General Care Discussion :: Turtles and Ich?

[Spike 7.62]

For those who don't know, ich is a very common parasite which affects fish and can be fatal. In my aquarium-related reading, I am seeing that ich problems can be pretty serious. Symptoms include the fish scraping themselves against rocks and having white spots on them about the size of salt grains.

Since fish and turtles are very different, I am wondering if turtles can be be affected by this parasite? I do not suspect an ich problem in either of my tanks, but it seems to be cause for concern. If nothing else, they may eat an infected fish.

Anyone have any experiance or info on this?

-Spike

[BullDog]

I've never heard of a turtle being affected by ich. All the same, if you see a fish that you suspect might be ill in your tank, I'd remove the fish just to be safe.

[mikee]

Spike-308 - Some years ago the question came up and I think the Ich cannot survive the turtle drying off and the uvb lighting. Maybe someone else can expound on that.

[gwennie]

This question got asked on another turtle forum I'm on and I searched and searched for the answer online.

As far as I could find information, I'd say no, your turtle can't get ick. The member who had the ick problem also rang her vet and he said no, turtle's cannot get ick.

[TheComputerGremlin]

If I remember correctly as well from past reading, you should not treat your turtle's water with the meds for ich either as they can be bad for the turtle. As BullDog suggested, I would just remove all of the fish to a separate tank to treat and remove the ill one to a tank on its own.

I'm surprised if your fish can survive your turtle! I think turtles' tummies are pretty hardy, too, so if a turtle happens to eat an ich fish, I think they may digest it fine.

[gwennie]

If you ever do get ich in a turtle tank, taking out the fish is the best way to get rid of it - w/o a live host the parasite can't complete their life cycle and they will eventually all die off.

[worldpeace]

gwennie, couldn't the turtle act as the host for the ich parasites?

[gwennie]

Nope ^^ Ich likes fish, not turtles.

[worldpeace]

Thanks. Good to know.

[jay2487]

I've done a lot of research on ich and fought it off a couple times. Ich will not hurt a turtle whatsoever, it will not grow on it, live off it, live through one basking
session. Ich meds however WILL hurt a turtle, some copper based ones have been known to eat a turtle from the inside out, very nasty. There are some ich meds out now that are safe for the turtle but I just wouldn't treat them together no matter what. One big misconception about ich that you'll read in several forums is that you can kill off ich. Well that's not true. More than likely if you've ever had a pet store fish in your tank or even a feeder, ich is in your tank, right now, just waiting for a big temp change. It is designed to wait for a big temp change and then hatch from small crustacean spores that are impenatrable to meds. The stage of life that lives in your gravel and on decorations and the stage that lives on the fish are both impenetrable crustacean like things that meds just can't get into, the only one that meds will kill is the life cycle in between those two which is the one that swims from the bottom and latches onto the fish, no you can't see it until it has changed to the white spot. You can do everything you want, clean out your tank, scrub all the decor and gravel and still ich will be in your tank. The way to avoid ich is to keep a constant temp and not let your fish get stressed(being a turtle forum that's not easy for you all as turtles love to chase fish!LOL)Fish have lived with ich for millions of years and have survived never getting it with there slime membrane over the scales. They get stressed and lose it, combined with a water temp change to set the ich off and you got an infestation. Hope that info helped and if you would like references let me know

[worldpeace]

jay2487 - You would not believe how useful your post was for me. I've been in a constant battle with ich for over a year. I've tried several meds and instead of "curing" the ich, it has weakened and eventually killed many of my fish. I guess it would have been better to just leave it alone. I have no gravel on the bottom of my tank so now every week I take out about 10 little white ich eggs. I really thought that eventually I would get rid of it all

[gwennie]

The best way of treating ich in a tank is to remove all the fish, up the water temp, and let it kill itself out - raising the water temp speeds up ich's life cycle and it will enter the free-swimming stage faster and then won't have any live host to attach to and will in turn die off - I think this takes at least 3-4 days without a living host (fish) in the tank to achieve results.

Your best bet would be to start over with new fish & up the temp and leave it for a week just to be safe.

[jay2487]

jay2487 - You would not believe how useful your post was for me. I've been in a constant battle with ich for over a year. I've tried several meds and instead of "curing" the ich, it has weakened and eventually killed many of my fish. I guess it would have been better to just leave it alone. I have no gravel on the bottom of my tank so now every week I take out about 10 little white ich eggs. I really thought that eventually I would get rid of it all

It is almost impossible to get rid of it all. It's like a microscopic barnacle, attached to something in the tank. If you went and bought a brand new tank, brand new decor, brand new filter your tank would be ich free until you put your first pet store bought fish in. The fish may look fine and really is but more than likely it will have an ich spawn in the swimming phase trying to bore through it's slime membrane or maybe a few hatched off a white spot on a fish in the pet store and is now swimming in the water in your bag. You put the fish in your tank and boom you got ich. The absolute best way to prevent an outbreak of ich in your tank is to keep your fish healthy and not stressed. As long as they are happy and healthy they will not be succeptable to the ich but like I said before, having them with an agressive turtle makes that hard.

[TheComputerGremlin]

jay2487 - I hope you stick around on the forum, we end up having quite a few fish and aquarium related questions and we don't have many "fish" people here. You will be a very useful resource!

[jay2487]

Thanks a lot, it's a trade off then because I am far from a turtle pro lol