Reel McKoi wrote:

"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 22:54:43 -0600, Reel McKoi wrote:

How the heck can this happen when nothing has been added for
awhile??? I
happened today as this morning they were all fine. My poor clown
loaches
are covered, the other fish have some..... what's recommended with
clown
loaches that's safe? :*(


There was an article in TFH a while back that treated ich by raising
temperatures and moving fish back and forth between two tanks, thus
interrupting the life cycle of the parasite.

Perhaps someone else has the article or remembers more of the details.

============================
That's impossible with a heavily planted 55g tank and a lot of speedy
tetras. What we can't understand is WHERE did the ich come from?!?!?!?!
This isn't supposed to happen. If a oocyte didn't live over for several
weeks somehow, then it came from the frozen food I just bought for them
a few days ago. :-(

The ich came because it was already present in the water column or
lurking in the gills of the fish but not showing itself......healthy
fish can have ich but not succumb or show any symptoms....there has to
be a trigger.....

Now the most common trigger is stress.....it could be turf wars, water
quality, introduction of new fish (which aren't necessarily the ones
that get the ich)....or any number of factors....but I very much doubt
it would be frozen food if you study the life cycle of ich....

There are a number of ways of treating ich in freshwater
fish....including meds (half dose with loaches), raising the temp and
adding salt (might make your plants suffer but better than losing the
fish) or the bare tank one which involves moving the fish between tanks
to break the cycle of the free floating stuff which reinfects.....

I've tried all apart from the move from tank to tank with varied
success.....until I got ich in my marine tank and then you are talking
£100s in wipe out of fish if you don't control it.....the marine folks
take a different stance although without dotting the i's and crossing
the t's it is one I've tried with a certain degree of success in my
freshwater tanks.....but the result in the sal****er was just amazing....

First, you need to look at what might be stressing the fish.....provide
more cover or resolve the issue by removing the stress factor - try
reducing the lighting to give them more resting....and the key factor
when treating marine fish and I tried this with FW with a lot of success
but not the magic ingredient is to get them to eat well - high protein
diet......add a little garlic to their frozen and feed this
daily.....this not only apparently helps the appetite but also increases
their ability to cope with stress and promotes the slime coat which will
protect them against things such as white spot/ich....

Well.....I'm not 100% convinced but I do have a Regal Tang swimming
around completely cured with no meds and no infection of other
fish.....I know marine is different to freshwater but the theory behind
it all sounds good to me.....

Gill