What exactly is Ick?

Question

Ok, no one seems to know exactly what Ick is!! I think my fish have it, they're sick. Please help!

Wow the only person who I think is right is Zoe... THIS, moodywave, is why I have to asked the question!! I looked it up before, but people told me Ich is black spots, Ich is white stuff in the tank, and god forbid that me, a newbie to the fish game, wants some real opinions and info instead of just reading a bunch of articles that I don't necessarily understand completely.
You want to be useless? Go play chicken on a busy highway. If you have a problem with my question, just don't answer it.

Carl S- Don't PLAGIERIZE! If you don't know the answer, don't answer, please!! Don't just go copy and paste from a website. Or at least include the website the stole it from!!

Answer 1

I will gladly tell you exactly what Ich is :) When you know what it is, it is easier to treat.
Ich is a parasite (Ichthyophthirius multifilis), and people tend to just assume that anything on a fish is ich. However, it is very distinct and easy to identify. It is also very easy to treat; expensive medications are not required.
Ich is characterised by little white spots on the fish. It looks like the fish has been rolling in sand or salt.

Ich has 4 life stages. First, it is free-swimming, and it needs to find a host. At this stage, you cannot see it.
Second, it finds a host and burries itself under the fish's gills and scales. You still can't see it, but the white spots you can see - the white spots are cysts, that the fish's immune system forms around the parasite in an attempt to dislodge it. This is a stressful stage, as the parasites burrows and dislodges flesh and blood, which is feeds on. Fish will feel irritation, and you can see them sometimes scratching themselves on rocks (this is called flashing).
Third, when the parasite is full, it detaches itself from the fish and attaches itself to a leaf or piece of gravel, where it becomes encapsulated by a hard membrane.
Fourth, the parasite explodes into thousands of NEW free-swimming parasites which must find hosts.

Only when the parasites are FREE-SWIMMING, BEFORE they have found a host, can they be killed.

You can purchase medication from the petstore to kill Ich. However, these can hurt your plants, your shrimp and snails, your bacterial colonies, and may well end up killing your fish.

SALT treatment is just as effective, and much safer and cheaper. Buy some AQUARIUM salt (or Kosher salt), and treat the tank at a rate of 1 tbsp per 5 gallons. Disolve the salt first in a cup of dechlorinated water. You can increase the temperature to 81-82F. At this temp, the ich lifecycle goes by in about 4-5 days. To be safe, leave the salt in the tank for 2 weeks.

Then, you can start removing the water during your weekly water changes, and eventually the salt water will be removed.




Edit: What the hell? No one plagierized anything; I sure didn't, anyway. God this person just asked a question, a question that everyone asks at some time or another. Could she have just looked it up? Yes. Does she deserve all these dumb-as$ answers from people who probably don't know what Ich is, anyway? Definitely not.

Answer 2

Ick is a disease that fish get. Also known as white spot disease, it is technically called "Ichthyospridium" You'll usuall first notice it when whitish spots appear on the skin of your fish. They tend to resemble pretzel salt, sand, or grains of sugar. Sometimes thefish begin rubbing against decorations, closing their fins, and occasionally they get a bloated stomach, while the rest of them looks very thin. These symptoms may occur before the white spots appear.

Ick can go dormant, leaving "eggs" in the gravel of an aquarium. These "eggs" can release up to 1,000 new ick critters in as little as 15 hours, or they can remain dormant for months.Ick critters are free swimming, they do not eat, and must attach themselves to a fish within 2 days, or else they die. If they attach themselves to a fish, they burrow inside, and live between the skin and the blood for up to three weeks. After that time, they form white cysts on the skin of the fish, which when broken, releases more "eggs."

A number of methods have been designed to get rid of the disease. Most treatments are added to the water, and contain malachite green. Some are added to the food, but this is less common.

Non-medical means have also been considered. Lowering the temperature below 50 F will virtually stop the growth of the disease, and raising the temperature above 100 F will usually kill the disease (along with the sick fish in most cases.) Due to the complicated life cycle, limited success has been shown by using a powerful, and very fine filter, such as a diatom filter, or UV filter, which will usually catch up most of the eggs released, and stop further infection. It is also possible to transfer the fish from one tank to another, to another once every 12 hours, thus preventing re-infection. Sadly, the tanks must be thoroughly disenfected, and unless the water quality is extremely similar, the constant motion will stress the fish to the point of death. At least seven different tanks are needed for this to work.

In general, the chemical treatments are much easier, and more effective to use. A general antibiotic may also be worth adding to the treatment, as the white spots break the skin, and may cause infection.

Ick is rather similar to the more serious "Velvet" disease. Symptoms are about the same, except that velvet produces much smaller "powdery" spots on the fish, which are often yellow, brown, or grey, and the skin usually gets red around these spots. You usually need a magnifying glass to see the individual spots.

The treatments usually contain copper sulphate, which can be harmful to weak fish. You must be sure to use them exactly according to the packaging.

Answer 3

ich is a parasite that isn't a particularly good one. it will kill its host. think of it as if you had one leach attached to you it wouldn't be great but it wouldn't kill you. if that leach suddenly spawned a couple thousand babys (most of them die beacuse they aren't particularly good at finding a host) and say 20 attached to you then all the sudden you are losing 20 times more blood. then those 20 spawn and now you have 400. so with 400 leaches stuck on you you don't have long before you don't have enough blood left and you are done for. end of story. hope you liked it.

Answer 4

Ich is a parasite that uses the fish as a host.

Here is a great article describing what ich is and how to treat it.

http://www.aquaria.info/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=343


BTW, Carl wrote the article that he quoted. He has been keeping fish longer than most of the people on here who ask questions have been alive and knows his stuff.

Answer 5

It is very obvious to me nobody has even tried going to Carl's articles! If you had you would see Zoe's answer was the plagiarized one! Carl seems to be VERY experienced in this! He answered my question last week and since then I have just gone straight to his articles for my info! It is very updated and relevant! Just a quick question, Can you plagiarize yourself? Didn't think so! Perhaps you should do your homework before putting someone down! Now how foolish do you look?

Answer 6

You can go to any pet store or any where where they sale fish and get medicine for it..and follow it carefully...This will also help stop the other fish getting it....

If I remember correctly it is a bacteria...that grows on the fishes scales....it might have something to do with the levels of certian stuff in the water.......

Unlike the other post where she said that she never knew of fish surviving Ick..was because it was treated too late, most likely...My sister had fish and we went thru the Ick think and her fish survived.

Good Luck!

Answer 7

It's actually spelled "ich," and rather than typing a huge description here, I will simply tell you to do a Google or Yahoo search on "freshwater ich" and you will see tons of websites that will give you in-depth descriptions of the disease.

I don't mean to put down this particular poster, but still, it never ceases to amaze me how people come here for answers to simple "what is?" questions like this, when a simple Google search would give it to them in a flash. It takes longer to ask the question than to perform the search -- and it takes a LOT longer for someone to type a big, long, comprehensive answer to a simple question, when the Internet is simply BRIMMING with all of this information already.

Answer 8

their scales start to turn white. Go to a specialty fish store or at least the fish department and ask about it. Don't take your fish with you because stress will make it worse. There is medicine, but I haven't found that it really works. I was told that in the future to regularly check my ph level and use a water conditioner and keep my cat away from teasing the fish.

Answer 9

It causes white spots to appear on the outside of the fish, they start wasting away. There are some medicines available, but I have never had a fish that survived this disease. Sorry.

Answer 10

sure you dont mean icky thats a love bite lol if you mean an ick i have not got a clue why not check it up on net