What is ICK??

Question

Please tell me all about the fish disease called ICK? Or Ich?
What does it look like, why does it happen, what can be done... everything!!
Thanks.

Answer 1

ICH or White Spot are the parasite (ichthyophthirius). It is one of the most common parasites among aquarium fish. It should not be taken lightly because it will kill your fish if given enough time. It appears on the body as raised white spots about the size of a grain of salt. Buy the best remedy on the market. I see it on fish in some stores and they will sell them to you gladly, some, not even knowing there is an infestation in their tanks! The first place i look for before making a purchase is on the fins looking closley for "white specks". There is another way to treat this problem if you can't find a remedy for it. Remove the infected fish and put them in a hospital tank. But you have to treat the entire aquarium. Put the aquarium temperature to 85 degrees, add 1 teaspoon of salt for each gallon of water in the tank. Do the same in the hospital tank and give these fish the 10 day saltwater treatment. It's important to kill this organism before it has an opportunity to infest the entire population.

Answer 2

Ick is a freshwater parasite. A pathogen that feeds off of a host(your fish). ICK looks like little tiny microbubbles stuck on your fish, normally starts on the fins and works to the body. Ick is almost always in the water, however it is poor water quality and stress from it that causes the fish's immune system to not perform at 100% and that is when the Ick actually attatches. After a few days, the ick falls off. Ick goes down to the bottom and lays new eggs, and when they hatch, if the fish are not healthy again, the new ich can attatch and eventually kill the fish. A medication called Methanyll Blue takes care of ick, just look for it in your LFS. To prevent ick, keep up on your water changes. Witha healthy tank, I;ve been ick free for over 8 years.

Answer 3

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Kanacyn is an antibiotic which may or may not work and may affect different types of fish in the tank with the infested species in negative ways. Usually used with loaches and ick and a tropical tank. Goldfish should be in a cold water tank. Test your ammonia, ph and nitrite levels to be sure there isn't a dirty water problem causing diseases to begin to run rampant in your tank and fix those as well as treating for disease if necessary. There is a good product called stress zyme that can help maintain a tank with good water conditions. There are many ways to treat ick aka whitespot - white spot medicine available at a pet store for a few pounds but if you use this and you have a filter take out the carbon filter OR a salt bath for each fish (don't use too much salt) or remove the whitespot carefully with tweezers or a cotton bud and clean the enitire tank before putting the fish back in (don't leave them in the salt bath long! put them in some fresh water) but if you choose this be mindful of new tank syndrome for a few weeks.

Answer 4

Yes goldfish can have Ick. It looks like salt is on your fish. The medicine that I have used in the past is Quick Cure. You can buy it at any fish store or Walmart. But there are many different brands that do the same thing. Ick does NOT look like cotton. If that is what it looks like your fish has columnaris. This is a fungus that grows on the fish usually on their fins. If that is what you have try Binox it is a product from Jungle Laboratories. With any medication read the directions. Bionx does not effect scaleless fish. Scaleless are any type of tetra and any type of catfish.

Answer 5

ICK looks like small white spots on fish.
Caused by improper chemical composition in your tank.
Buy a test kit at pet store and buy the ICK medicine to put in your tank.
Can also be caused by a new fish having it.
Unfortunately many times the fish do die.

Answer 6

Well, having had as many as 4 fish tanks going in my home at once, THIS question I can answer, for the most part. I can't tell you what causes ICK. I can tell you, it will look like your fish has salt or sugar clinging to their body. If left alone, eventually they will get raggedy looking fins and tails, and eventually it can/will kill them. Fortunately, you can go to the pet store and buy a medicine for this. We had to use it several times having so many fish! The name escapes me right now, but it was blue...you drop so many drops in per galon of water and treat the entire tank. God luck with your fish! If you need help, the pet sotre/fish store should know without hesitation what the medicine is that you need to get, and really, it's not expensive either....

Answer 7

Disease Type: Parasitic

Organism: Ichthyophthirius multifilis

Names: Ich, White Spot

Description: The name translates to "fish louse with many children", a title that fits well, as each parasite may produce over a thousand offspring. Although the disease is the equivalent of a skin infection, it can easily be fatal to a fish stressed by poor diet or habitat.

# Symptoms: Small white spots resembling sand
# Fish scratch against rocks and gravel
# In advanced stages fish become lethargic
# Redness or bloody streaks in advanced stages

Infected fish are covered to various degrees with small white spots. Severe infestations are easy to spot, but small occurrences often go unnoticed. However, ich won't remain unnoticed for long. Like a bad penny, it will be back with a vengeance.

Answer 8

Freshwater ich/ick is caused by ichthyophthirius multifiliis which is a single celled protozoa. Most fish people prefer ich as it's a shorten of the name, and fish will often scrap against things in the tank. Often this proceeds other signs of the disease. It's common in fish tanks, and can be identified by small white salt grain sized dots. There are 3 methods of treatment.

Often older tanks will have ich endemic (living in) the tank. The fish living in the tank will be perfectly as their immune systems are primed to deal with the strain(s) of ich in the tank. As long as the fish remain healthy they are able to fight off the ich. New fish put into the tank often are highly stressed, and have decreased immune systems. This is why fish stores seem to always be selling you fish that "have ick". Often it's your tank that is sick, and not the store. Of course some stores will happily sell fish with ich. If you quarantine new fish for 2-2 days, dump them into a net, and rinse them in your tank water you'll great reduce the chance of getting ich from the store.

1)Anti-Ich meds. While the most effective method of treatment these chemical compounds aren't exactly healthy for the fish, and will often kill snails, shrimp/crabs, and scaleless fish. Note that these meds only effect the free swimming stage of ich's life cycle. So it will take several days to finish off all the ich. Increasing the temp will speed up the ich's life cycle, and kill it faster.

2)Salt- Fresh water ich can't take large amounts of salt. The literature seems to indicate that some strains of ich are more tolerant of salt than others. 3 or 5 teaspoons of salt per gallon is the recommend amount of salt. Ideally you shouldn't put more than 1 teaspoons per gallon.

Keep in mind that various fish have different ability to take salt, and most plants do do well with it. The above recommendations will likely be lethal to some fish like catfish, loaches and ostariophysan (knife, ghost, elphant nose). Fish like livebearers (molly, guppy, platty, swordtails) on the other hand will likely be healthier with the extra salt. Killfish, betta, gouramis, and cichlids are good candidates for salt. For anything else I would avoid more than 1 teaspoon per gallon.

3) Temperature. Most strains of ich will not infect fish above 85 degrees. Of course for fish like goldfish this is a very unhealthy temp. On the other hand fish like betta will be loving temp. One thing to keep in mind is that before 85 degrees the warmer the temp the faster the the ich's life cycle is. So unless you are using an ich med DO NOT increase the temp unless you are going past 85.

Answer 9

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RE:
What is ICK??
Please tell me all about the fish disease called ICK? Or Ich?
What does it look like, why does it happen, what can be done... everything!!
Thanks.

Answer 10

White spot
Scientific name:ichthyopthirius
A common disease caused by shock or stress by simply banging on the aquarium glass or large temperature change.If left untreated, the fish can die.Putting non-iodized salt or by raising the water themperature by 10 degrees should solve this problem.