High temp to get rid of ich.

[biggjoe8]

I have been running my dt at 86 degrees for one week in the hopes of shortening the life cycle of ich. It is not known how the high temp will affect inverts. All of my inverts are fine so far. In fact I think it may even helped with the snails. I have snail eggs in 3 places on my glass. Also one of my peppermint shrimp molted. So the high temp does not seem to have bothered them at all. Should I do my regular water change and stir the sandbed? Also I have some rock that has been out of water for a year. Can I add those to the dt or is it safe just to put the old ones back in? Royal gramma show no sign of ich in qt. 2 more weeks of treatment before i can add her back to dt.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I have been running my dt at 86 degrees for one week in the hopes of shortening the life cycle of ich. It is not known how the high temp will affect inverts. All of my inverts are fine so far. In fact I think it may even helped with the snails. I have snail eggs in 3 places on my glass. Also one of my peppermint shrimp molted. So the high temp does not seem to have bothered them at all. Should I do my regular water change and stir the sandbed? Also I have some rock that has been out of water for a year. Can I add those to the dt or is it safe just to put the old ones back in? Royal gramma show no sign of ich in qt. 2 more weeks of treatment before i can add her back to dt.

Hi, welcome to Reef2Reef!

It is really a matter of chance. The higher the water temperature and the longer your tank is fishless, the less chance that ich will remain active.

Much of this is opinion, there are only a couple of scientific papers on this topic, and they don't directly apply to aquariums.

IMO - even at 86 degrees, you should go fallow for 30 days. What are you treating the fish with? Effective ich treatments also take 30 to 45 days, because you should have a two week observation period just to ensure the ich doesn't return.

Here is a discussion on 81 degrees for 45 days:

45 Day Fallow periods

I've been doing some research into the "76 day fallow period". I never heard of that prior to coming to Reef2Reef this past summer. I had always used 32 days as the maximum time for a tomont to remain viable under tropical conditions, and then I would round up to 45 days to help ensure that...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

 

[biggjoe8]

Hi, welcome to Reef2Reef!

It is really a matter of chance. The higher the water temperature and the longer your tank is fishless, the less chance that ich will remain active.

Much of this is opinion, there are only a couple of scientific papers on this topic, and they don't directly apply to aquariums.

IMO - even at 86 degrees, you should go fallow for 30 days. What are you treating the fish with? Effective ich treatments also take 30 to 45 days, because you should have a two week observation period just to ensure the ich doesn't return.

Here is a discussion on 81 degrees for 45 days:

45 Day Fallow periods

I've been doing some research into the "76 day fallow period". I never heard of that prior to coming to Reef2Reef this past summer. I had always used 32 days as the maximum time for a tomont to remain viable under tropical conditions, and then I would round up to 45 days to help ensure that...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

Treating ich with copper power in qt. Royal gramma was the only fish that showed signs of ich after moving it to my dt. It was in qt for 3 weeks prior to moving it. However i had a coral beauty, red firefish goby and forktail blenny already in qt when i added the gramma. The forktail blenny died a few days later. All the other fish are showing no signs of ich but i am going to leave them in qt for 30 days.

 

[biggjoe8]

After 14 days of running my dt at 86 degrees my inverts are still alive. I did a water change and stirred up the sand bed. Going to go 2 more weeks before adding fish back in. Probably do another water change next week and stir the sand bed again.