Help to determine if certain fish are sensitive to Ick meds

[SuriahAnderson]

I recently noticed what looked to be an Ick infection on one of my fish, so I went out and got some Ick medication. And reading through the directions, mentioned how to be careful with the treatments as some fish can be sensitive to it.

I have Platies, Harluquin Rasboras, Ottos and a Betta. Would I have to be careful with my treatments, or will the kinds of fish I have be fine? If anyone can offer any information I'd appreciate it.

 

[ChrissFishes01]

Which Ich med did you buy?

In general, none of those strike me as particularly sensitive to modern ich medication. The Ottos (like most catfish) will be more sensitive than others due to being "scaleless", but in most cases ich meds wil be fine.

Ich-X is my favorite ich treatment. It stains silicone blue, but is plant-safe, invert-safe, and I've never managed to kill a fish with it. I've used it on everything from tetras to puffers. No problems.

 

[Fishfur]

Which Ich med did you buy?

In general, none of those strike me as particularly sensitive to modern ich medication. The Ottos (like most catfish) will be more sensitive than others due to being "scaleless", but in most cases ich meds wil be fine.

Ich-X is my favorite ich treatment. It stains silicone blue, but is plant-safe, invert-safe, and I've never managed to kill a fish with it. I've used it on everything from tetras to puffers. No problems.

Ich X is good, so is Kordon’s Rid Ich Plus - same formula, malachite green and formalin.

Do not raise the temperature in the tank if you use anything with formalin because higher temperatures increase the toxicity of formalin - not to mention that temperatures that do not kill the fish aren’t going to kill the Ich either.

 

[SuriahAnderson]

Which Ich med did you buy?

In general, none of those strike me as particularly sensitive to modern ich medication. The Ottos (like most catfish) will be more sensitive than others due to being "scaleless", but in most cases ich meds wil be fine.

Ich-X is my favorite ich treatment. It stains silicone blue, but is plant-safe, invert-safe, and I've never managed to kill a fish with it. I've used it on everything from tetras to puffers. No problems.

Okay, thanks, I was just curious how my fish would fair against general Ick medication, I wasn't sure if any of them were sensitive or scaleless or not, so thanks for answering my question.

 

[Fishfur]

Even the fish called scaleless aren’t quite as sensitive as people tend to think and most do well being treated like all the rest. A problem with parasitized fish can be that they’re weakened - and if they are too weakened, they’re liable to die anyway regardless of treatments done.

It’s also a terrible idea to treat Ich in QT. Fish can actually become immune to Ich, which sounds as if it can’t possibly be right but they’re working on a vaccine for it for commercial fish farming. So some fish that have been infested but recovered, may never show signs of Ich while other fish in the same tank are covered in the wretched things.

Sometimes people also confuse Ich with Epistylis. Superficially they’re very similar and treatment is the same for both but a really bad case of Epistylis often goes with an internal infection that Ich meds can’t touch and the fish may die of the infection.

It isn’t always quite as simple as it seems it should be and it is unfortunate that many strains of Ich are resistant now to the meds so treatment times are longer now in most cases. Long ago you could cure Ich in a week. Now it’s more likely to take 3 or 4x as long, depending on the strain the fish get.