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Ich (Ichthyophthirius multifiliis)
Ich (also spelled Ick) is one of the most common maladies found in both fresh and salt water aquariums. It is seen as white salt-like specks on the body and fins of fish. Other symptoms include excessive slime, problems breathing because ich invades the gills, clamped fins and loss of appetite. There are three life cycles that this protozoan goes through and despite other claims ich can only be treated in one of these three stages.
The adult stage finds the ich embedded in the skin or gills of the fish. In this stage the fish will show obvious signs of irritation as the protozoa feeds on red blood and skin cells. The ich will appear as white nodules in this stage. After a few days of this stage the adult protozoa bill burrow out of the fish and fall to the bottom of the tank where they will enter cyst stage.
The cyst stage involves rapid division of the adult protozoa, once this division has occurred the ich is in the final stage.
This third stage or free swimming stage is the stage where treatment is imperative to kill these protozoa. Each adult will divide to an estimated 1000 new protozoa that will start to swim to the surface looking for a host and start the cycle all over again.
The first step in treating ich is the easiest and most important. The average time that an ich protozoan goes through its three stages is 4 weeks with a water temperature of 70 degrees. By simply increasing the temperature to 80 degrees it speeds up the lifecycle of the protozoa and increases the lifecycle to only 5 days, thus increasing the speed in the transformation between stages. If the fish can stand it, increasing the temperature to 85 will be even better.
The second step in treating these free swimming ich protozoa is by using chemicals. Quinine hydrochloride is the preferred method at 30 mg per liter; however quinine sulphate can be used if hydrochloride is not available. These medications will make the water cloudy at first but this will disappear in a few days. Other medications that can be used are malchite green and copper.