I was wondering, can ich in fish go away on its own without medication?
by Aquaboy on Tuesday, May 25th, 2010 | 5 Comments
I have a fish with ich and I’ve been researching a lot, and people say that 86 degrees fahrenheit can kill the ich. How long does my fish have to live, it has had it for three weeks. But I don’t know if it is ich, it looks like my kenyi is sheding. Please answer.
Please be more specific.
No. You need to get medication or it will get worse.
Yes, the fish will die, and after a few months the ich will have nothing to feed off of and die.
Ich, technically, doesn’t need medication. In fact, it’s highly suggested that you either use medication – or do a combination of two alternatives. Not both at the same time, mind you.
The alternative is this – Raise the temperature of your tank to 85-87, and add aquarium salt. The ich will have it’s life cycle sped up. Now, it WILL get worse before it gets better, but it is a possibility that it will work for you.
However, the issue now isn’t particularly the fact you have ich – but the issue of how did you have a break out? Did you add any new things to the tank? How is your water quality? Your temperature? What type of fish?
If the issue is a recent addition to the tank, please note that it’s very advisable to have a quarantine tank. You can buy a nice 5 gallon for about $30 at walmart that will do that job perfectly. Then keep the new fish in there for about a month before introducing it to your display tank.
There are certain fish species that are highly susceptible to ich. I have one species, known widely as “Hippo Tang” (or Dory from a Finding Nemo, haha). Whenever the tank is having some trouble from a nitrate spike or other parameter issue, the tang immediately gets little white spots all over it’s body. Having had an entire tank die off from an ich infestation, I know these are ich on the Hippo Tang.
With any such fish that has a naturally weak immune system, you should let the fish be if you can fix whatever chemistry issues you are having in your tank. Leave all the fish in your tank, and do the following.
1. Do a test on your parameters
2. If Nitrates are high, do a 20% water change, then if you have the time do another 20% water change six to 24 hours later. This will get your nitrates down to a relatively safe level. However, if your nitrates are only a little high (just above 10ppm), one water change should do.
3. Don’t add any fish
4. Check your parameters after the last water change, if everything looks good, just wait it out.
5. If your fish is still exhibiting ich symptoms after a couple of days, move on.
6. Try using garlic if you have tank-mates like coral and inverts that can’t handle commercial medications. Pulverize a teaspoon of garlic and mix it with a tablespoon of water, mix that with your fish food, feed them this mixture until the ich disappears.
Of course, if you have a separate tank that is ready for fish, you can just put them in there alone, but be careful with sensitive fish like tangs, it could kill them.