Ick...

[ayla]

Anyone out there has had reoccuring ich that never seems to have gone away? I've been treating my tank with the Jungle Brand Ick Cure tablets and it seems to always come back...kind of like it just haults the process. I don't know what to do. I can't use bigger dosage because I have many scaleless fish...including my clown loaches and eels. I've also tried raising the water temperature but I don't think that my heater keeps up with the weather changes. (Stupid piece of *censored*) And salt is out of the question. Is there any sure way to note that the ick has been terminated completely?

 

[endparenthesis]

A large portion of the ich lifecycle is spent off the fish. In some stages they're invulnerable to medication. Heat speeds up their metabolism and causes the lifecycle to be completed in days rather than weeks, and at temperatures of 85F or so they can have trouble surviving even without the addition of medicine.

Chances are you just aren't treating it long enough... especially if your temperatures are usually below 80F.

(Naturally, you should make sure your fish can tolerate higher temperatures if you're going to use the heater to help cure them.)

http/www.netpets.com/fish/healthspa/ich.html
http/badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article2.html
http/fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants/mont...8/msg00196.html