Loaches Online Forum

Logically, this should go to the Ich thread, but it is unfortunately locked, so I start another one to respond to Mark's request.

Mike, I incorporated your point about Victoria green, and yes, I have seen references to malachite blue before. Being a blue/green dye the confusion is understandable.

I encourage you to write a piece on the use of UV filters. I am of the opinion that if you even know about UV filtration, you're probably on top of the ich dilemma. Also, please take the time to write a short addenda on the use of salt and higher temperatures as the sole treatment method, or in combined use with the gist of the text. If I can, I'll add your paragraphs in, or they may remain as responses below the initial text.

We're still working on the concept of how this might best work. I'd be much happier if you could provide the text to add in, rather than pick apart any given text. I'm not assuming that's all you want to do, obviously. I do not treat with salt or simple high temperatures, so I cannot speak to those methods. Please provide the text, and I'll try to work it in. Links to other existing text will work just as well. And I did at least provide a link to discussions of copper-based meds on the old LOL site.

As you asked, see below a short piece on UV.

I will not write on salt and higher temperatures as the sole treatment since I don't believe in this.

See below a short piece on alternative meds that do use salt.

Notice that there is no way additions can help with items 2. and 4. in the correction list I wrote, you need to modify the text to address these. It appears that you already added the text to address item 5., great; item 6. may be indeed possible to write separately.

On Copper (item 8.): I assumed that you want a standalone document, so you should say something pro- or against it. (Personally, I believe it to be dangerous and unneeded with other tools available.)

The pieces below are draft and typos are quite possible.

-----------------------------------UV addition----------------------------------

UV sterializers usually allow to greatly simplify Ich treatment and avoid unnecessary dangers. While UV is not likely to exterminate all of the parasite quickly alone, UV radiation removes most of the parasite from the water and the remaining parasite can be killed with lower doses of medications or weaker medications and without raising the temperature too high.
This is particularly important in the case of hillstream loaches which are less tolerant of high temperature as well as formalin-based medications. UV in combination with weak (1/3 and perhaps even less) dosing of malachite green+salt combination drugs or quinine-based drugs is quite effective and is much less likely to result in fish loss than a high-temperature malachite green+formalin treatments.

Note that UV sterializers can only be used in well established tanks; an attempt to use a UV in a newly set up quarantine tank is likely to backfire badly by uncycling the tank.
Even in established tanks one should carefully monitor the ammonia and nitrite levels when treating with medications that may impact the biofilter (malachite green is a such medication).

ALL ich treatments work faster at higher temparature and UV is no exception. It is therefore still worthwhile to raise the temperature to the upper limit of the "comfort zone" for your fish; 80F appears to be a good setting for hillstream species.

-------------------------------Hillstream additions----------------------------
While no serious study has been undertaken, it appears that formalin-based medications are quite dangerous to hillstream loaches (and, likely, to other fish as well), and alternative techniques that do not use formalin often are safer. On the other hand, many hillstream species are more tolerant to hard water and can be even acclimated to brackish conditions; thus salt presents less of a danger to them.
Among the alternative techniques one should note
1. Drugs based on malachite green with other additions like salt (Nox), salt and acriflavine (Ich Guard), usually half-dosed, or the Ich Guard II formula which is already weakened by the manufacturer.
2. Drugs based on quinine (Ick Attach) that appeat to be safe at full dose.
%%%%OPTIONAL
it is quite likely that Paraguard is another safe and efficient drug
(adlehydes addition to the usual malachite green base).
But I don't have any personal experience with it.
%%%%
With respect to salt, note that the medications that include salt use less of it than a salt-only treatment would. This paragraph should not be used as a justification for a salt-only treatments.

This is probably as appropriate place to put this as anywhere...

7. Some sources have said that temperatures above 86 degrees Fahrenheit alone will kill off the parasite.. Actually, most sources I've seen say temp above 88F or 89F, see for example:
http://www.caloriesperhour.com/fish/notes_ich.html#temp
These two degrees make a difference, since at 86F not only one would not kill the parasite, one will make it reproduce faster. Maybe it is best to say that temp only cure is often just not a good idea.

While slightly higher temperatures do not kill Ich, it may be wise to speed up it's life cycle. Since Ich is only vulnerable as theronts, any treatment will only effect the population in that stage. So the sooner you can "catch" the entire population at the stage, the sooner you can stop treating the tank and stop stressing the fish with chemicals.

Doing so provides the following benefits:

It allows the Ich in current in the trophont stage to mature, getting them off the fish faster. Since this is really the only stage that causes any stress to the fish, it is best to have it be as short lived as possible.

It also speeds up the Tomont stage, getting the entire population into the water (as theronts) as quickly as possible - allowing any medication/salt to effect (specifically, kill) them.


The heat (86) + salt (1 tsp/gallon) treatment worked for us the one time our loach tank got Ich. We felt a shortened infestation was worth the trade-off of another 8 degrees of stress for our clowns, of course your fish may vary.

1 tsp of salt per gallon? What kind of salt, please. I am really surprised by this. How long between flushing the salt out? Please expand on this a little.

The best resource we found at the time was here which actually recommends 2 tsp/gallon.

We chose the lower temperature mostly because khulis were in the same tank, and a lower salt dose to minimize any effect it may have on any loach. The salt we used was “Doc Wellfish's aquarium salt” and then “Jungle aquarium salt” (cheaper locally), but any NaCl based salt (not marine salt) is supposed to work - we avoided table salt because of iodine. We fully dissolved the salt in a bucket of tank water, and then added the salty water to the tank.

The tank involved was a 75 gallon so we figured we had ~65 gallons of water.

Our entire ordeal went something like:
Day 1: Notice a few spots on some clown loaches at bedtime.
Day 2: Increase tank temp to 86* @ <2*/hr. 30% water change. Bought salt.
Day 3: Add ~0.25 tsp/gallon salt to tank every 6 hours. (3 times, so 0.75 tsp/gal)
Day 4: Added another 0.25 tsp/gallon to tank, reaching a total of ~ 1tsp/gallon. (This day seemed to be the peak of the white spots.)
Day 5: 30% water change, replacing salt to reach ~1 tsp/gallon.
Day 6: White spots mostly gone.
Day 7: 30% water change, replacing salt to reach ~1 tsp/gallon.
Day 8: No white spots visible.
Day 9: 30% water change, replacing salt to reach ~1 tsp/gallon
Day 10: No white spots visible.
Day 11: 30% water change, without replacing salt.
Day 12: 30% water change, without replacing salt.
Day 13: 30% water change, without replacing salt. Turned heater off (our tank maintains ~78* w/filtration).
Day 14: 30% water change (no salt added) - normal schedule resumed.

Loaches have been Ich free since. I think the temperature was the hardest on the khulis, there were never seen while the tank was heated up, but once the heater was off they all came out to play.

I don't think UV would uncycle a tank. There's a chance it could slow down cycling a new tank if the bacteria colony grows by being blown around the tank in the current rather than spreading directly through the gravel and other media (which is much more likely).

I also don't think you need to use medications to finish off ich after UV. After enough time in a tank with UV, the ich might not be able to keep its population high enough to sustain the population in the tank and go extent.

The bottom line is that people with UV don't have ich problems.

Bitey wrote:I don't think UV would uncycle a tank. There's a chance it could slow down cycling a new tank if the bacteria colony grows by being blown around the tank in the current rather than spreading directly through the gravel and other media (which is much more likely).

In some cases it would eliminate cycling bacteria almost completely, this is why more responsible stores would warn you not use UV on tanks that were running for less than 3 months.

How bad things can get depends on several factors, including just how old is the tank, and how the cycle was started.

The second leg of the cycle is much more vulnerable, so you are more likely to see a nitrite problem than ammonia.

I also don't think you need to use medications to finish off ich after UV. After enough time in a tank with UV, the ich might not be able to keep its population high enough to sustain the population in the tank and go extent.

Are you interested in running UV for weeks with a low-level infection? I suspect that a single ich organism attached to the gills of a small fish is damaging, thus I'd prefer knock ich out entirely quickly. Low dosage of medications would do it for you.

The bottom line is that people with UV don't have ich problems.

They still do, but their problems are less serious.

Specifically, (1) they still add new fish which may bring the infection in (2) very often people are install UV's in response to a problem that is already there and needs to be solved (3) UV's are expensive and people who have multiple tanks often would not equip all of them.

For example, I installed my first UV to deal with a case of Ich I could not handle otherwise: fish was already very sensitive and also very weakened by a more serious infection. I already knew that any standard technique is likely to kill fish faster than ich.