Formalin for ICH

waltee1000

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Has anyone used formalin for ich in a fish only display for a few weeks and had success getting rid of ich and keeping all fish alive? I ask bcoz kick-x and other commercial products use formalin as main ingredient in thier ich medication bottles.
 

EgotisticObeseChihuahua

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I have never heard of formalin being used to treat ich. I have only heard of it being used against Brooklynella. I don’t doubt its potency though only because that stuff kills everything. I am also curious to know if this would be a valid treatment for a FOWL build.
 

BiggestE22

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You can’t treat a tank with formalin. It’s dangerous to even handle it. Remove the fish and use copper power in a separate tank.
 

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Jay Hemdal

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Has anyone used formalin for ich in a fish only display for a few weeks and had success getting rid of ich and keeping all fish alive? I ask bcoz kick-x and other commercial products use formalin as main ingredient in thier ich medication bottles.
I’ve never had it work against ich, even when combined with malachite green. Formalin is dosed on a time / temperature / concentration basis. For a 24 hour dose at tropical temperatures, it is 25 ppm. The dose fades over time, so it doesn’t work for diseases that have a resting stage that can survive that dose: ich and velvet. It does work well on direct development protozoans like Brooklynella.
 
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waltee1000

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I’ve never had it work against ich, even when combined with malachite green. Formalin is dosed on a time / temperature / concentration basis. For a 24 hour dose at tropical temperatures, it is 25 ppm. The dose fades over time, so it doesn’t work for diseases that have a resting stage that can survive that dose: ich and velvet. It does work well on direct development protozoans like Brooklynella.
Jay, Are you saying it would work if it was not biodegradable and ond could measure and test for it?
 

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Has anyone used formalin for ich in a fish only display for a few weeks and had success getting rid of ich and keeping all fish alive? I ask bcoz kick-x and other commercial products use formalin as main ingredient in thier ich medication bottles.
Formalin based is harder to find and straight formalin has t be mixed precisely. Coppersafe a chelated form with bonders are much safer and proven effective. Other option is hyposalinity (1.009) but can be risky with certain fish
 

MnFish1

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It's nearly always better to treat disease in a hospital tank. As others have said - it's not likely to be effective against Ich, and even if it might be, there are safer chemicals, etc which would be far preferable. As to kick-ich, I haven't used it, but I have not heard that people have had much success with it. To the OP - is there another specific reason why you want to use a formalin based product?
 

Jay Hemdal

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Jay, Are you saying it would work if it was not biodegradable and ond could measure and test for it?
Yes, I think it would work against ich if you could keep a constant 25 ppm dose to kill any emerging ich theronts, I just don’t know how that could be done.
 
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waltee1000

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It's nearly always better to treat disease in a hospital tank. As others have said - it's not likely to be effective against Ich, and even if it might be, there are safer chemicals, etc which would be far preferable. As to kick-ich, I haven't used it, but I have not heard that people have had much success with it. To the OP - is there another specific reason why you want to use a formalin based product?
I want to convert the fish only system to reef and want to avoid using copper. I also suspect I have uronema as many damasel fish get red sores during hyop and eventually die. They do better when salanity is increased but get wounds in hypo. I tried hypo once for 50 days and had no luck eradicating ich. It came back when I increased salanity to 1.023 slowly over a month. So now I am looking if I can combine hypo with formalin or something else to hit multiple things simultaneously. I want ich, uronema and whatever maybe there gine without destroying my reef tank dream. It's not possible to catch all fish is 2 × 180 gallon tanks. I don't have the space to qt over 30 fish simultaneously. I qt my fish purchesed online and got from a store that qt them but i still picked ich along the way. I don't have any invertbreats or corals for one specific reason that I wanted to make sure my fish were healthy before adding them. I am currently in hypo at 1.009 fish look good just a few have white spot but I lost a damasel with red open wound again after 2 weeks in hypo. I have copperbands, gobies, wrasses.. all doing good in hypo. I am looking for the one extra thing that will break the cycle of ich and maybe also destroy uronema. I have been dosing 1ml per every 2 gallon of hydrogen peroxide but it's not killing ich as i still see spot after 2 weeks. I feel hydrogen peroxied helped my tangs breath when ich infestation was so bad I thought powder brown and blue were gone case. Other than that I can't say it helped kill ich or uronema.

Here is another article on hypo with formalin for ich
 

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HAVE YOU EVER KEPT A RARE/UNCOMMON FISH, CORAL, OR INVERT? SHOW IT OFF IN THE THREAD!

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