When you see a little white spots on your fishes body. It means you got ich from your tank. And you have to prepare your meds ASAP to kill them. Ich is a very command parasite sickness for fishes. It is easy to deal with but most of people just not treat them in the right way. So, I will share my experience and hope this can help to save your fishes!
First, you need to understand their life cycle. They will parasitic on the body and also the gill of the fish. When you see few of them on the body means they will everywhere within 5-8 days. They usually grow up within 15-30 days(that depend on your water), and then drop from the fish and flow over your tank to parasitic another fish until they checkmate all your fishes. They can't survive in 90 degree water, however, 90% fishes can not alive in that temperature, so raising the temperature is not the way to kill ich. Ich will die within 10-12 days if they don't parasitic on fish for nutrition.
Where ich came from? They usually came from the sick fish you just bought, none clean saltwater from LFS, or due to high pressure. When you buy a new fish that not welcome to their roommate and get attacked, they will get ich very easy as well. So make sure you introduce them well when you get any of new fishes. You can also use Stress Guard when you do water change or adding new fishes. HIGH RECOMMEND!
So now, what to do?
1. Make sure you have a QT if your main tank is a coral tank. I don't have coral cuz I'm just a bit lazy to deal with them, also coral is a bit spoil. so fish tank only for me is enough.
2. Move all your fishes to the QT. Don't make it wrong! When you see one fish with ich, it mean ich is everywhere from your main tank! You can't just treat the sick fish only. Otherwise, you will get very headache when fish becoming sick again and again!
3. Raise the temperature for your QT up to 82-84 degree. That temperature does not hurt ANY kind of your fishes, even clean wrasse. The reason why you raise up the temp. is because you want to get ich grow up much faster. It shorter the ich life cycle from 15-30 days to 3-5 days. And they will drop at that time and leave the body of fishes.
4. Give fishes some extra oxygen, you can get a oxygen pump with batteries from petco, petsmart or LFS. When temperature raised up. Oxygen level drop. So you need to get them more oxygen to breathe.
5. Use your secret weapon, Copper Power or ICH-X. I prefer to use Copper Power because it is much stronger and efficient. Ich-X does works but I will treat in different ways with it. When you use copper power, just make sure you test the copper with 2.5-3ppm(Hanna Instruments Checker is doing a great job), do not over dose your water over 3ppm, because it hurt the kidney of your fish. If you prefer Ich-X, I will recommend you do the water change daily and redose the meds everyday. YES! I'M TALKING ABOUT EVERYDAY! Not every 48hrs. Ich-X is safe to use even over dose a bit, Changing water is helping to clean some volume of ich out of you tank and redose the meds to keep the water efficient to kill the ich. Don't panic if you see more ich on the surface after you dose the meds. That happens because the ich is growing up and they are almost ready to free to swim in your tank. The big difference between Ich-X and Copper Power is, Ich-X will make the water become blue but CP doesn't. However, Ich-X won't always keep your water blue. that usually disappear within 1-2 hours
6. Turn off the skimmer during the treatment if you are treating your main tank, otherwise, the copper level will become much lower and Ich-X will mostly gone!
7. Do not turn on your UV light if you treat copper directly from your fish only tank or QT. It doesn't mean you can't do it, but just not recommend it. Low volume of copper + UV light will not hurt your fish but they don't like it. As same as human doesn't like to swim in the warm water in hot summer. Don't get me wrong, I'm talking about low volume of copper NOT high volume! If you dose high volume ich-x or stabilize copper power to your tank, you should turn off your UV light, otherwise, some of your fish will hurt or die! Plus, UV doesn't kill ich AT ALL. It only helps with Algae. You don't want to use low volume of copper cuz that might not kill ich properly as it usually does.
8. Feed them less than usual. You can use the garlic guard to mix the frozen food or fish dry food. Fishes are starving anything with garlic. And garlic boost their immunity. Some people said it is OK for none dose meds if they eating well. That is completely wrong!!!!!! If you don't dose the meds, you will get 100% dead fish in your tank!!!!
9. You will see almost none ich within 7 days if you do all those steps, but it doesn't mean you are ready to get them home(main tank). Make sure you keep quarantine them 2 better 3 weeks from the main tank, because ich still alive in your main tank even after 10 days without parasitic on fishes. Keep the copper level in your QT the same level with 2 weeks and your fishes will be free of ich.
First, you need to understand their life cycle. They will parasitic on the body and also the gill of the fish. When you see few of them on the body means they will everywhere within 5-8 days. They usually grow up within 15-30 days(that depend on your water), and then drop from the fish and flow over your tank to parasitic another fish until they checkmate all your fishes. They can't survive in 90 degree water, however, 90% fishes can not alive in that temperature, so raising the temperature is not the way to kill ich. Ich will die within 10-12 days if they don't parasitic on fish for nutrition.
Where ich came from? They usually came from the sick fish you just bought, none clean saltwater from LFS, or due to high pressure. When you buy a new fish that not welcome to their roommate and get attacked, they will get ich very easy as well. So make sure you introduce them well when you get any of new fishes. You can also use Stress Guard when you do water change or adding new fishes. HIGH RECOMMEND!
So now, what to do?
1. Make sure you have a QT if your main tank is a coral tank. I don't have coral cuz I'm just a bit lazy to deal with them, also coral is a bit spoil. so fish tank only for me is enough.
2. Move all your fishes to the QT. Don't make it wrong! When you see one fish with ich, it mean ich is everywhere from your main tank! You can't just treat the sick fish only. Otherwise, you will get very headache when fish becoming sick again and again!
3. Raise the temperature for your QT up to 82-84 degree. That temperature does not hurt ANY kind of your fishes, even clean wrasse. The reason why you raise up the temp. is because you want to get ich grow up much faster. It shorter the ich life cycle from 15-30 days to 3-5 days. And they will drop at that time and leave the body of fishes.
4. Give fishes some extra oxygen, you can get a oxygen pump with batteries from petco, petsmart or LFS. When temperature raised up. Oxygen level drop. So you need to get them more oxygen to breathe.
5. Use your secret weapon, Copper Power or ICH-X. I prefer to use Copper Power because it is much stronger and efficient. Ich-X does works but I will treat in different ways with it. When you use copper power, just make sure you test the copper with 2.5-3ppm(Hanna Instruments Checker is doing a great job), do not over dose your water over 3ppm, because it hurt the kidney of your fish. If you prefer Ich-X, I will recommend you do the water change daily and redose the meds everyday. YES! I'M TALKING ABOUT EVERYDAY! Not every 48hrs. Ich-X is safe to use even over dose a bit, Changing water is helping to clean some volume of ich out of you tank and redose the meds to keep the water efficient to kill the ich. Don't panic if you see more ich on the surface after you dose the meds. That happens because the ich is growing up and they are almost ready to free to swim in your tank. The big difference between Ich-X and Copper Power is, Ich-X will make the water become blue but CP doesn't. However, Ich-X won't always keep your water blue. that usually disappear within 1-2 hours
6. Turn off the skimmer during the treatment if you are treating your main tank, otherwise, the copper level will become much lower and Ich-X will mostly gone!
7. Do not turn on your UV light if you treat copper directly from your fish only tank or QT. It doesn't mean you can't do it, but just not recommend it. Low volume of copper + UV light will not hurt your fish but they don't like it. As same as human doesn't like to swim in the warm water in hot summer. Don't get me wrong, I'm talking about low volume of copper NOT high volume! If you dose high volume ich-x or stabilize copper power to your tank, you should turn off your UV light, otherwise, some of your fish will hurt or die! Plus, UV doesn't kill ich AT ALL. It only helps with Algae. You don't want to use low volume of copper cuz that might not kill ich properly as it usually does.
8. Feed them less than usual. You can use the garlic guard to mix the frozen food or fish dry food. Fishes are starving anything with garlic. And garlic boost their immunity. Some people said it is OK for none dose meds if they eating well. That is completely wrong!!!!!! If you don't dose the meds, you will get 100% dead fish in your tank!!!!
9. You will see almost none ich within 7 days if you do all those steps, but it doesn't mean you are ready to get them home(main tank). Make sure you keep quarantine them 2 better 3 weeks from the main tank, because ich still alive in your main tank even after 10 days without parasitic on fishes. Keep the copper level in your QT the same level with 2 weeks and your fishes will be free of ich.
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