please only ppl that really know about fish keeping!!!?

Question

ok so my fish have what i believe to be ick/ich! (white spots over there body) it isnt fluffy or anythink! not all of them have it. the two blue platys have it slightly, my mollie has it slightly, the two kuhli loaches have it slightly and the two clown loaches seem to have it the worst, and they seemed to be the most irratated by it as they keep flicking themselfs in the gravel. my dwarf gourami, two red platys and male betta dont seem to have any white spots on them. i did a 25% water change 3days ago, then 2days ago i did a 75% water change bcuz my 3yr old decided to tip the whole tub of fish food in the tank. (please dont tell me i shouldnt have done this, bcuz its done now and theres nothink i can do about it) my fish seem really happy and healthy! then yday i put some treatment in for there ich/ick. and ive gotta do that every other day so the intructions say! the thing i want to know is should i see a change yet? bcuz i dont! they still have the white spots! also how often

should i be doing water changes? as ive been getting different answers from eveyone, some say do a 20% water change every day, others say 10% everyday, and then you get some that say every week. also do you think this treatment will have affect on my fish? like i said there all doin well eating, swiming, etc please help

Answer 1

You are getting so many different answers because so many people here really have no clue what ick is or how it works. Water changes remove some of the parasites from the tank so they are a good thing, but not too large at one time. Salt and heat will both kill ick. I know others say it won't but they don't know what they are talking about. Is a proven fact that both kill ick safely on freshwater tropical fish. Here's a method that will kill the ick in your tank:

Change a large portion of the water, about 50-60% while cleaning the gravel very well.

Clean the filter and change all the media but leave out the carbon.

Add 2 tablespoons of salt per 5 gallons of the tank.

Raise the temperature to 88-90 F. Raise it slowly, about 1 degree per hour. You may need to add an air stone or two depending on the type of fish and how heavily the tank is stocked.

Add a good ick medication as directed on the bottle. Continue using your Ick Away, it's a good medication. (CAUTION: Malachite Green is a known carcinogen. Be careful not to get it on your skin!)

Change 25% or more of the water daily being sure to clean the gravel as you do so.

Continue the treatment for at least 7 days after you see the last white spots on any of the fish. It takes a while to be sure you have killed all of the ick.

After the treatment, return the carbon to your filter and lower the temperature to normal.

This will work and will remove the ick from your tank.

MM

Answer 2

Okay, I'll add to what is your probably growing confusion on this subject.

I would say your first step is to make certain of your diagnosis. Ich (Ichthyophthirius multifilis) and velvet (oodinium) may appear similar. Marine ich (Cryptocaryon irritans) won't survive in freshwater, so you can eliminate that possibility. Both freshwater ich and velvet appear as white dots over your fish, but in velvet, they give off an amber/gold/rust sheen in bright light and are typically smaller.

Treatment is the same for each - I prefer Quick Cure, which is available in any pet store or WalMart for about $2. Ingredients include malachite green and formalyn which are both effective, but as noted above, malachite green is a carcinogen (as is formalyn), so care should be used when using this product. Others will recommend salt and higher temperatures, but I personally haven't used this method.

I don't know that a "specific" volume of water is necessary, but water changes are recommended. In the life cycle of Ich, only one of the stages actually occurs on the fish - all other stages occur in the water. As the cysts "disappear" from your fish, more parasites are released into your water. By removing the water, you reduce the number of parasites present to cause reinfection, plus all that have been killed by your medication (if a sufficient number of dead organisms build up, their decomposition will increase the demand for oxygen and will add ammonia to the tank). The more water removed, the better, but this needs to be balanced against additional stress to your fish by any temperature/water chemistry fluctuations. So the amount of tank water removed and frequency of water changes is subject to variation based on the preferences of the aquarist, as well as the severity of the infection. Velvet treatment is the same in this respect.

Because the infection is in your water, you will need to treat the entire tank to remove all parasites. If using medication, you'll need to remove any carbon/charcoal for the course of the treatment. Don't stop treating as soon as the dots disappear - you'll need around two weeks to be sure all parasites are eradicated.

If you're worried that your loaches might be sensitive to the medication, I'd remove them and treat them in a separate tank, starting at half the recommended dosage of the product you use and slowly increasing. If they start to show signs of distress, add some dechlorinated water to dilute the medication. You want to treat as close to the recommended dosage as possible, otherwise the possibility of a few resistant parasites surviving and multiplying increases. This would be harder to treat effectively the second time around.

Also, some fish keepers recommend darkening the tank when treating for oodinium (velvet) because the causative organism contains photosynthetic chloroplasts.

Answer 3

So many answers some good some bad.

First off, I asked my father what ich REALLY was. (He is a vet here in Ohio)

Ich is a parasite and it is in our water. Changing water and adding clean water adds newer parasites. These parasites won't attack a fish unless it is injured or sick. There are a few kinds so you need to be sure what your fish has.

He could not find where salt was a treatment. The book only says to use the medicines for the type of ich your fish has.

Answer 4

The cycle of ich is about 2 weeks so you need to keep treating as per the bottle for about that long, even if the fish look better. Maybe raise the temperature slightly to about 82 degrees to speed up the ich life cycle and if you have any carbon filtration stop that because it will remove the medication.

Answer 5

First off, a daily water change is not needed nor recommended. Your 25% water change every week is fine.

As was mentioned, due to the OOPS on the food, turning off your filter for a half hour and letting the food settle then vacing works great.

As for the ich, you may have to treat the tank for two weeks or longer. It will not go away over night. Do not add salt to your tank either. It doesn't kill ich.

Be sure your filter pad are pulled out of your filter. Treat the tank, this is weird only because you are trying to get food out and treat with ich.

If your fish are still showing signs of ich after two weeks of treating, you will have to treat again.

As DanielleZ mentioned above me, you need to be treating with the proper meds for the type of ich you have.

Answer 6

What size tank do you have? What wattage heater? Is the tank in the afternoon sun or in a drafty location? What type of substrate (gravel) are you using? Have you checked pH values? Did you add fish or plants in the last few weeks?

The above is an attempt to gather info in order to tell what might have caused the outbreak in the first place. This time of year it could easily be a sudden drop in temperature due to a draft or power outage.

Ick is sort of like the cold virus. It's always present but not a problem until the immune system is overwhelmed. A newly added fish can come down with it because of the stress in being put in a small bag and being shaken around awhile before being dumped in with a bunch of strangers who may or may not wish to eat you.

If your fish still show signs of Ick but otherwise seem normal they are probably on the way to recovery. Keeping the temperature up around 82F (and constant) a while would probably help (unless you have a crowded tank). I used to use salt treatments and/or methylene blue or malachite green, but I rarely had it occur.

I mainly kept my community tanks at 40-gallons and up. This meant the temperature would remain steady even if someone left the door open for a few hours in the dead of winter (but I'm in California, not Montana) and so, I never got Ick. (That and I isolated newcomers in quarantee tanks for at least a week before transfer to a community tank - a month for marine fish)

Water changes help. Especially if you "age" the water for a few days and then use something like Novaqua.

Bigger the better in the tank size dept.. Quality submersible heaters, too. I have a couple of aquarium filters that use diatomaceous earth as the filter media (like swimming pools use). This is capable of filtering out any parasites larger than 0.5 microns. I wouldn't use one on anything smaller than a 40-gallon aquarium unless it was bare. Too much power/turbulence.

So, you're probably going to be fine. Prevention is your next goal.

>> And why bring up a marine parasite when we're talking about Platies, Loaches, Gouramis and a Betta anyway, Danielle?

Answer 7

follow the directions on the bottle...it used to take over a week with the loaches when i had my tanks. my black mollies always seemed to get it the easiest. be prepared to lose a fish or two in this process. good luck. as for water changes...i can't remember how often i changed the water..or how much. i was a teenager at home. sorry

Answer 8

if it were my fishtank, i would go buhy a product called
"amquel +" and put 1 capful per ten gallon in the tank
then i would turn the heat up to speed up the life cycle of the ich, and put aqurium salt in the tank 2 tablesppons per five gallons,

then do a water change in three dayhs, but only a small one, and add more salt and some Melafix, whitch will start to heal the skin

the problem here is the water change probably stressed the fish otu and yoru ammonia is high, the amquel will cut the ammonia and nitrates by 60% or so then the salt will make the ich rupture and the melafis will sooth the wounds

good luck

Answer 9

From the instructions it sounds like your using interpet white spot remover?? if so this isnt very good at all. Try waterlife protozin. water changes help alot also aswell as raising the temp slightly when treating as this quickens the cycle.

Answer 10

okay if you have that on all of them then maybe their sick or maybe their supposed 2 be like that. go to the place where you got the fish and ask some1 if they know anything about it i dont know about them bcuz i only have 9 guppys and 2 bettas witch u dont need 2 know