Ich or White Spot Disease is a common disease that can happen to your aquarium fish. A safe ich treatment for invertebrates is essential as you may not want to hurt these “cleaning crews”.
There are many approaches to deal with the issue, but not all of them can be used when you have a shared aquarium of fish and invertebrates.
For example, copper is useful when you only grow fish. If you have fish living with other species, such as shrimp, crabs, snails, or crayfish, utilizing copper can poison them, leading to unwanted results.
So, what’s the best solution? Continue reading to find out!
Contents
What Is Ich?
What Is Ich Disease?
Ich (Ichthyophthirius multifiliis), a.k.a White Spot Disease or Ick, is a type of parasite living on the fish’s body, fins, and gills in the form of a minute white capsule. It can be so much that your aquarium pet looks like they’re just marinated with salt.
The parasite stays on the host body until they are mature enough to fall off, drop on other surfaces and begin replicating. After the replication process finishes, a huge quantity of new protozoan emerges from the broken cyst and swims in water for 2-3 days to find a new host. If you spot any sign of disease, take action at once to increase the chance of living for your fish.
What Causes The Disease?
The new tank syndrome is one of the common reasons for the patchy white coloration to appear. This term refers to a quickly rising level of nitrites and ammonia in the tank, causing harm to fish.
The problem happens when you put your fish in a new aquarium with a maturing filter. Invisible poisoning compounds growing in the tank lead to the disease.
The second reason is not enough quarantine for newly purchased fish before letting them join the aquarium. When the sickness is at the stage of Trophozoites, you can’t see the parasite burrowing in the gills. Thus, putting the fish in the tank too early can spread the illness.
The next thing you may want to think about when facing the issue is fish stress. It can be brought on by water quality, netting, etc.
Safe Ich Treatment For Invertebrates
Create A Non Stressful Environment In Your Aquarium
Diagnosing the living environment and adjusting some important elements help eliminate the illness. You should pay attention to the water temperature, quality, and nutrition. Avoiding temperature fluctuation is highly recommended to make the aquarium a non-stressful environment.
People tend to raise the temperature and salty status of the aquarium. However, keep in mind that it affects scaleless fish and inverts.
Salt in the tank is not suitable for scaleless fish. For example, loach species and catfish react more to salinity changes.
Meanwhile, your desire for high heat increases creates unfavorable conditions for most invertebrates. Therefore, it leads us to go for the second remedy.
Use Medication
Many products for a safe ich treatment for invertebrates are available in the pet supply shop. We’d like to suggest two names: Hikari Ich X and Aquarium Solutions Ich-X. They’re more gentle but effective. Here’s how you can use the Aquarium Solutions Ich-X.
Step 1. Properly confirm that the disease is really Ich. Note that stress ich or velvet have similar symptoms. Make sure you wait for 24 hours before confirming the situation.
Step 2. Following the instruction, 10 gallons of tank water will need 5ml of medication, then wait for 1 day (24 hours). You may want to reduce the strength of the dose to half for sensitive species, but it might not help kill the parasite.
Remember to take out the charcoal filter before placing the medication inside the aquarium.
Step 3. Pour out 1/3 of the water and refill the tank again. Add the same dose stated above inside. (5 ml of medication for every 10 gallons of tank water)
Keep in mind that the dose of medication you use should be for the whole volume of water in the aquarium, not the removed one.
Step 4. Every 24 hours, apply the same process in step 3 until you don’t see any white spots. Even when the illness is gone, repeat step 3 for an additional day to make sure you also kill the hiding cysts.
Step 5. Let the medication stay in the aquarium. Your regular changing water will gradually remove it.
Step 6. Look for any wound on the fish’s body to have the proper treatment.
Step 7. If the situation is not better after five days, you are likely misdiagnosed. Stop using the medication, remove it gradually from the tank by changing the water according to your schedule and identify the case again.
Boost Your Pet Immunity System
Along with using the medication, you need to assist your aquarium pets in fighting the illness from the inside. The faster they get better, the less infectious other species are.
The infestation can be reduced by applying natural products such as Garlic Xtreme to improve your pet’s immune system. Consider combining it with calming medication such as MelaFix to release them from stress, calm them down, and encourage healing.
FAQs
How To Know If My Fish Have Ich?
The white crystals on the fish tell you they have the sickness. The first place that the infectious microbes attack is the fins as they have less slime coat. Besides, you may notice other symptoms such as the fish rubbing their body against things, losing appetite, breathing fast, hiding, or lathering.
The number of spots also indicates what types of Ich the fish have. If you see 5 spots on the first day and 35 spots on the next day, it means they have Ich. It’s different from the stress Ich, in which the aquarium pet will have the same number of spots for days. Thus, the treatment mentioned above may not be applicable.
Is Ich Harmful To People?
Luckily, it can’t affect humans. Nothing bad will happen to you if you touch the water. However, thoroughly washing your hands and forearms is necessary to avoid passing the infectious agents from one aquarium to another.
In addition, don’t use the same tools, such as nets or siphons, for different tanks. Suppose you don’t have other choices; mix chlorine with hot tap water to disinfect the equipment. Make sure you let them dry before using.
Conclusion
Finding a safe ich treatment safe for invertebrates is inevitable if you want to protect the lives of your whole aquarium. Some medications, such as Aquarium Solutions Ich-X, treat sick ones without affecting their health.
Though it is one of the most common and easy-to-treat diseases, take some steps of prevention and isolation (if needed) to get rid of this illness.
