need help with my oscar and ick.?

Question

our oscar has ick because we were feeding it feeder fish. we started treatment yesterday am[ick treatment]. my daughter got off work last night and did not see no improvement so she put more in. she got up this am and still no improvement so she put more in. question, is she putting to much ick in tank? its a 55 gallon tank with two oscars.

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.

Answer 2

Ich is a parasite, while in its cyst form it is not vulnerable to any medication period. Once the cyst falls off, it divides into hundreds of free swimming tomites in search of a host. This is the only time its vulnerable to medications. The trick with most meds is that they are Formalin and malachite green. MG is light sensitive, so turn off the lights and cover the tank so no lights get in. The next thing to know that while this is in progress you should be vaccumming the tank daily to suck up all the cysts and tomites you can. Re-treat any new water replaced accordingly. A added micron filter pad to the filter is helpfull also.

With f/mg, you do have to be diligent and the meds need to be in water untill no more cysts are showing and often will need second repeat treatments.

You'd have been far bettter off going with the salt treatment for the ich as its safer, in on a cosnsistant level and does not hurt the filters. Do not use salt with Formalin based products, it can burn.

Male fish can develope white tubercules, leading edge of the pectoral fin, and breeding stars on the gill plate which can resemble ich though. Ich is usually helter skelter acattered around all over the fish, while breeding tubercules are more evenly ditributed.

If it is ich, be aware that the parasites break the slime coat and in doing so, the risk of secondary infection does become possible. And finally, make sure the water is pristine, dirty water of any amount can also effect the meds in use.

And last, did you remove any carbon cartridges and filters? Carbon can remove the meds from the water therefor defeating the whole purpose.

Answer 3

yes she is putting to much in. Did you take out the filters when you added the ick guard? If not you should so that the fish get the full benefit of the medicine. One word of advice, any other fish you add to the tank i.e. feeder fish can bring in unwanted bacteria. You are adding feeder fish that get stressed out and will cause the ick to form in your tank. You should try to feed your oscars cichlid sticks more often then feeder fish it will bring out the natural color of the oscars and elimate the stress from the feeder fish. I also have a 120 gallon tank and a 90 gallon tank, we have 4 beautiful and big oscars.

Answer 4

Ick can becaused by poor water high quality, over feeding, stress, or maybe com in some varieties of fishfood. I even have rasied oscars for over 15 years, and function chanced on that they are VERY grimy FISH and you may constantly shop their tank sparkling or combat an never ending conflict with ick. Melafix is likewise no longer the main suitable drugs to handle fish with ick, jointly because it works for accepted issues you like something ick particular, it iwll turn the water blue while you're making use of the suited stuff. melafix has a tendancy to kill the ick on the fish, yet no longer the ick micro organism residing interior the gravel. Ick pass by using 3 levels on your tank....gravel, floating in water, fish, and then back to gravel. you like something which will ick in all 3 aspects. you will get ick drugs at walmart for like 2 money.

Answer 5

I think it takes a day or 2 for this to clear up. We had the same problem for the same reasons. I think adding more and more treatment to the water is not going to harm your fish- but you need to give it a chance to work before adding any more.

For future reference- I have feeders in a seperate tank, I treat for ick everytime I get new ones in the tank- need it or not. I "quarantine" the new fish for 2 days, and I have had no problems with ick in my Oscar tank.

Answer 6

Ich can take up to two weeks to fully eradicate. Yo need to make sure you have removed the charcoal from the filter (it will filter out the meds). As long as you are very slowly increasing the amount of meds there shouldn't be a problem, just have water ready for a 20% water change in case the fish start showing signs of distress. Freshwater salt can be very helpful as well. Add one tablespoon for every 5 gallons to the tank and then to all water added when doing a water change. It will cause them to produce more of a slime coat making it more difficult for parasites like ich to attach to the fish. In future, consider feeding earth worms, pellets and food from the pet store freezer.
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Answer 7

yes that is too much. are you also doing 1/2 water changes? Ick is kinda hard to get rid of, but give it some time for the medicine to work. good luck

Answer 8

Yeah give it a chance to work read the bottle and call your local fish store ya don't wanaa OD the poor thing :0)

Answer 9

take him to you local vet or pet store