Ich outbreak
I woke up this morning and discovered my newest black neon tetra covered in ich. This was the most recent blow in a long series of disasters befalling my heavily planted ten gallon. I can trace the mess back to 8 cardinal tetras, which are wild caught fish. Half died, taking with them a kuhli loach and a prized golden male betta. With frequent water changes, I seemingly stabilized the tank, but then I foolishly bought more fish. My most recent purchase, the black neon, looked fine at the store, ate and swam perfectly for three days, and this morning it was covered in ich.
Ich is a microscopic parasite with a difficult and hellacious life cycle. It is only visible as white tiny cysts on the fish, which look like grains of salt, and each cyst explodes and gives life to hundreds or thousands of new ich. They settle to the gravel and enter their dormant phase, which can last anywhere from 2-7 days. They then become free-swimming and embed themselves in other fish... they become visible when they're ready to burst with thousands more.
As you can see, you can have a tank that may look sparkling clear but could be infested with thousands and thousands of ichers.
No other fish appeared infected, save for one cyst on the fin of the hatchetfish. Ich in a planted tank is a delicate situation because most meds kill plants too. I don't like using meds and believe they cause more harm than good, often killing more fish than the disease in a shorter period of time. Also, some meds like malachite green are believed to be carcinogenic.
In my experience and in the experience of many others, the hands-down best approach is the heat and salt method. Slowly raise your temperature to 86-88 F and add 1-2 Tbs of aquarium salt to your tank per five gallons. The heat speeds up the life cycle, and most ich strains cannot survive in 86 and above degrees. The salt affects the osmotic process and causes the little bastards to burst... and the salt also induces the slime coating on the fish to protect them against the ich.
Alas, salt is as bad for plants as meds.
I made an executive decision and put the infected fish down. I'll talk more about euthanizing a fish in a later post, but there are several ways to do it which are believed to be painless. I caught the fish in a net and then put it in the freezer in a baggie of aquarium water.
The reason I put the fish down was because no other fish showed signs of infection, other than the hatchetfish. Hopefully, this will cripple the strain before they really multiply and the other fish will fend off the dormant parasites while my raised temp. will speed up their lifecycle and/or kill the ich.
I did a 35% water change too.
Only time will tell. With the raised temp., I should see new cysts either tomorrow or the next day if it's spreading... regardless, I'll have to leave the temperature up that high for about 5 days to be sure the ich is dead, which means goodbye ghost shrimp :(
As you can see above, I've put a lot of time and money into this planted tank, and it would be a disaster to see it go, which can easily happen with ich.
In the end, this was my own fault for buying that black neon when I wasn't 100 percent that the tank was secure and ready for new fish. Of course, if I had a Q-tank, then none of this would have happened... but I'll talk about my philosophy on Q-tanks in a future post.
This sucks...
... but, on the bright side, if the worst case scenario ensues and ich spreads like malaria ripping through a coastal south Pacific village during the rainy season, I'l tear apart the whole tank and turn it into a nano-saltwater. Of course, that means a lot more time, a lot more money, but it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately.
Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
Josh Day
http://joshday.com
Ich is a microscopic parasite with a difficult and hellacious life cycle. It is only visible as white tiny cysts on the fish, which look like grains of salt, and each cyst explodes and gives life to hundreds or thousands of new ich. They settle to the gravel and enter their dormant phase, which can last anywhere from 2-7 days. They then become free-swimming and embed themselves in other fish... they become visible when they're ready to burst with thousands more.
As you can see, you can have a tank that may look sparkling clear but could be infested with thousands and thousands of ichers.
No other fish appeared infected, save for one cyst on the fin of the hatchetfish. Ich in a planted tank is a delicate situation because most meds kill plants too. I don't like using meds and believe they cause more harm than good, often killing more fish than the disease in a shorter period of time. Also, some meds like malachite green are believed to be carcinogenic.
In my experience and in the experience of many others, the hands-down best approach is the heat and salt method. Slowly raise your temperature to 86-88 F and add 1-2 Tbs of aquarium salt to your tank per five gallons. The heat speeds up the life cycle, and most ich strains cannot survive in 86 and above degrees. The salt affects the osmotic process and causes the little bastards to burst... and the salt also induces the slime coating on the fish to protect them against the ich.
Alas, salt is as bad for plants as meds.
I made an executive decision and put the infected fish down. I'll talk more about euthanizing a fish in a later post, but there are several ways to do it which are believed to be painless. I caught the fish in a net and then put it in the freezer in a baggie of aquarium water.
The reason I put the fish down was because no other fish showed signs of infection, other than the hatchetfish. Hopefully, this will cripple the strain before they really multiply and the other fish will fend off the dormant parasites while my raised temp. will speed up their lifecycle and/or kill the ich.
I did a 35% water change too.
Only time will tell. With the raised temp., I should see new cysts either tomorrow or the next day if it's spreading... regardless, I'll have to leave the temperature up that high for about 5 days to be sure the ich is dead, which means goodbye ghost shrimp :(
As you can see above, I've put a lot of time and money into this planted tank, and it would be a disaster to see it go, which can easily happen with ich.
In the end, this was my own fault for buying that black neon when I wasn't 100 percent that the tank was secure and ready for new fish. Of course, if I had a Q-tank, then none of this would have happened... but I'll talk about my philosophy on Q-tanks in a future post.
This sucks...
... but, on the bright side, if the worst case scenario ensues and ich spreads like malaria ripping through a coastal south Pacific village during the rainy season, I'l tear apart the whole tank and turn it into a nano-saltwater. Of course, that means a lot more time, a lot more money, but it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately.
Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
Josh Day
http://joshday.com
posted by Josh Day at 3:14 PM
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