the sand from my tank? Should I, before the treatment, replace all of the water in my tank?

Any other advice you could give me on the subject of ich would be greatly appreciated.

If I think of any other questions that I can't find the answers to I will add them later.

Thank you in advance for any information you can provide me with.

Answer 1

You should treat the tank as 1 unit. Ich is a parasite which infects fish. You will not notice the infection until it is in it last stage. Ich has an average life cycle of 4-7 days in a tropical fish tank at 75 degrees. When the white spots fall off, the parasite begins to multiply and swim around in the water and will start infecting your other fish. The only way to prevent the infection from getting worse is to kill these before they infect/reinfect the fish.



- Normally aquarium salt will work on most strands of ich however some fish are to sensitive to it and will be killed. You have those type of fish so do not use salt method.

- Another method is to raise the tempature up to 85 degrees for few days which will cause the ich to grow to fast and no infect your fish. However this can become very dangerous for the fish, so once again I would suggest you don't use it.

- The method I would suggest for you is the basic medication you can buy from your pet store. There is different types however "Kordon Rid Ich Plus Disease Treatment" is what I use. I got mine from petsmart. Follow the instructions on the bottle and you will treat all the fish at once.



As to where it came from, I do not know. There is debate on how long a parasite can live in the fish before it will show and if it will actually live in an untreated tank. However the main issue is that ich only happens to a fish which immune system is weaken. You need to find the cause of this immune weakness, which is most commonly in result from stress and/or poor water quality. Test your water and add some Prime in it to help remove harmful chemicals. If your water is fine, there is a possibility it is over crowded.. how many of each fish do you have and which breed of Pleco do you have as well? The common Pleco does need a minimal size of 55 gallons.

Answer 2

Don't qt any fish. Just because you can't see it on any other fish doesn't mean they don't have it - ich is only visible once it has attached to the fish and fed off it - you can't see the free swimming ich. Treat the whole tank - there is no need to throw anything out. Just raise the temp to 86 and leave it up till you see no more on your fish, leave it for an additional 10 days to make sure all the free swimming ich is dead.

Answer 3

I would QT the fish that is showing ich since it moves quickly. Watch the rest and treat the one fish with a very low dose of medicine and a temp up to 80 if it can tolerate it.



Your tank is over stocked, which is why the ich could of came about. Get a bigger tank or rehome some of the fish. The pleco also needs a bigger tank.