Cure For Ich....

[Ludwig Venter]

Since it's been a long time since I have been confronted with the disease, I did not get the opportunity to test my (tested) theory for a very long time......

Friday afternoon, I noticed a full fledged infested Blue gouramie tank (14 of 'em) to the extent that even the fins started turning bloody red....

I have often given the advice of (simply) increasing your water temperature to around 31 deg C for 3 days and then gradually lower again to 26/7......(no additives or anything else)

Well!.... I did just that, and tonight, there is not a trace of ich in the whole of that tank and all the fish are happy......

It works for me..... If you have other proven cures though... stick to it.

 

[Bignose]

This can work -- the idea being to stress the lower organisms (ich) to the breaking point whereas the higher organisms (fish) can survive a short period of such stress.

However, there are reports of strains of ich that can survive well in the 90's Fahrenheit, 30's Celsius. If you end up with one of those strains, this temperature method won't take care of the infestation.

 

[Ben.M]

Its worth a go though, thanks for this

 

[Ludwig Venter]

This can work -- the idea being to stress the lower organisms (ich) to the breaking point whereas the higher organisms (fish) can survive a short period of such stress.

However, there are reports of strains of ich that can survive well in the 90's Fahrenheit, 30's Celsius. If you end up with one of those strains, this temperature method won't take care of the infestation.

Alternatively,.... maybe the fish I chose to test are temperature tollerant and some other species (of fish) may not be??.....

 

[ALW]

Raising the temp speed the life cycle of the parasite, so the higher temperature reduces and kills the free swimming parasite. Temps above 30 °C (86 °F) are considered to be fatal to parasite

 

[Bignose]

Temps above 30 °C (86 °F) are considered to be fatal to parasite

Again, for most of the common strains of ich -- but again there are reports of some strains of ich surviving above 30 °C today.

The moral of the story is that never put all your eggs into one basket in terms of a cure for any fish disease, ich included. Monitor closely, and if temperature alone isn't doing it, have medication or some other method of cure at the ready to use.