Best Ich Medicine

[strohl71]

Can I please get opinion(s) on the best ich / external parasite medicine for dwarf cichlids? Malachite green, methylene blue, copper sulfate, or other? What medicines are safest for live plants?

 

[cootwarm]

I've had good luck using QuICK Cure. It's active ingredients are formalin & malachite green. It worked good on the ick, but my cacatuoides in that tank haven't spawned since. I hope it's just a coincidence and they didn't get sterilized by the medicine!

Michael

 

[Mike Wise]

On the rare occasions that I have had Ich, I have always been successful using a combination of Malachite Green & Formalin. This was once a fairly common product in US stores, but now that Formalin is considered a carcinogen, we don't see it. Now I just keep bottles of each chemical & mix when I need it.

 

[tjudy]

Deends upon the age of the fish.

I will use a malachite green medication on adult fish only. There have some suggestions that overuse of malachite green with very young fish can result in sterile males.

I use a meth blue med (usually just meth blue that I mix myself from reagent cyrstals) with most ich cases I get. I also pump the heat up. Ich can only be killed during two phases of its life cycle, and the cyst phase on the fish (the phase we see) is NOT one that we can kill. The heat will speed up the life cycle and get the ich into a susceptable phase so that the meds can kill it.

There is a great article on ectoparasites, including ich, in the most recent BB journal from the ACA...