Ich Has Taken Over My Tank!?

Question

While on vacation, I got a phone call from a friend that was sure ich / ick has taken over my tank. There's a thin white coat over everything--from the walls, to the plants, to my scale-less catfish. Is it ick?

Anyway, she cleaned out some of the water + got some of the white off of what she could, and then ran over to the pet store for some meds, which said to raise the heat by a couple degrees to help it work. Unfortunatly, the next day I got another phone call saying that one of my catfish didn't make it, since the medication takes a couple days to take effect.

When I get home later today, what should I do? Should I replace some of the water, all of the water, or just let the medication work? Is there anything I can do to keep it from happening again?

Any other advice you could give me would me most appreciated...

Answer 1

First of all - Ich is an Ectoparasite that has 3 different stages. If your fish have very small white spots on them (kind of like someone salted them) then you definitely have Ich. However - buying meds at this point is a waste of money because the parasite is not vulnerable to meds in this stage. Once the white spots have fallen off the fish - they go down into your gravel/substrate and begin an encysted stage where a single Ich parasite multiples up to 2,000 different ones. Once they become free swimming - they are vulnerable to meds/salt, but not before that point.

I just got through treating one of my tanks with Maracide Concentrate by Virbac Animal Health, and Evaporated Sea Salt. All you honestly need though is Salt. If you have a biolocial filter which has carbon in it , and treat with meds, you will need to take them out all together (because if you don't they will just remove your medication from the water). Salt by itself however you don't need to do anything but put it in and raise the water temp.

Salt, and raising the water temp to 85-86 degrees (provided your species of fish can tolerate that temp) is the best way to treat this mess. I wish I would have had the article out on Wiki before I started my treatment. Could have saved a ton of time and money had I done that. I'll post it for you here in my sources. The guy who wrote this truly is the Internet authority on Ectoparasitic treatments. Just use Evaporated Sea Salt, and warmer water and you will be ok. Go to the website in my sources and read the article out there. You will have a full understanding (more than you ever wanted to know) once you read it.


***EDIT***
P.S. Yes Evaporated Sea Salt is fine to use with Catfish. My Plecos was the one who had the Ick (which is a type of catfish). He is now Ich free and grumpier than ever!

Answer 2

If you have already tried medication without results, there is another way to cure ich. The other approach is to actually destroy the organism with heat, and can be combined with the salt treatment, but not with meds. The data that was studied (including a report by the Southern Regional Aquaculture Center) suggests that most strains of Ich cannot reproduce at temperatures above 85ºF. To use this temperature treatment approach, slowly (no more than 1 or 2 degrees per hour) raise the temperature to 86ºF, while maintaining strong continuous surface agitation to oxygenate the water. This is extremely important because water holds less O2 at higher temperatures. (This is why meds should not be used in conjunction with high temp – most Ich treatment products also reduce oxygen levels. Less available oxygen, combined with the respiration difficulties an infected fish is already faced with, could be fatal.) The adjusted temperature should be maintained for approximately 10 days, or a minimum of 3 days after all signs of the parasite have disappeared (the life cycle of the parasite is 7 days). Do not discontinue treatment when the spots go away. This is critical, because we know that the parasites are visible only as a white spot (trophont) on the body of the host, and not during the reproductive or free-swimming stage. We also know that trophonts on the gills are impossible to see. I have used this treatment more than once and it has been effective each time. Good luck.

Answer 3

Ick is more like a cottony growthon your fish. I have never seen it on the side of the tank. Could it possibly be algae? Anyway. you should scrape the sides of your tank and change 2/3 of the water. when you add the fresh water add ick killer, a "stress coat" conditioner to help your fish combat what ever the heck this is, and an algae killer. Remove your filters for a few days to make sure that these things will not be absorbed by the filters and hope for the best. Continue to change the water ever 3 days or so (50% change) and add more medication to the water. Keep you tank dark and only feed your fish what they can eat in 5 min 1-2 times a day. You want to starve what ever this growth is and not give it anything to feed off of. Good luck. Keep changing water until the situation is cleared up and clean/treat your tank more often.

Answer 4

Ich doesn't grow on surfaces - only on fish.

If it is indeed ich on your fish, add aquarium salt as recommended on the box, and increase your temperature to around 80-82 degrees. (Do this slowly - no more than 4 degrees every 12 hours.) Also, make sure the medication you're adding does not have ANY copper in it, as your catfish are very sensitive to copper. Between the salt, the heat, and the medication, the parasite will eventually die off.

In the meantime, if you have test kits, test your ammonia/nitrite/nitrate/pH, and if possible, test your GH and KH (general hardness and alkaline hardness). If your water parameters are off (ammonia and nitrite at more than 0ppm, nitrates at more than 40ppm [though less than 20ppm is ideal], pH isn't around 7.0), you need to do a 20% water change. Do not EVER do a 100% water change, as you will disrupt your biological filter if you do.

It almost sounds as if something got into the water, though for the life of me, I can't figure out what.

EDIT: Salt is perfectly fine to use with catfish - just make sure that you don't add over the recommended dose to the tank. In the rare event that they do start to show signs of distress, you'll need to do an immediate 50-75% water change to dilute any salt in there.

Answer 5

Hi,

The first thing people do is replace the whole water. This does not effects ICH at all. ICH is a parasite and it grows very rapidly.

If you can see ICH on fishes then i guess it too late but still i have seen fishes recover from ICH but then again it depends how you work it out.

The first thing to do is to raise the temprature of the tank. Then, the fish should be treated in a separate tank if possible. There are many items available on the market for the treatment of this.

You can buy "TetraMedica ContraSpot Concentrate" to cure ICH. This will also save your fish from the fugus and other skin related dieases.

Slowly start replacing water like 10-20% each day as you cure.

I hope this helps.

Thanks.

Answer 6

Sigh.... Ok folks let's review.

Ich/ick- Small white dots. It generally looks like the fish were sprinkled with salt.

Fungus- Often white cottony growths.

Replacing the water is not an effective treatment for fungal infections or ich. Now that said one of the 1st things to check is your ammonia and nitrate levels. (Which water changes will address.) If you have an ich, or fungus out break in a tank that you haven't added fish to in 2 weeks. The fish are stressed from another source. As the current disease has been in your tank for week or months, but the fish's immune system were able to prevent themselves from getting sick.

Keep in mind rapid changes in temp, and water chemistry will stress out your fish even more. So don't go over board and do 50% water changes. Spread out the changes over several days.

This what I believe happened to your tank. Your friend over fed the fish. Uneaten food, and fish waste built up in the tank. This excess provided food for fungus which grew in the tank. (Ich only grows on fish.) In addition the ammonia levels in the tank sky rocketed. The fish suffering from ammonia poisoning were unable to resist the massive amounts of fungal spores. Your fish add an ich med which was likely lethal to scaleless catfish. (Check the label.) The catfish died from a combination of ammonia poisoning, fungal infection, and the side effects the ich med. Note this is just based on your 2nd hand account, and my personal experience. I could be wrong, but I'm generally not.

Treatment assuming they don't have ich:
0)Restore the temp (higher temps just help the fungal growth.)
1)Add an antifungal agent like PimaFix, or Jungle fungus Eliminator
2)Add 1 teaspoon of table salt per 5 gallon. Mix in a glass of tank water before adding to tank.
3)Monitor ammonia, and nitrate levels. It you need to reduce the levels do it gradually with 20% water changes over several days.
4)Add a broad spectrum anti-bacterial agent to prevent secondary infections. Like PimaFix, Maracyn Plus, Maracyn-Two

If it's ich replace the above with
0)Keep the temp up. It speeds up ich's life cycle, but no ich med works other than the free swimming stage.
1)Keep using the ich med.
Everything else is the same.

Answer 7

It sounds like it was a fugus to me.Also since you had a scaleless catfish they should have read on the meds they got about scaleless fish.Some meds that are for ick can kill scaleless fish.How often do you clean your tanks? we would sugest that you clean the once a week unless you have a lot of big fish in one tank.Then you should clean it 2x,s a week.We had ick in our 55 gallon and like you we went and got ick meds for it.Not thinking about our ghost who is also scaleless.I hope this helps.If you need more information please feel free to send us a email at [e-mail]

Answer 8

When my mother had it in her tank she put the fish in a seperate container with clean water and then added the meds for the fish. She then completely cleaned the tank, gravel, pump etc. Added new water and balanced it properly then added the meds. Three days later she returned the fish to the tank.

Answer 9

I think that you should immediatley move all of the fish into a new tank, possibly continue meds. Call a vet and ask what to do next. Good Luck!!!!!!!!

Answer 10

no salt if there's catfish in the tank.........read the meds make sure they're compatible with the fish you have in your tank. a lot of times you need to use a lesser dose depending on the tank mates...............