How long does it take for a fish to recover from Ich? Hello Folks! It is sort of a two sided question.. So far it has been about 6 or 7 days of treatment and she is looking a lot better, she swims properly now instead of always having her tail to the ground, but she still likes to take rests on the bottom of the tank every so often. She eats well, and holds her own against fish if they get too close. She definitely has energy How much longer should I continue treatment?
I would even appreciate just a ballpark estimate Thank you for your time! ICH is extremely easy for other fish in the tank to get. It doesn't pass from one fish to another, like a cold. It's a parasite that attaches it's self to the fish, and after about I'm gonna' say a week, the ich falls off of the fish to the bottom to reproduce.
That is the stage where you are suppose to kill it. Ich treatment chems might work, but don't always. The most effective treatment is an ol' fashioned heat treatment. Jack the heat up to 86 degrees F and let time take it's course. With this method, it usually takes a week to effectively kill off the ich, but it is highly recommended that you continue the treatment for another week two weeks total to ensure that all the ich has been killed off.
Be sure to do plenty of water changes and gravel vacs to pic up the dead or reproducing ich parasites from the bottom of the tank. If you've been doing treatment for 7 days, then I would continue for another 7 days. You didn't give me much on what method of treatment you're using, but it generally takes two weeks on any treatment. Hope this helped. Click to expand Good morning, More often than not, if one fish is infected with ICH then the entire tank is infected and should be treated.
To be on the safe side I would not Quarantine 1 fish but treat the entire tank. Using the heat method as mentioned above is most recommended. Raise it to 86 F and leave it there for two weeks.
Do two gravel vacuums each week to remove the spores that fall off of the fish and into the substrate. It is also hard to observe the spots if they are few in number. When fish are treated during an early infection or a light infection, the chance of survival from parasitic infection is always higher than for a severely infected fish.
Fish that survive an ich infection can develop an immune response and become resistant to parasite re-infection. Serum and mucus from those immune fish contain antibodies against the parasite. Then, when infective theronts come into contact with anti-ich antibodies, the antibodies cause the theronts to become immobilized.
The immobilization causes the theronts to lose their swimming ability. The antibodies also cause the parasites to leave the fish so that ich cannot become established in immune fish. Recently, a few studies showed that vaccines against ich induced protective immunity and could provide a solution to prevent this parasitic disease through vaccination instead of chemical treatments.
Issue: February Preventing Ich. Everyone Loves Aquariums Millions of people around the world keep aquariums stocked with colorful ornamental fish, enjoying one of the most popular leisure-time activities. Parasites in Fish Several factors influence the health of aquarium fish, and parasitic disease is a major one. Types of Parasites Digenetic trematodes grubs have a complex lifecycle involving a series of hosts, including snails and birds, nematodes and leeches, meaning they cannot complete their lifecycle in an aquarium because they cannot reproduce.
Lifecycle of Ich Three Life Stages Ich is a ciliate parasite that has three developmental stages, a parasitic trophont, a reproductive tomont, and an infective theront. Mature Trophonts The mature trophont leaves the fish, attaches to the sides and bottom of the aquarium, and secretes a cyst wall to become a reproductive tomont. Treatment and Prevention of Ich Whenever any white spots are seen on the skin and fins, fish are most likely infected by the parasite ich.
Salt and Water Other methods, such as adding salt, increasing water temperature, and changing the water are also used by fish hobbyists to treat ich infection in an aquarium. Fish are usually infected for days before they will start to die.
Why do new fish get Ich more often? To treat Ich effectively you must first get rid of the stress that caused Ich. Always assume its ammonia until we can rule that out. The best method is to have your ammonia tested to determine its level. We will test your ammonia in our store or you can purchase an ammonia test kit for your home. Never use a cheap ammonia test kit since you will not get accurate results.
After we correct the environment we can safely medicate the water. It is best to raise the temperature to degrees. A lesion can be scraped and viewed under the microscope to reveal a rather large cyst between 0. It also has a very characteristic large horseshoe-shaped nucleus.
The life cycle of Ichthyophthirius is complicated, but very important in understanding the treatment and prevention of ich. Once the ich protozoan attaches to the side of the fish, it begins feeding on the skin and tissue causing irritation.
The fish's body begins to wall off the parasite to try to limit its damage. The protozoan continues to move around in the cyst, feeding and growing, while the body continues to further encapsulate and wall it off. This encapsulation by the body is one of the reasons that ich is so difficult to treat during this stage of the disease because medications cannot penetrate through the wall of the cyst to reach the ich parasite.
During this stage, the ich protozoan is called a trophozoite. The trophozoite eventually matures and is termed a "trophont.
It then begins to divide into hundreds of new ich-infecting units called tomites. At optimum temperatures, the replication will be completed in about 8 hours. At lower temperatures, the replication is slower, making the treatment time for eradication much longer. Once the replication is complete, the trophont bursts and releases the newly-formed tomites into the water.
The tomites are motile and swim around the tank searching for a fish to attach to. Once they attach to a fish, the cycle will start over again. It is during this stage that ich is most susceptible to treatment. Many of the available medications will kill the tomites, thereby stopping the cycle of ich in your tank.
It should be noted that these tomites will only survive for 48 hours if they do not find a fish to attach to. These tomites will also attach to plants, filter material, etc. So if you move a plant from an infected tank into a clean tank, you have just infected the clean tank with ich. Depending on the water temperature, the whole cycle can take from 4 days to several weeks. Theoretically, if the cycle takes four days to complete at this temperature, then the treatment should be complete in 4 days.
Since we understand that we cannot kill ich while it is on the fish, we know that moving a fish to a quarantine tank for treatment will not solve the problem in the main tank. The time to use a quarantine tank is before a new fish is introduced into a display tank.
If a fish in a tank has ich, you must assume that the entire tank is now contaminated with ich and must be treated. Another way to get ich out of a tank is to remove all of the fish. To be safe, wait 4 days before returning the fish to the tank.
But remember, you will need to treat the tank that the fish are moved to, otherwise, fish entering that tank could become infected. We are treating the tank, not the fish, so all effective treatments are designed to kill the trophite form of the disease while it is in the tank. The mature ich organisms that cause the problems on the fish do not die from treatment, but fall off in a couple of days during their normal life cycle and then their offspring die from the treatment in the water.
Some of the best treatments historically have been formalin or malachite green, or a combination of the two.
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