The Puffer Forum

Aye, here's what I understood from the article. Raising the temp to remove ich is good, but like t1gerbee said, you don't want to bring it up to 90 F. Your puffer seems to be doing well and staying healthy, so there's no point in risking his life if he's in stable condition. Just bring your temp up to about 82 F (over the course of a day or two, don't crank it right away), add an air stone, and vacuum out the tank every day (or second day). Since you're using a QT with (I assume) a bare bottom, sucking up stuff from the ground will be really easy, and as you planned on changing water every day anyways, it's not a lot of extra work. You can treat the tank with Melafix and Pimafix if you wish, to help him heal over some of the ich damage and whatnot, but treating the tank for anything else at this point will only cause him to suffer from the meds. If you're looking to treat for IPs, you're really going to need to use an internal solution, not external. He doesn't appear to look *that* skinny (assuming this was taken before he ate, if not, ignore this), so you can likely use the pumpkin seed method if you can get raw pumpkin seeds (not fresh, just not cooked). You don't want to overdo him with too many treatments, either, so keep things as simple and natural as possible.

Also, from what I understood, Ich doesn't "die" at higher temperatures. The higher temperature increases the maturity rate of ich, causing it to reproduce quicker. However, when you combine this with frequent tank cleaning (ie. vacuuming the ground) and removing the water (where the free-swimming juvenile ich is looking for a new host), this will inevitably lead to the removal of ich. Also, the higher temperature means that the free-swimming ich must find a host sooner than at low temperatures, meaning that it's more likely that the ich will NOT find a host (ie. your puffer).

Hope that helped to clarify things.

Suggested temp for ick on FW fish is as stated: around 86 degrees for 3 weeks. It is in Puffer Queens article about SW "ich" where temp has no effect on the parasite. These are 2 totally different bugs.

Thanks for all the help... 24 hours and still alive. I've read the Ich thing like three times since yesterday

Ya I'm doing daily water changes and making sure to stir up the little bit of gravel thats in there to stir up anything actually in the gravel. But he's doing great so far. swimming, eatting. I guessed IP when I first got him cause he was quite thin, now I'm thinking he was just hungry cause he can't stop eating and his belly is looking nice and large. I threw in some dried blood worms this morning and he ate them right up. Gonna do some more snails and maybe a small ghost shrimp tonight.

Might want to presoak the dried in water so he doesn't get to eater and get an air filled belly chomping them down

82F will not kill the ich... You need to be at a minimum of 86F to stop the reproduction cycle.

Even though his ich looks horrible.......he is such a cutie. Hope everything goes well for him. He's in good hands now.

I'm not actually sure any temperature fish can tolerate will actually KILL ich. I was always told that the temperature increase was to ramp up the reproductive cycle of the ich, causing the cysts to fall off and move to the free-swimming phase more quickly, at which time the salt in the water would kill them once they were free of their "armor."

groovitudedude wrote:Yes. Raising the temperature also tends to speed up the lifecycle of ich, which could help you get rid of it faster, but I wouldn't raise it too much.

groovitudedude wrote:Yes, but at almost 90 degrees, it's pretty tough for a fish to breathe, or even live.

Agnate wrote:Aye, here's what I understood from the article. Raising the temp to remove ich is good, but like t1gerbee said, you don't want to bring it up to 90 F. Your puffer seems to be doing well and staying healthy, so there's no point in risking his life if he's in stable condition. Just bring your temp up to about 82 F (over the course of a day or two, don't crank it right away), add an air stone, and vacuum out the tank every day (or second day).

Also, from what I understood, Ich doesn't "die" at higher temperatures. The higher temperature increases the maturity rate of ich, causing it to reproduce quicker.

Nick wrote:I'm not actually sure any temperature fish can tolerate will actually KILL ich. I was always told that the temperature increase was to ramp up the reproductive cycle of the ich, causing the cysts to move fall off and move to the free-swimming phase more quickly, at which time the salt in the water would kill them once they were free of their "armor."

Yeah that's basically it in a nutshell ^ How's the puffer doing?

No, that’s not "it in a nutshell".

The protozoan Ich cannot reproduce at temperatures above 86F. If the temperature is raised to 86F or above, the Ich will die off as its lifecycle moves on and will not return because it has not reproduced.

Yes, the temperature speeds up the lifecycle as well, but the main purpose of the raised temperature is to prevent it from reproducing and reinfecting the fish.

Did some searching for sources, and found this:
It has been found that Ich does not infect new fish at 29.4°C/85°F (Johnson, 1976), stops reproducing at 30°C/86°F (Dr. Nick St. Erne, DVM, pers. comm.), and dies at 32°C/89.5°F (Meyer, 1984), [1]
Very interesting.

we need a library of cited sources somewhere, so we can sort our research from lore...

So you're saying that it can't reproduce at temps over 86*, and I'm saying that higher temps will speeden the life cycle.
PufferPunk is saying that

Pufferpunk wrote:Suggested temp for ick on FW fish is as stated: around 86 degrees for 3 weeks. It is in Puffer Queens article about SW "ich" where temp has no effect on the parasite. These are 2 totally different bugs.

and nick is saying that

Nick wrote:I'm not actually sure any temperature fish can tolerate will actually KILL ich. I was always told that the temperature increase was to ramp up the reproductive cycle of the ich, causing the cysts to fall off and move to the free-swimming phase more quickly, at which time the salt in the water would kill them once they were free of their "armor."

and

Nick wrote:Did some searching for sources, and found this:
It has been found that Ich does not infect new fish at 29.4°C/85°F (Johnson, 1976), stops reproducing at 30°C/86°F (Dr. Nick St. Erne, DVM, pers. comm.), and dies at 32°C/89.5°F (Meyer, 1984), [1]
Very interesting.

Well, whatever you get out of it, temperature has effects on ich. Let's just leave it at that.

Also stands to reason that temporarily removing fish from the tank and heating to 90-92 for a few hours after an ich treatment as a santizing step might not be a bad idea.

Yeah, maybe even higher if there's no fish or snails in there

At such high temps, an extra airsource is a must! I'd also add Melafix to the tank, to help heal the damage those parasites are doing to the skin of the fish.