How to treat ick disease (white spots disease) in your fish.

HOW TO TREAT ICK DISEASE (WHITE SPOTS DISEASE) IN YOUR FISH. 

(Written by Made Easy Tarpaulin Fish Pond Co.) 

White spot disease is a very common problem in freshwater fish. We at Made Easy Tarpaulin Fish Pond must tell you that white spots disease is usually the kind of disease that you do notice when you begin to see different white spots on your fish. They are usually caused by the ciliate protozoan Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, and it's usually called ich or ick and in its generally description, it is called white spots disease because fish infected with ich do develop small white spots on the skin or fins. But if the infection is restricted to the gills, no white spots will be noticed.

Ich disease is a living parasite on your fish and when your fish is infected with this plaguing parasite, it makes your fish weak, appear often on the surface of the water, develop white spots and usually rub themselves against hard object or against the wall of your pond, in a fruitless attempt to shed off the parasite. 

And Ich infection could easily cause high mortality rate. And it could even easily kill all the fish in the pond within a short period. That is why you do experience frequent or high rate mortality when your fish is infected with this disease. Although Some fish may be more sensitive to ich infection than other species, but we at Made Easy Tarpaulin Fish Pond must say, the truth of it is that no fish specie has complete natural resistance to ich. Ick is thus one of the dangerous diseases in fishery.  It's a dangerous parasite, that lives completely within the host fish, causing tissue damage and leading to fish death.

So ick is a parasite on your fish that bare eyes can not see. And the whites spots are by products of the parasite. And the ick has a long parasitic life to live if cure is not taken on time because the host (fish) will continue to provide the parasite (ick) with food and other necessary substances for its growth. And can easily reproduce itself. 

Whenever white spots are seen on the skin and fins with those aforementioned symptoms, we at Made Easy Tarpaulin Fish Pond must tell you that your fish are most likely infected by the ick parasite. And immediate treatment should be applied in order to save the infected fish from the plaguing parasite. 

However, there are ways to treat ick infected fish, but chemical treatment of ich infection is always difficult because the ick parasites do penetrate into the skin and gills of the fish and the infected fish usually cannot tolerate a chemical concentration that is high enough to kill the parasite within the fish’s tissues. Because most of the chemicals that can kill ich contain formaldehyde, copper sulfate, malachite green, a combination of copper sulfate and malachite green or a combination of formaldehyde and malachite green.

Although there are other methods of treating this disease rather than chemical application. For instance the use of salt, changing of water or running of flow through, or increasing the water temperature beyond the tolerance of the parasite because the parasite plaguing the fish can die within six days at 24º to 25ºC (75º to 77ºF). So we at Made Easy Tarpaulin Fish Pond would consider heat temperature treatment more effective in treating ich disease. 

In other words, the use of salt can also be effective, at times but could be ineffective when the ick parasite has gone beyond the power of salt and that is one of the reasons some farmers do apply some drug-chemicals for quick cure, which at times, if care is not taken can increase the mortality or take no effect or possibly still not kill off the parasite totally, which means it could still show up in the next stock or sooner or later during same stock.   

For this reason, the use of temperature is usually considered more effective, to kill the parasite totally. And the process of temperature treatment is a simple application method. 

You can do this by turning up the aquarium heater slowly, by letting the temperature raise 2F each hour until it reaches 86F.

Since the average life cycle of ick parasite is usually between 3-6 weeks, so they will live for only a week or two at worst under high water temperature. Because in the water of 86F+, ick life cycle will speed up greatly. And at the same time, they can’t reproduce when it is too warm.  By the time the ick parasites matures and fall off the fish without any offspring, that would be the end of the cycle of the parasite without reproducing and there will be no more free-swimming ick tomites to start over for reproduction in the pond. But unlike when other treatments is used, the parasite would fall off and could later come up. But with temperature treatment, your fish would rejuvenate. And your pond would be free from such parasite. However, you should remember to separate the infected fish away from the healthy ones to avoid conditioning healthy fish into the solution of unhealthy ones. 

And we at Made Easy Tarpaulin Fish Pond must say the best way to guard against this disease is to disinfect your pond before use. And every newly bought fish should be quarantined in a separate pond for at least seven to ten days before adding them to the main pond. And if any of the fish show any signs of parasitic infection in the process, they should be selected and be treated in an isolated pond to prevent it from affecting the main pond.

we at Made Easy Tarpaulin Fish Pond hope that you have learn one or two things here, we wish you best of harvest ahead.

👉Remember Tarpaulin Fish Pond is the most cost effective for Fish farming... If You need the quality one made with the reinforced Tarpaulin Material, that will last you long with a water regulator facility which regulate excess water and prevent flooding during raining time, reach out to our careline via a call or whatsapp...

Best Regards,
MADE EASY TARPAULIN FISH PONDS. 
Customer careline: Call or whatsapp +2348161137111 .... Email: madeeasytarpaulinfishpond@gmail.com

For more helpful articles on fish diseases and prevention, click HERE