# Raising temperature to treat ick...



## xerxeswasachump

My tank temperature is now at about 85 degrees. My fish are starting to act like they are on meth. They are breathing rapidly and moving around very quickly. I understand that at higher temperatures, water can't hold as much oxygen. To help, i put in an air powered sponge filter right near the surface to cause the most surface agitation. 
Is there anything else i should be doing? What should i be looking out for? How long do i need to keep the temperature this high?
I have some extra air pumps i could use. I don't have an extra powerhead or anything nor do i have any money to buy some. The tank is a fully planted 55 gallon, the fish are in my signature. There seems to be a buildup of brown algae on the glass and plants too, my algae eater can't get it all.


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## Osiris

If you have a petsmart going to www.petsmart.com print out a powerhead you want and have the store price match the internet they will do, it's very cheap.

Which tank has ich? am reading ur signature but with the SAE and ghost shrimp in there and eel im not sure about adding salt to help fix the problem as i believe those creatures are weak against salt


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## violet

If you have HOTB filters you can lower the water level a little which will cause more of a waterfall effect and more turbulence. This is a situation where you really do need to ADD something like a powerhead. Get as many airpumps hooked up as you have and I would put the airstones farther down than the surface. Bringing water up from below causes more movement. A heavily planted tank is going to buffer water movement anyways.

You haven't mentioned salt. I dunno about that eel or SAE either. For some reason I think ghost shrimp can tolerate some salt, can't remember WHY I think that, don't know how much.

Not everyone agrees with me on this but there seems to be strains of ich developing which are not eliminated as easily by the standard levels of salt and temperature as they used to be. Super-Ich. The reason I think this is because I had some which laughed at temps in the mid 80s and moderate salt levels. I found some mentions of heat/salt resistant Ich when I really dug around on the web. I had to use HOT water and a really lot of salt. If I had this happen in a planted tank it would have killed all the plants.

In any case you are looking at a couple of weeks of heat and salt, probably more. The worst thing you can do stop as soon as it appears the Ich is gone. You have to continue to provide conditions in which it cannot live for at LEAST one more life cycle and better, two life cycles. 

If you can increase the photsynthesis of the plants you may be able to get more dissolved O2. More light and adding CO2 might help... But getting the water really circulating would probably do more.


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## xerxeswasachump

The ick problem is in my 55. I can't add any salt because most of the fish in there need a low pH and it is already at 7, which is the best i can do. I regularly soften the water after water changes using a softener pillow. 
I'll lower the air powered filter. I'll also decrease the total water level, i'm sure that will help with the HOB filter. 
The fish have really started freaking out. I'm a little worried, unfortunately, chemicals aren't an option. I don't want to risk killing my eel or shrimp or stressing out my rams. Increasing the temperature is pretty much the only thing i can do. 
Right now the ick isn't bad at all, i was just trying to nip it in the bud. There was 1 white speck on the side fins of 3 of my rainbows. That's it. Since i increased the temperature those specks are gone. I've read that the lifecycle of ick at around 85 degrees is 4 days or less, which would mean (since it can't reproduce), that it is already almost all dead. 
I'm not sure if it is from the heat or something else, but some of my rainbows have started twiching every once in a while. They'll be swimming around real fast, then stop and flex all of their fins and shake their bodies around. The thing is, no one has died yet. In fact, most of the fish are getting better coloring and my eel comes out more and doesn't try to escape as much. I have a feeling they are just fine.

Also, would adding more oxygen kill all of my plants? Should i just put the air pumps on after i turn the light off for the night? How many extra air pumps do i need?


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## cheseboy

What would make you think ick can't reproduce? They have no trouble reproducing in 85F temperature. When you raise the temperature you are simply making their life cycle go faster. The reason people do this is so when they fall off the fish the aquarist can attack it with something (UV sterilizer, Chemicals, salt). So basically when they fall off the fish they go into the gravel, reproduce and find a new host. 

If I were you I would quarantine the ghost shrimp as he won't be able to take any medications and medicate the tank with a chemical and maybe put a bit of salt in the ghost shrimp's tank to make sure nothing hitchhikes when you put it back. Since I think eels are scaleless put in a half dose or buy a specific medication that is made for scaleless fish. If this is not available then buy a UV sterilizer it will kill any parasites that pass through it but it may already be past the stage that this will help.


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## violet

Ditto most of what Cheeseboy said. Ich thinks 85F is lovely. You have to go well into the 90s to take care of it with heat alone I believe. 85F with no salt will make it worse fast. If the spots are gone it's because they dropped off and are resting in the substrate dividing into hundreds or thousands of new little Ichs (Ichi?). Since it isn't going to be practical to kill them with pure heat you are going to have to add something.

How is salt going to raise the pH? Water softeners lower the GH. Salt WILL raise the TDS but I don't even know if it shows on a basic GH test, never tried. GH doesn't measure the full range of possible dissolved minerals in the water, just a few (like calcium & magnesium). Salt doesn't have carbonate in it so I don't see how it will have much of an impact on pH.

Oxygen doesn't harm plants. Quite the opposite, they USE oxygen when the lights are off and they RELEASE CO2. The amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide dissolved in the water are not influenced by each other. You can have a lot or a little of both simultaneously, at least in any commonly found situation.

Those twitchy 'bows are almost certainly getting the new little free swimming Ichs (tomites) burrowing into them. When you see white spots it isn't really the parasite. It is the cyst the fish forms around the parasite. Then the trophonts fall off and rest in the substrate to merrily divide. 

Pick your poison, salt or meds but you need to add something.

Personally I use as much salt as can be tolerated, do massive gravel vacs a couple of times a day and rinse all filter media (with water from a different CLEAN tank) at LEAST once a day.

Ich rarely kills fish right away. It's the constant and increasing feeding of the parasite on the fish which weakens and eventually kills it. Waiting until it is a bad case of ich means you are going to be using the heat and salt OR meds on an already weakened fish. The sooner you begin to kill the Ich the better the fish will be able to handle the treatment.


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## xerxeswasachump

I'm pretty sick of this. So how much salt am i supposed to use on 55 gallons of water? I'm really not willing to use real medications. I'd have to tear apart my entire tank to catch all of the shrimp i have. Since salt doesn't increase water hardness i'll just go crazy with that. 
The reason i thought that ick couldn't reproduce is because i read is somewhere on the internet, much like how i am reading and listening to you people now. It is hard to figure out who you can trust. 
Anyway, no one is dead yet...still...which i guess is a good sign. I figured the rams would all be dead by now at this high a temperature. 
Also, I'm turning on the air pumps at night because the plants release CO2 at night, i know that. 
Also, what should i do about water changes? The only water i can put in the tank is about 60 degrees, i don't want to shock the fish or break the heater by putting in cold water, but i guess the water needs to be changed. Should i hold off on water changes till i know the ick is gone?

EDIT: Ok, so i put in about 15 tablespoons of rock salt. It is basically the same stuff as "aquarium salt." I put the salt in the filter box for the HOB filter so that as it dissolves it is put in the aquarium. The guppies are already swimming around in the filter flow. In fact, all of the fish are swimming around the incoming salty water. I was gonna go out and buy a floating hydrometer, any idea what ppm the salinity should be at to kill ich?


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## violet

There are some fanatastic articles on Ich on the web, there are also some really bad ones with very flawed info.

Can you define *rock salt* a little better? What I call rock salt is unrefined chunks of salt I toss on the driveway when it is icy. I have no idea what contaminates are in it. The manufacturers don't care either because it is just for melting ice... 

15 tablespoons is plenty to start with.

When I treat Ich, I vacuum the floor of the tank as much as twice a day, especally the first several days. I have never treated ich in a 55G, I would think you would remove at least 10 gallons to do a decent vac. The idea is to remove the trophonts which are lying around dividing. When they burst and release the tomites there are hundreds and hundreds so removing one trophont is a big deal. Removing twenty trophonts is a huge deal.

You are going to need to use water of the same temp for waterchanges. Why can it only be 60F? The heater will not be damaged if you unplug it and leave it in the tank for 10 minutes. Leave it out in the air for a few minutes and then in the new water for a few more minutes before plugging it back in. No thermal shock, no problem. I wrap tanks I am treating with insulation to retain heat. Even a few layers of bubblewrap will work.

If you do waterchanges you need to do some math and figure out how much new salt to add to the fresh water to compensate for what you are removing. A planted 55G doesn't have 55G of water in it, You need to judge how much the substrate and decoratons displace. There may be 50Gs or 48Gs??? Make your best estimate.

I don't know what the ideal salinity/specific gravity the water should be to be lethal to Ich.

Do not be alarmed if the fish get MORE spots before improving. That itchy twitching you saw was probaly the tomites attaching to the fish. In a day or two there could be a ton of white spots. Normal.

If you think you're sick of this now... just imagine how much fun you will be having in another week.


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## xerxeswasachump

violet said:


> There are some fanatastic articles on Ich on the web, there are also some really bad ones with very flawed info.
> 
> Can you define *rock salt* a little better? What I call rock salt is unrefined chunks of salt I toss on the driveway when it is icy. I have no idea what contaminates are in it. The manufacturers don't care either because it is just for melting ice...


The "rock salt" is salt we use for our water softener in the house. I doubt it includes anything toxic or dangerous, the water being softened needs to be fit for human consumption. I've used it before with no negative results. 

If you don't know what specific gravity the water needs to be then how did you tell when you treated for ick? If there is some easier method please let me know. 

If raising the temperature doesn't do anything but make an already long process slightly shorter then could i safely reduce the temperature? At this point it seems to be doing more harm than good, though i have no way of determining what "good" would be as it will take a few days to see if any new cysts develop on the fish. I'll keep the thread updated with the progress. Thanks for your help thus far.

Lastly, how long should it take to kill ick of i am getting it right when it starts (3 single cysts on 3 fish)?


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## violet

I ended up just Googling for hours on end and seeing which recommendations were most commonly given and giving more credibility to articles which explained the diabolical life cycle most accurately. I only read FW articles and I don't remember the SG being mentioned much. The amount of salt was almost always given as tablespons. You know that's not really accurate, I know that not really accurate. I doubt a whole lot of people know exactly what level of salinity will kill Ich. I would also suspect some strains are a little more resistant to salt than others.

I think I started with 2 Tablespoons in a bare 10G (these were new arrivals) and a temp of 85F-87F, don't remember exactly. Raised it to about 3T. I was vacuuming the bare bottom twice a day at first and removing 50% of the water, I replaced 5G of water with the same amount of salt I had removed (salinity stayed the same).

It definitely got worse but after what I calculated would have been 2 full life cycles it wasn't getting better. Because I should have been siphoning off so many trophonts from the bottom and rinsing the filter so often I should have seen improvement simply from mechanical removal. The salt should have been making an impact too.

If you have read a lot of online articles you will have seen a lot of suggestions for how much salt (& heat), some as low as 1 Tablespoon/10G and 80F . Since I was NOT making any progress I began to increase both heat and salt. With each vacuuming the temperature went up and the salinity went up. All of a sudden the Ick just vanished. I don't know if I hit the temperature which is lethal to Ich in itself or just speeded up the lifecycle so much that the strong salinity had no trouble killing them.

Considering your plants aren't enjoying this, you may want to consider how long they can tolerate the salt.

I would not lower the temp. I definitely would be doing everything in my power to increase circultion/aeration, both day and night, get more gas exchange.

I treat things like Ich very aggressively. I would try to kill it before the Ich itself weakened the fish. I would add more salt, turn up the heat higher and pull out any plants that began to melt and stick them in a bucket of fresh salt free water. I am not recommending you do that. What you are willing to risk is up to you. Sometimes you cannot save every plant and fish.


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## cheseboy

xerxeswasachump said:


> The "rock salt" is salt we use for our water softener in the house. I doubt it includes anything toxic or dangerous, the water being softened needs to be fit for human consumption. I've used it before with no negative results.


Is the salt iodonized by any chance because salts fit for human consumption can have iodine in it and that is even worse for the fishes's health. 

Also, I don't know if a hydrometer will measure as low as the salt concentration you want, plus there is any specific gravity for curing ick that can be easily called the "best".

I think on the back of the carton it says somthing about the dosing?


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## xerxeswasachump

violet said:


> I ended up just Googling for hours on end and seeing which recommendations were most commonly given and giving more credibility to articles which explained the diabolical life cycle most accurately. I only read FW articles and I don't remember the SG being mentioned much. The amount of salt was almost always given as tablespons. You know that's not really accurate, I know that not really accurate. I doubt a whole lot of people know exactly what level of salinity will kill Ich. I would also suspect some strains are a little more resistant to salt than others.
> 
> I think I started with 2 Tablespoons in a bare 10G (these were new arrivals) and a temp of 85F-87F, don't remember exactly. Raised it to about 3T. I was vacuuming the bare bottom twice a day at first and removing 50% of the water, I replaced 5G of water with the same amount of salt I had removed (salinity stayed the same).
> 
> It definitely got worse but after what I calculated would have been 2 full life cycles it wasn't getting better. Because I should have been siphoning off so many trophonts from the bottom and rinsing the filter so often I should have seen improvement simply from mechanical removal. The salt should have been making an impact too.
> 
> If you have read a lot of online articles you will have seen a lot of suggestions for how much salt (& heat), some as low as 1 Tablespoon/10G and 80F . Since I was NOT making any progress I began to increase both heat and salt. With each vacuuming the temperature went up and the salinity went up. All of a sudden the Ick just vanished. I don't know if I hit the temperature which is lethal to Ich in itself or just speeded up the lifecycle so much that the strong salinity had no trouble killing them.
> 
> Considering your plants aren't enjoying this, you may want to consider how long they can tolerate the salt.
> 
> I would not lower the temp. I definitely would be doing everything in my power to increase circultion/aeration, both day and night, get more gas exchange.
> 
> I treat things like Ich very aggressively. I would try to kill it before the Ich itself weakened the fish. I would add more salt, turn up the heat higher and pull out any plants that began to melt and stick them in a bucket of fresh salt free water. I am not recommending you do that. What you are willing to risk is up to you. Sometimes you cannot save every plant and fish.



You are completely correct. I definitely can't save everything. My male bolivian ram, who is already half blind and pretty weak anyway, had to be quarantined because he seemed to be having trouble keeping himself straight in the water. I think the temperature got to him, not ick. He doesn't have any spots on him at all and he is still alive in the QT tank. He hides non-stop and won't eat, i've been doing water changes on his tank every 2 days. Nitrate levels have stayed at less than 10 ppm. 

Everyone else in the big tank is doing pretty great except for the Amano shrimp which keep getting red spots on their carapace (blood?) and then dying. I think my rainbows might be trying to eat them. The Golden rams are doing especially well. My female bolivian ram is still guarding her territory, i guess she is waiting for the male to come back. She's all red too, i wish i could breed them. (Could i somehow manage to get my ailing male ram to mate with the female? It would be neat to have some offsbring coming to replace him if he dies)
I haven't seen any new ick since i started this thread. Hopfully it is dead. I just did a big water change and i am going to put in some more salt. 

Also, the salt i use doesn't have iodine in it.


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## girth vader

this wont be a popular post because its contrary to what most ppl think. however you DO NOT need to increase the temperature in the tank to treat ICH. yes it speeds up the life cycle of the parasite, however it stresses the fish out worse then the ICH itself. use ich medication, keep the temp the same and it WILL clear up. Most ppl lose fish that have ICH because or the temp flux making the fish unstable. The medicine will work on its own, it may take a week or 2 but it will go away. This was professional advice given to me by very hardcore fish keepers. Ever since I used this method, I have yet to lose a fish with ich. it just takes a few extra days to rid them. I open the forum to scrutiny, but in this case I know its correct. shde the tank to keep stess levels down and the slime coat will come back and the ich will disappear, I promiss. Any other circumstance you wouldnt crank up the heat in your tank, why, cause it sresses the fish, which in tern helpd kill the fish. Fish should never die from ich, ever!

the floor is now open to scrutiny. But I do have facts to back this statement up  PS. i still like you guys, I just know this to be a safer method of treating this disease 

Floors open................ 

PS gravel vac is essential as well


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## xerxeswasachump

This thread was pretty old. I solved my ich problem with temperature and salt. I cranked it up to 89 and the ich dissapeared. Haven't had a problem since. I keep discus in the tank now.


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