how long can ich live

[laboul]

I have had horrible problems with ich and can't seem to rid my tank of it. All my fish are in a clean quarantine tank and I am treating the original tank with ich meds for 3 days at 86F. After 3 days I plant to do a gravel vac and large water change in the original tank. Do you all think that the parasites should be dead by that time, or should I give it even longer?

 

[Salt Freak]

I [retty sure that ick will still be alive in there it will come in your water. The best thing to get most of it away is a UV sterilizer.

 

[laboul]

Poop. OK, should I continue treating for a whole week? Would that do?

 

[black angel]

try using salt to clear the tank. if the fish arent in the tank then take out all live plants and salt the tank to .4% for 10 days, at 4 level tablespoon per 3 uk gallons or 5 u.s gallons and leaving it to run. hopefully that will kill the bugs.

the thing is your fish may still be carrying the disease even though you cant see it so its best to treat them as well. what kind of fish have you got as salt isnt tolerated by them all.

 

[yvez9]

I've used Nox-Ich to treat ich. I've only had one outbreak in my tank so I guess the meds wiped it out. I treated for 4 days without carbon or purigen of course...

 

[laboul]

Good advice. I'm treating the fish in a separate quarantine tank with ich meds. I have mollies and 1 platy. I'm also doing 100% water change daily for them. I know that's drastic but I've been treating for two weeks and can't get rid of it and even under such conditions they seem happier than in the main tank where they were totally listless. I'm guessing there were just tons of parasites in there.

There is already salt in the main tank at 1T per 5 US gallons. I might consider removing the plants and upping the salt as well...

I'm adding a little bit of ammonia to make sure it stays cycled. Will the salt mess up the bacteria?

 

[black angel]

how long has the tank been running for? i dont know if using ammonia will do anything for the salt but i would use little bits of flake food to keep the bacteria colony happy instead.

 

[laboul]

Hmmm.. it's been running about 6-8 weeks now.

 

[FrAnK3333]

Ich will be always in the tank. Ich is caused by stress. Id go for some ich meds.