Anyone ever have a problem raising temp for ich? I slowly pegged my heater over several days and didn't trust the thermometers so bought a digital and it says 82.4. I thought it was at least 85 but the heater is set above the last mark at 87. Should i trust the digital and add another heater? Thanks for any help.
Are you using meds? or just raising the temp?? I use rid-ich with great success and follow the directions-don't raise the temp. High temps are more stressful on most fish and reduce dissolved oxygen.
I've only ever killed ich with temperature. It's like Tom Barr says, people worry about killing fish with ferts all the time, and it rarely happens. No one questions CO2, but people kill entire tanks all the time. With ich, if caught early, temperature is a 100% fix, if you have tropical fish that are adapted to warmer temperatures. 85°, which is where you need to get your temp to to kill ich, is a common temperature for many of our fish. If your fish need cooler temps, then medicine is the only way to go.
The the original poster: You've got to have some second source you could use to check your thermometer. You could put it in an ice bath and see if it reads 32 on the nose. That's not a full calibration, but I would feel pretty confident in the thermometer if it read 32.0, 32.2. The bigger problem could be that your heater is undersized. If it's turned all the way up, you should be able to get above 82. I keep my tank at 82.
Thanks for all the advice. I did get it up to 86 today by putting the glass top on. I guess the house air is so dry that the evaporation was keeping the temp down. Took like 10 hours to raise the temp 4 degrees.
try to fix ich in another way, to make your tank more livable for the fish, and it is a long term solution.
fish usually don't fall for ich, they are naturally immue, just like human to common flu, if there is a serious breakout of ich, there must be some factors that weaken their immue system.
I have ich in my tank, always, and there is no way to get rid of it. but only 5 or 6 times I had fish caught ich since last March, each time only less than 5 fish(total about 80 fish) had white dots on their body, and it lasted for 4-6 days, then white dots gone.
For the record. Humans only gain an immunity(and temporary) to the common flu after exposure. Raising temp will kill ich. Ich cannot survive in higher temps.
Though they all follow the same life-pattern, there are countless strains of Ich, some harder to kill, some more virulent. Bad news comes in from all over: Ich has traditionally succumbed at temperatures over 85oF, but in the 1990s new Florida "strains" were reported that could survive temperatures as high as 90o, which might overstress most tropical fish
Heat is not 100% effective, it didn't work for me. Rid-ich is the only thing that I've had 100% success with.
Really? That's 1 degree every 2.5 hours. The water in bagged fish when purchased must drop at least 2 degrees in an hour and most fish are then aclimated for an hour or so to bring the temps back up and they are fine. I thought that was a gentle increase.
Heat does speed up the lifecycle, but you also need a way to kill the organisms. Salt - plain NaCl without iodine or other additives does the trick. I just had Ich in my largest aquarium - my 55g - and treated it without losing a single fish. The link below is a great discussion of the disease and the treatment. The only place I disagree is the dosage - I would use around 2 teaspoons per gallon of salt.
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