Once you've had an outbreak of ich and treated it, does it still remain in the tank? Is it always in the tank? If you add new fish and they DONT have ich, can they pick it up from the tank? If you have plants or decorations in that tank and move them to another tank, will you be spreading ich to the new tank? Is it always living in your tank just waiting for an opportunity to strike or is it gone once you treat it successfully?
2007-07-16 02:58:07 · 3 answers · asked by Tina N 4 in Pets ➔ Fish
Lots of theories abound on just the questions you are asking. Some people maintain that ich is always present in a tank or even in your tap water, other say not. Ich does sometimes "pop up" for no readily explainable reason in a tank that has been ich free for moths if not years which no doubt has lead to this theory. BUT....
Careful testing has shown time after time that a tank can be free of any identifiable or measurable ich parasites. Meaning, all of the water, gravel and filter media carefully checked with a microscope reveils no ich.
Most water systems in the US treat the water in such ways as to kill any existing ich and further, many draw water from underground sources that could never support ich, so it's realistically assumed by the FDA guidelines for safe drinking water that ich would not be present in your tap water. Those rules and guidelines are designed to kill very similar pathogens and are very effective at doing so. Could something occasionally slip through the system? Sure. But that would be the rare exception, not the rule.
Personally, I have never seen any reasonable evidence that ich is present in a tank after it has been treated for ich without it having been reintroduced in some way and I have looked hard for such evidence as well as conducted testing myself in my own lab.
Assuming there is a low level of ich in a tank, a fish introduced not only can but will pick up ich from the tank, that should be assumed to be a given.
If you move items from an infested tank to a clean tank, you can move ich with the water. You should wash all items well in very hot water and if possible dry them well between tanks. In the case of live plants, move them to a tank with no fish for 2 weeks or so and the ich will die for lack of a host. Be sure to keep this tank warm (above 75F) to insure a safe move.
One important point, ich can go dormant at lower temperatures and sit for at least a month without being active. Temperatures under about 60 will easily lead to this state, but ich will not do so at tropical tank temperatures.
So is ich always there in the tank? All scientific evidence out there currently says no, it's not.
MM
2007-07-16 03:19:36 · answer #1 · answered by magicman116 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Rinse your plants, rocks, and other decorations with very hot water and then real quick with cold... Just clean the tank to be very sure, but when I just the medication in and clean the plants and decorations, it was fine....
Hope your fish make it through
2007-07-16 10:10:34 · answer #2 · answered by Ben H 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Get a U.V. Sterilizer and you won't have to worry about it again.
2007-07-16 11:50:14 · answer #3 · answered by R8R55 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋