If what you do works for you then I wouldn't change a thing I stand by my recommendation of treating the entire tank, especially in cases where a Quarantine tank is not used prior to introducing new fish into a main show tank. I would not feel comfortable knowing a fish with ICH was in my main tank, moving it to Quarantine and treating that fish only, with the possibility of ICH remaining in the main tank, visible or not. It's risky IMO and not one I'm willing to take and I don't recommend that anyone else risk it either.

However, that one fish getting ich means that there are other parasites in the water. Once there is ich in the aquarium it is all but impossible for all of the parasites to happen to be one one fish or another. There are going to be some free-floating and some in the substrate. It is quite possible that that one had some issue that made it more susceptible to ich.

However, at that point, it's always imperative to watch out for other fish getting infested, too. As far as number two, it is extremely important to continue an effective treatment for at least two weeks.

There are no fish-safe treatments that kill all three stages of the parasite, so only continuing until there are no more spots on the fish is taking a huge chance that they won't return. I have read numerous accounts from folks who have had ich in their tank, treated until the spots were gone, stopped treatment, and then had their tank overwhelmed when the cysts in the substrate opened up a week later. Most often, this second wave is worse than the first, and usually ends up being fatal to at least one fish.

Some people may have had success with only treating until the symptoms are gone, but doing so is playing Russian roulette with your fishes' health. Yeah, keeping the treatments going for the full two weeks is absolutely necessary. I'm actually treating ich right now, I'm thinking my new pleco brought some from the lfs to my tank. I haven't ever had a problem with it after I treated the first time. My first time, a few weeks after getting my platies and mollies , I had an ich breakout.

I used ich chems to try and kill it off, didn't treat for more than a week, mainly because I ran out of the chems but I stopped treatment and everything looked alright. But as sirdarksol said, it would be a lot worse when it comes back. Indeed it was, it was awful. But in that short week or extensive research, I learned about the heat treatment, then ran that the full course of two weeks. Ever since then I've never had anymore problems with ich.

Until now, of course, but at least now I'm ready. Know all the symptoms, and could take care of it waaaaaay before it got bad. I even had it in my fry tank, thank the sweet Lord my molly, guppy , and platy fry is old and hardy enough to handle the temperature, because 86 is pretty rough.

Works like a charm. You guys are full of info! I am pretty sure she was stressed, she was pregnant for like 45 days, she lost all her fry, and her male is SUPER protective and that probably stressed her as well.

I separated him and so far none of the other fish bother her, although she does like to hang out right at the divider next to her man. And unfortunately I do not have a quarantine tank yet, not until I move at the end of the month. So, I have to treat the whole tank I'm just worried that all these water changes and such may actually stress the other fish out and cause them to be suspect to catching it.

So it sounds like I have another week to go! So far so good Similar Aquarium Threads. Betta twitching and coughing. Replies 36 Views The disease may then cause respiratory distress, severe agitation, loss of appetite, and eventually death. However, ich won't remain unnoticed for long.

Like a bad penny, it will be back with a vengeance. This disease is often identified based upon history, symptoms, and the presence of white spots, but if there is any question, it can be identified microscopically.

The life cycle of Ichthyophthirius is complicated, but very important in understanding the treatment and prevention of ich. Once the ich protozoan attaches to the side of the fish, it begins feeding on the skin and tissue causing irritation.

The fish's body begins to wall off the parasite to try to limit its damage. The protozoan continues to move around in the cyst feeding and growing, while the body continues to further encapsulate and wall it off. This encapsulation by the body is one of the reasons that ich is so difficult to treat during this stage of the disease, because medications cannot penetrate through the wall of the cyst to reach the ich parasite.

During this stage, the ich protozoan is called a trophozoite. The trophozoite eventually matures and is termed a "trophont. It then begins to divide into hundreds of new ich-infecting units called tomites.

At optimum temperatures, the replication will be completed in about 8 hours. At lower temperatures, the replication takes longer making the treatment time for eradication much longer. Once the replication is complete, the trophont bursts and releases the newly-formed tomites into the water. The tomites are motile and swim around the tank searching for a fish to attach to.

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. Now that we understand the life cycle of freshwater ich, many of our treatment recommendations make more sense.

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 to treat 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.

Better safe than sorry. Treating Ich is relatively straightforward, but there are a few things you can do individually or in tandem with other treatments. The easiest treatment method is to buy an Ich treatment from your local pet supply shop. Most are made with formaldehyde, malachite green, or copper sulfate, or a combination of these ingredients.

My personal favorite treatment is Hikari Ich X. It is safe for most fish and invertebrates and more gentle than some treatments. Remove any charcoal filtering from your tank before adding any medications. It is recommended to slowly increase the temperature in your aquarium to 86 degrees over the course of a day to speed up the life cycle and reduce treatment times. Some aquarists use only heat and salt, but this method is much slower than using a chemical treatment and cannot be used if you have any live plants in your tank.

It is always best to treat your tanks for at least one additional day after you have seen the last spots on your fish to be sure the parasite has been eliminated.