New goldfish died and gave other goldfish ick. I have started treatment, but only one fish seems better.?

Question

I bought the quick cure ick treatment, the stuff that turns the tank blue. I treated them for 3 days like it said, but two of the fish still have a white film on them and are lithargic. Today I noticed the film falling off one of them. The package said only treat for 3 days. But I read that the only time the treatment works is when the parasite falls off. Should I continue to treat the tank? What are my chances of saving the fish? My 6 yr old is already devastated from the first fish dying, I would like to try and save the other two. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Are you sure you're dealing with ick? Ick looks like grains of salt on the fish, not really an all over white film. A white film on a fish is most often caused by irritation from a chemical in the water. Usually ammonia. Do a 50% water change and have the water tested at a pet store. If the ammonia or nitrites are high then that would be the cause and not ick. Frequent large water changes for a few weeks will be the best "treatment" for this as you will simply be holding the level low enough to keep the fish alive until the proper bacteria grow in the tank to keep the ammonia from building up again.

If you do in fact have ick, continue treating for at least 10 days, 14 being even better. 3 days is no where near long enough to kill all of the ick in an aquarium no matter what the treatment states. Adding salt to the tank will significantly speed the cure of ick. A good rate is 2 tablespoons per 5 gallons but add it slowly over the course of hours. Less will not be an effective medicinal level. Quick Cure is one of the best ick medications on the market both of the active ingredients are superior at killing the ick parasite as well as most other parasites and fungi. Excellent medication choice for any of those problems. he ony draw back to Quick Cure is that it contains Malachite green ( one of those two great active ingredients) which is a KNOWN CARCINOGEN in humans. BE VERY CAREFUL TO KEEP IT OFF YOUR SKIN AND AWAY FROM YOUR CHILD!

MM

Answer 2

First of all, how big is your tank?

Goldfish are very messy and require a MINIMUM of 10 gallons each.

If you have them in a lesser volume of water, the water quality gets bad very quickly. Bad water quality probably causes 90% or more of goldfish illnesses.

If you have two fish, to keep the water quality in shape, you will need a 20 gallon aquarium and to do 25% water changes every week.

If you have them in something smaller, so 50% water changes several times a week. Remember to add water conditioner.

Now, as for the ick...I dont think that quick cure stuff works too good. What I have found to work is plain old freshwater aquarium salt. you can buy a carton of it for less than $2.00.

A 3% solution should be used to treat ick. That equals about 3 teaspoons per gallon if I rememer correctly. It works really well. Just remember that the salt in your tank will NOT come out unless you change the water, so its not neccesary to ever add any more salt untill you do.

The fuzziness sounds like a bacterial problems, which is 99.9999% of the time from bad water (just because its clear doesnt mean its toxin-free).

Change 75% of the water now, add declorinater before you fill it up, then add the 3% salt to the tank. (3 tsp per gallon I believe).

PLEASE take a moment to check out KOKOSGOLDFISH.COM.

It is a WONDERFUL goldfishsite. Check out the forums (messageboard). There is s section for health and diseases and you can find lots of info there.

Good luck!

Answer 3

Ich seems to be the diagnosis for any disease a fish gets, whether it is or isn't. Learning how to differentiate diseases so that you can correctly diagnose and treat them can make all the difference. Treating the wrong disease with the wrong medication will be ineffective. Ich is little white spots like grains of salt on the skin. A white film is usually a different type of disease. Here is a link to help you determine what type of disease your fish have and suggested treatments. Salt is always a good general treatment for most diseases as long as they haven't progressed to an advanced stage. Use aquarium salt, not table salt, according to directions. Either that, or make sure you diagnose the disease correctly and then treat accordingly.

Answer 4

Ok the problem with ick is that the white bumps you see on the fish is actually the reaction by the fish to the parasite. Its under the skin, when it drops off into the water it erupts and makes thousands more to go find a fishy host. You can't kill ick when its in the body of the fish only when its free swimming so using the quick cure for 3 days will kill whats in the water but not what is left on the fish. In a few days the cycle will repeat. So here is a better solution and it works without killing the bio-bugs in your filter (which quick cure does). Besides the use of quick cure is stressful to the fish and its not neccessary. What you need is a 3% salt solution. Yep salt works much better. Follow these instructions carefully and I promise your fish will get better and they won't tell you this in any pet store. Today put in one teaspoon of salt per gallon. Use non-iodized rock salt (pure salt like kosher or ice cream salt) Yes you can get it from the grocery store just make sure its only salt, no decaking agents ect. IF you don't have a heater you are going to need one and raise the temp to 82 or 83 degrees. About 12 hours after the first dose of salt you can repeat with another teaspoon per gallon. 12 hours later repeat. At first it may seem to get a little worse but after about the 4th day you will see marked improvement. Leave them in the salt bath for 2 weeks and change the water until no salt can be detected. 25-50% water changes every other day until salt is gone. Lower temp slowly 2 dedrees per day until you reach back down to 77 degrees. Please keep the heater in to maintain constant temperature from then on out. I know GF are "coldwater" fish but in my humble opinion that is purely myth. They do much better in water kept in the mid to high 70's. Lower temps also bring on the ick as well. That is why there are a lot of people complaining of fish getting ick this time of year. I have cured my fish of ick with this salt treatment and with heat have never had it to return. Oh when you are doing this salt bath for the two weeks make sure the water is kept perfect that means no ammonia no nitrites and low nitrates (under 20 ppm). You will need to do a water change in the two week time please replace the water with 3% salt water. Petsmart and Petco will not tell you the magic of salt because they couldn't sell you all those expensive toxic things that really do more harm than good. Oh yeah before you begin salt treatment change 50 to 75% of the water to get rid of all the quick cure replace the carbon into the filter to soak up the rest. After about 3 or 4 days toss that carbon and replace again with fresh carbon. Quick cure left in the tank can kill. Next time your fish get ill be very very skeptical of putting anything in the water. You need a micro scope to properly diaganose the ailment so how on earth would you or the high school employee at the petstore know what exactly you need to cure a sick fish. Most all of that stuff is bad. Melafix doesn't do anything. I have put in stuff recommended by a clerk that killed everything in just 2 hours! However medicated food can often help without messing up the water. My favorite place to find medicated food and lots of great GF information is www.goldfishconnection.com. Metro-meds for parasites Medi-Gold for bacterial infections and Jump Start to pull them through. It is a little pricey, but then again so are my fish. They are great products from a guy who knows what he's doing. If you can get the book "Fancy Goldfish - A Complete Guide to Care and Collecting" will help a lot. That is where I got the salt bath instructions. You will find that keeping GF is not as simple as the misinformed petstores will tell you. They are a delicate fish that easily suffer disease. The most important things in keeping GF are GOOD WATER and GOOD FOOD. Keep your water perameters consistant and feed fresh food that doesn't have ANY corn product in it. Change at least 25% of the water a week. Clean out your filter once a month. You have heard fish will only grow to the size the tank will let them and that is not true. They only grow when the water is changed, so the cleaner you keep the water the bigger and healthier your fish will be. Leave the blanket of green algea on every thing its so good for your fish and water!! Don't get an algea eater!!! I know this is long but there is really so much more I could tell you. Do learn on your own and DO NOT trust the petstore, they are in business to sell product not to help keep pets alive and happy. If you need to ask a fish question a better source would be to look up someone who cleans other people's tanks for a living in your area. They will know much much more. Learn some GF guru names like Dr. Eric Johnson, Rick Hess, Jo-Anne Burke, Tommy Hoi. These are some of the top experts in the country, find them and pick their brains. Hope you have read this far and it helps. Good luck!!
1 teaspoon salt per gallon this morning
1 teaspoon salt per gallon this evening
1 teaspoon salt per gallon tomorrow morning
83 degrees for 2 weeks (add additional air stone or 2)
trust me trust me trust me trust me

Answer 5

sounds more like a slim disease than ick. Your fish may have a fungus. Add 1 tbs salt per gallon, and in future, keep 25 or so pennys in the tank..the small amount of copper will keep fungus under control. Good luck

Answer 6

These fish are delicate and you have to be on the constant
look out for these sickly signs. Sorry to say that they may all
die since they all have been contaminated. It happened to my son. You may want to change the water and get a couple more
fish. Sorry I can't say anything positive.

Answer 7

You need to be sure as to which type of ich you are dealing with to know how to treat it. Ich medicines are not all the same. You have to read the bottle. You want to buy the ich treatment that is going to cure the type of ich you have or you are wasting your time.

More about ich:

Is it white spot disease or is it Ich? You need to know the difference between the two since they are treated differently.

Cryptocaryoniasis, White Spot Disease or Marine Ich is caused by an infestation of the ciliated protozoan Cryptocaryon irritans. Although Cryptocaryon becomes a parasitic organism at one stage in its life cycle like Oodinium and Brooklynella do, and it progesses less rapidly than these other ich diseases, in a closed aquarium system it can reach overwhelming and disasterous numbers just the same if it is not diagnosed and treated upon recognition.

Unlike Oodinium and Brooklynella that typically attack the gills first, which allows these ich diseases to advance into life-threatening levels quickly as they go unnoticed, Cryptocaryon usually appears at the onset as salt-sized white spots visible on the body and fins of a host fish, and when the organisms become parasitic, it is then that they move inwards to the gills. Because crypto is more easily recognized in its beginning stage, this makes it much easier to treat and cure before it gets out of control.

Aside from the appearance of the white spots, fish will scratch against objects in an attempt to dislodge the parasites, and rapid respiration develops as tomonts, mucus, and tissue debris clogs the gills. Fish become listless, refuse to eat, loss of color occurs in patches or blotches as the trophonts destroy the pigment cells, and secondary bacterial infections invade the lesions caused by the trophonts.

Although copper is very effective on Oodinium, and it works well to eliminate crypto organisms in their free-swimming tomite stage, it is not as effective on the Cryptocaryon trophonts that burrow deeply into the tissues of fish. A combination of freshwater and formalin treatments adminstered by means of dips, baths, and prolonged treatment over a period of time in a QT is recommended

Reinfection will occur no matter how effectively the fish have been treated if Cryptocaryon is not eradicated from the main aquarium, which can be accomplished by keeping the tank devoid of any fish for at least 4 weeks. For fish-only aquariums hyposalinity can be applied, and to speed up the life cycle of the organisms, elevate the tank temperature to 85 degrees for 10 days to 12 days. For treating reef tanks, FishVet No-Ich Marine, Ruby Reef Kick-Ich, and Chem-Marin Stop Parasites are Cryptocaryon specific remedies that are said to be "reef safe". Several days prior to returning fish to the main aquarium, clean all filtering equipment, change any filtering materials, and do a water change.

Remember to remove all filters media and turn off protein skimmers when treating for any types of Ich.

Although many over-the-counter remedies contain the general name Ich or Ick, carefully read the product information to be sure it is designed to specifically target and treat "Cryptocaryon"

Brooklynella hostilis - these protozoa reproduce asexually by means of simple binary fission through conjugation, which is why they are able to multiply so much more rapidly than Cryptocaryon (White Spot), and Oodinium (Velvet Ich), and why it can kill fish within a few days and even hours upon recognition

Most similar symptomatically to Oodinium, this too is a parasite that primarily attacks the gills first. At the onset fish may scrap up against objects, rapid respiration develops, and fish often gasp for air at the surface as the gills become clogged with mucus. Fish become lethargic, refuse to eat, and colors fade, but the most noticeable difference that sets Brooklynella apart from Oodinium is the heavy amount of slime that is produced. As the disease progresses a thick whitish mucus covers the body, usually starting at the head and spreading outward, skin lesions appear, and it is not uncommon for signs of secondary bacterial infections to arise.

Suggestions range from copper, malachite green and other remedies, with some recommended being used in conjunction with formaldehyde. However the general consensus is these types of medications are either largely ineffective or do not work at all, and that the best and most effective treatment for Brooklynella is formaldehyde alone. Typically a standard 37% formalin solution (shop & compare prices) is mixed with either fresh or saltwater in a separate treatment container, initially all fish are given a quick dip or a prolonged bath, followed by continued treatment and care in a QT. Of course the longer fish are exposed to the formalin treatment, the more effective it will be at eliminating this "disease". Whether to administer a dip or a bath to start with is something you will have to determine yourself, but there's a very simple way to do this.

Since these are Free swimming parasites which are in watersources, come attached to our fish etc. The only way to ensure NO ICH is to get a UV Sterilizer and addit to the tank. The UV Sterilizer kills the free swimming forms of various ich and other parasites.

Hope this helps


If you need additional info, please email or im me.

Answer 8

listen up d a25%change then start treating them again sometimes you gotta treat longer