Thankfully, no. You will not be infected if you touch the aquarium water. However, make sure to thoroughly wash your hands and forearms so that you will not accidentally pass the disease to other aquariums. Also, do not share any equipment such as siphons and nets between fish tanks. If you must reuse aquarium tools, you can disinfect them with very hot tap water and chlorine and then allow the items to completely dry before reuse. There are numerous techniques for treating ich, from gentle herbal solutions to very invasive ones, but after years of testing, Aquarium Solutions Ich-X is our medication of choice.
The active ingredient in Ich-X is malachite green chloride, which has a strong blue coloration, so avoid touching the liquid if at all possible. In our experience, we have not noticed any problems with blue staining on aquarium decor or silicone. Stop treating with Ich-X, gradually remove it using your normal water change schedule, and reevaluate the diagnosis.
Also, if Ich-X is not available in your country, salt is another good method for treating ich. We often use it with cichlids both African and South American and goldfish, but catfish and loach species can be more sensitive to salinity changes.
For more details on using salt to treat ich, read our blog post on aquarium salt. Prevention of Ich is the most effective route in making sure Ich never exposes itself in your aquarium.
Taking steps to avoid the disease will greatly reduce the need for curing ich. If you can manage to follow at least a few of these simple steps, the possibility of Ich becomes extremely low. Preventing Ich is much easier in than inevitably curing ich. Always take caution when purchasing any live products from a fish store or online.
Ich has a short life cycle that can be shortened even further by increasing the temperature. The ich protozoan metabolism speeds up in tandem with the tanks temperature. There are a number of advantages and disadvantages of this method we will discuss below. It is recommended to increase the temperature to at least 86 degrees 30 celcius from its current state.
It is not recommended to exceed 90 degrees 32 degrees celcius. Most tropical fish will be able to withstand temperatures around 86 degrees for shorter periods of time. Ensure your species are able to cope with temperatures this high before proceeding. It is recommended to increase the temperature by no more than 2 degrees every twelve hours.
When your desired temperature is reached it should be left at this level for at least 2 weeks. After this time period, slowly reduce the temperature back down to its normal state. There is a fine balance between shortening the life of Ich and placing your fish under undue stress.
Unfortunately some strains of Ich will not be affected by temperatures of 86 degrees. In this case, 88 degrees or 90 degrees may be necessary. If you have a quarantine tank, it is an excellent time to transfer your tanks inhabitants. Without any inhabitants, the high temperature will quickly kill the ich.
In the quarantine tank, increase the temperature to at least Slowly add the inhabitants back to the display tank after a few week. Only do this when you are certain none of them are carrying or showing signs of the disease. This solution is the most optimal, however not always possible. Raising the temperature of your aquarium can definitely aid in curing Ich.
However, it should only be one point of attack. Raising the temperature alone can sometimes fail to completely remove Ich from your aquarium. Fish should be kept in quarantine for some time until you are certain the Ich has been removed.
If absolutely necessary, use medications in the quarantine tank. It is also highly recommended to read through the prevention step above.
Ensure to be vigilant when purchasing live goods from a store. There is constant debate to the legitimacy of using salt when curing Ich. Salt is often hailed as an excellent additive for freshwater fish diseases. In personal experience salt has had little impact when curing Ich. More importantly, some fish such as Cories can be very sensitive to salinity changes. Unless you have had prior positive experience using salt I would not recommend it for curing Ich.
You are more likely to find that raising the temperature. Unfortunately, sometimes medications are the only option. When using medications for curing ich there are three key points to remember. Always transfer your fish to a quarantine tank before medicating. The chemicals from the medication will never completely be removed from the aquarium water column. For this reason it is essential to use a quarantine tank. Some medications can be dangerous to plants and anaerobic bacteria.
Some medications contain copper which can be lethal to invertebrates. Ensure to read up online before using some medications. Read the directions and use a calculator to work out the dosage required. Never add more to the aquarium than recommended.
If the dosage is daily, it is usually a good idea to spread the dosage over a number of hours. This will allow you to see if any negative reactions occur in lower concentrations.
Carbon and other filter media will absorb the chemicals in the medications. Rendering them useless. Be sure to remove all forms of chemical filtration before adding the medicines.
There are a number of proven products that may help you beat Ich. Each tank has different inhabitants who react differently. Garlic Guard is essential for fish that are having trouble consuming their food or are not hungry. The smell of garlic is a natural diet enhancer and should help you to keep them eating through the worst of the disease. Reducing the stress of your fish is imminent to your future success.
This means the medication is powerful and deadly. Use any Ich medication with extreme caution with your inhabitants. The medications are toxic enough to kill the parasite while sparing your fish. This is a fine line to dance.
There is no requirement for these companies to digress what ingredients they use. I would always recommend using an established brand for this reason. ParaGuard is an aldehyde, which is probably preferable to other medications as it is undoubtably less toxic.
On the downside, ParaGuard is not made exclusively for curing Ich. Medications that have a range of purposes will always make me more skeptical than those made specifically for Ich. ParaGuard employs a proprietary, synergistic blend of aldehydes, malachite green, and fish protective polymers that effectively and efficiently eradicates many ectoparasites on fish e. The better you know the enemy, the better your chances to defeat it, especially if you get one of the more resistant strains.
What we see as white spots which are visible on our fish is a life stage known as a trophont. The more Ich the fish carries, the weaker it becomes. Thermonts hatch fairly quickly, depending on the exact temperature, into hundreds of free swimming tomonts which are again vulnerable to medications, but only until they find a fish host to attach to. This is why removing all fish from a display tank for a couple of weeks will clear the display tank of Ich.
Salt will kill your plants! The time during which Ich are immune to medications and salt is quite a bit longer than the short time during which they are vulnerable, so persistence with treatment is important. We use a water softener at our home. Is this water safe for aquarium use? I think I drank that Kool-aid, for sure. Victoria Marie. Oops im sorry i didn't realize this was 3 years old. It was in with all the new posts! Those may interest you: How long after using soap is it safe to put your hands in your aquarium?
Tiny white dust bugs outside and inside my fresh water aquarium. Ich treatment with Kordon Ich-Attack. Ich in community aquarium with frogs, shrimp, snails and live plants. Putting your hands in the tank.
How can I put sand into a tank that already has water and fish in it? Nipping hands and arms. Are there any aquarium parasites that are harmful to humans or get into hum Wash your hands! I'm trying to get hands on a 40 gallon but I don't know what fish would get I used perfumed soap to wash hands before sticking fingers in aquarium. How do you keep your daghters hands out of the fish tank she has killed 5 f Right, so I'm leaving my tank in the hands of my family while I'm going to My daughter washed her hands with perfumed soap and stuck her finger in the Once they attach to a fish, the cycle will start over again.
It is during this stage that ich is most susceptible to treatment. Many of the available medications will kill the tomites, thereby stopping the cycle of ich in your tank.
It should be noted that these tomites will only survive for 48 hours if they do not find a fish to attach to. These tomites will also attach to plants, filter material, etc. So if you move a plant from an infected tank into a clean tank, you have just infected the clean tank with ich.
Depending on the water temperature, the whole cycle can take from 4 days to several weeks. Theoretically, if the cycle takes four days to complete at this temperature, then the treatment should be complete in 4 days.
Since we understand that we cannot kill ich while it is on the fish, we know that moving a fish to a quarantine tank for treatment will not solve the problem in the main tank. The time to use a quarantine tank is before a new fish is introduced into a display tank. If a fish in a tank has ich, you must assume that the entire tank is now contaminated with ich and must be treated. Another way to get ich out of a tank is to remove all of the fish. To be safe, wait 4 days before returning the fish to the tank.
But remember, you will need to treat the tank that the fish are moved to, otherwise, fish entering that tank could become infected. We are treating the tank, not the fish, so all effective treatments are designed to kill the trophite form of the disease while it is in the tank. The mature ich organisms that cause the problems on the fish do not die from treatment, but fall off in a couple of days during their normal life cycle and then their offspring die from the treatment in the water.
Some of the best treatments historically have been formalin or malachite green, or a combination of the two. Copper, methylene blue, and baths of potassium permanganate, quinine hydrochloride, and sodium chloride have also been used, but do not appear to offer an advantage over the more readily available formalin and malachite green products.
When using formalin, make sure to use recently purchased formalin. Formalin that is stored for long periods of time can convert to paraformaldehyde, which can be toxic to fish. An indicator that this has occurred is the formation of a white precipitate in the bottle. Malachite green may also stain some decorations and silicone to a green color and may be toxic to piranhas, neons, sunfish, and some scaleless fish, if given at the recommended dose.
For these fish or other sensitive species, they should be treated at half strength and monitored carefully for signs of distress. While we rarely recommend treating an entire tank for a disease, ich is an exception. Make sure to follow individual label directions, remove the carbon from your filter, and shut off any UV sterilizers or protein skimmers during treatment because they will inactivate or remove any medications that are added.
Ich is a very common disease and if your fish get it, you are going to end up having to treat the entire tank.
Therefore, it is a much easier disease to prevent than treat, and the following is a list of suggestions for helping to prevent ich in your tank:. Always place new fish in a proper quarantine tank for a minimum of two weeks before introducing them into your main tank.
Never buy plants from a source that keeps them in a fish tank with fish. If you do, make sure to quarantine your plants for at least 4 days. Avoid any fluctuations in temperature, pH, or ammonia levels as these are all very stressful to fish and can result in an outbreak of ich.
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