ick outbreaks 2 times, it's been 2 mo. since last outbreak, when is safe to add more goldfish?

Question

i started an aquarium in october 2006 with 8 goldfish in a 55gallon tank. One of the fish had ick and infested the entire tank before dying. i treated with ick med. from the pet store and fish were recovered but several died in the process. then i bought another 5 healthy fish and they were all fine until the next outbreak which was about 1 mo. later.this time was alot worse, the 8 fish i had only 2 survived after the med. treatment. so now it's been almost 2 mo. since the last outbreak and i want to add more fish. i don't know if it's safe to do it? i dont want to kill another bunch with this ick. how do i make sure ick dont come back? i read somewhere treating them with salt is less stressful which i'll def. try if it does happen again. but i dont want to see them suffer. the surviving 2 already went thru 2 ick outbreaks! i want to be absolutely sure before i introduce more fish into the tank. please help!

Answer 1

Two issues to address here but first ick.

You are exactly right, treating with salt is less stressful and works well. To do this though you do need enough salt. A 1% solution is the target amount. But to prevent ick you need a quarentine container. It can be and often is an extra tank, but a large plastic storage container works just as well. Anytime you buy new fish, place them in quarentine for a week to 10 days so that any diseases including ick become apparent before they are in your main tank. I usually go ahead and treat the new fish with a malachite green treatment while they are in quarentine because it will kill ick and a whole host of other parasites as well as many common fugus problems. You of course need at least an air stone for the quarentine container and a filter would be even better. You will have to change water every other day to prevent ammonia from becoming a problem as well, but that a small price to pay to protect your main tank.

Your main tank is ick free. If you haven't seen it in 2 months, there is none in there. If there were it would be living on your fish. It can't live that long without being on a fish.

The second thing to adress is over stocking. Your goldfish may be small now, but they grow and grow. The smaller fancy varieties will easily exceed 7" not including tail when they are grown. I wouldn't suggest you keep more than 3 goldfish in a 55. They need room to grow and do produce quite a bit of waste.

Hope this helps

Salt kills ich
Salt is a valid ich treatment you can find literally 1000's of hobby related links that support this and some that don't, but here's support from veterinarian conferences, research labs, government publications and and various University Fisheries and Biology departments. It's science and it's proven.

veterinarian support of salt treatment
http://www.aquariumfish.com/aquariumfish/detail.aspx?aid=15788&cid=3806&search=
http://www.vin.com/VINDBPub/SearchPB/Proceedings/PR05000/PR00343.htm

General resource
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthyophthirius_multifiliis

Scientific research links
Supports salt treatment with heat
http://sciencesearch.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?DocumentID=276.
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/BODY_FA006
http://www.sbs.utexas.edu/bio354l/Projects/2000/ginger_hsieh/index.html
Supports heat treatment:
http://www.ces.purdue.edu/extmedia/AS/AS-459.pdf.
Download the Ich pdf here:
http://www.aces.edu/dept/fisheries/aquaculture/Health.php

MM

Answer 2

* Since you have goldfish, the only parasites you have to worry about here are freshwater ich (Ichthyophthirius multifilis) and velvet disease (oodinium) - Cryptocaryon irritans and Brooklynella hostilis (commonly called clownfish disease) are both saltwater diseases - they don't apply here.

*Make sure your diagnosis was correct - see photos in this website for comparison: http://www.fishdeals.com/fish_diseases/stressdisease.shtml Spots from velvet are smaller than those of ick, and have a gold/amber/rust colored sheen under bright lighting.

*If your tank was disease-free for 2 months the ich is gone. You can add fish IF you have the proper size tank to keep them. Goldfish varieties vary in size, so you might or might not have room for more in their adult size in your 55.

*The best way to prevent another outbreak is to not introduce more to your tank. If you do add more fish or any live plants or invertebrates, never add water from the store to your tank. This is how the parasite is introduced. Setting up a quarantine tank is the best way to go - a small tank with a filter, no gravel. Put the fish in this for a few weeks. If it has a disease, it won't get spread to your other fish. The smaller volume will mean less medication that need to be used however you decide to treat for whatever conditions you might encounter.

*You don't need UV for the tank. These are expensive and the bulbs have to be replaced yearly. UV units are placed outside the tank and water from the tank flows through them via a powerhead or cannister filter. If the parasites don't go through the tubing, they remain in your tank to infect your fish. Prevention using a quarantine tank is the way to go.

*It also helps to inspect fish carefully before buying (and the condition of the others in the tank as well).

See links below for more info on velvet and ich:

Answer 3

Just wanted to reinforce what has already been said. Never put a new fish straight into a disease free tank unless you are 100% sure that it is disease free. I would only do this from one fish store that I know of. His tanks are clean and he keeps all his new fish quarantined when they come in before he sells them.

Second, instead of adding more goldfish, get rid of some. A full stock of goldfish in 55 gallon tank is 3. You need 30 gallons for the first goldfish and an additional 10 gallons for each additional fish. Counting water displacement by substrate, decorations, etc., you definitely won't have more than 50 gallons in your tank.

Answer 4

I would suggest you get a 10 gallon 'quarantine' tank. Put just a filter in it, no gravel, no decorations, no lights, etc. Treat the water with dechlorinator and the amount of salt you would use to treat illness (check the salt box for the exact amount). Buy ONE fish at a time, and keep them in the quarantine tank for 2 weeks. If they still look healthy, move them to the big tank, EMPTY and wash the quarantine tank, fill it back up, more salt, and buy fish number 2.

The only way to prevent outbreaks is to screen every single fish as it comes in. It's a long process, but it's the safest way.

Answer 5

ick is super easy to treat. just use quick cure. its amazing stuff. pull your filter and add the quick cure for 3 days. basically after you have treated them u can put new fish in. i have a 30g tank and the last time i had ick i treated it for 3 days then on the 4th added about 5 new fish. they are still alive and that was like 6 months ago. also if you clean your tank dont change the filter. its really hard on the ecosystem and if ur tank is new you will most likely get ick all the time for the first 6 months or so.

Answer 6

before you add more fish, run a thorough chem panel on your aquarium water. You can take it to a national chain petstore like Petco or PetSmart if you don't have the chemicals at home to do it yourself. Do add aquarium salt, it will help with water conditioning and electrolyte balance in the water which will help new fish acclimate. Ich does need to be treated with an Ich medicine, I use an Ich treatment with malachite green . Speaking of the WalMart pet shop. Only but physical products like food, etc there. DO NOT buy your fish there. I've been to several WalMarts and every time in the past 3 years, in stores in several states, every tank is infested with Ich. Go to a reputable petstore. Some people may bash PetSmart, but they must have a better fish supplier than WalMart because the one I go to to get most of my aquarium supplies has very clean tanks and I've never seen Ich on any of the fish in any of their tanks.
If you're really concerned, here is a product that claims to be a preventative for Ich. If you want, there's probably no harm in starting an Ich treatment cycle when you purchase your new fish and introduce them to your tank. You might even try starting the treatment a day in advance of purchasing your fish so that the protection is already there just in case.

Answer 7

If your fish have not shown signs of ich for over a month, I would say go ahead and add 1 fish. I agree with DanielleZ here don't add too many at one time. I would also find out from the pet store if they are running UV on their tanks.

Honestly, the only way to ensure you will NOT get ich in the tank is a UV Sterilizer. Salt will not kill the ich in your tank and constantly treating a tank for ich is not good either. Since you are having so much trouble, you may want to invest in one.

Sorry to hear about your fish.

Answer 8

We treated iche so simply without a quarantine tank, though it is a good idea. What we did was for every gallon of water in the tank we added a 1/4 of a tablespoon of salt. We mixed the salt with tank water and ran it through the filter. We did this every couple of days and the iche completely disappeared plus the water was crystal clear. No fish died as a result of the iche or the treatment.

We had previously tried a store bought treatment that didn't work at all. This process worked perfectly.

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Magicman, you are right, ick. I always get that confused. And I probably will forever :)

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Hate to break it to you all that said that salt does not kill ick, it does. It killed the ick in my tank. That was months ago that we treated with salt solution after store bought cik killers didn't work. Haven't seen one of those spots in months, and that means.....the ick was treated and gotten rid of.

Answer 9

First off, salt does not KILL ich. Salt dips will drop the parasite from the fish but does not kill it, especially once it is in the Trophont Phase (this is when it is attached to your fish) I am not sure who started this myth but it doesn't kill ich. Ich is a free swimming parasite found in almost all water sources, including your tap water. During the Thernont Phase- this is where the microscopic parasites are free swimming around your tank will not attach them selves to a healthy host. They will look for injured or stressed fish. If they do not find a host within 48 hours they die off. However a new water change adds new Thernonts to your tank. MOST reputable stores dealing with fish (not walmart) run all of their tank water thru UV Sterilizers. Find out if your fish store does. The chances of the fish having ich due to the water from the store is then 0%. UV Sterilization is the ONLY way to ensure your tank and your fish do not come incontact with ich parasites.

(Government and University studies on ich:
http://afs.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1577%2F1548-8454(2001)063%3C0293%3ATFIIIC%3E2.0.CO%3B2

http://www.afip.org/vetpath/moeller01.pdf) only two of 100 University and Federal studies

You also need to know what kind of ich are youtreating. There are three major types of ich in home aquaria, and in some cases can get more than one.

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.

Garlic soaked foods or foods containing garlic and Vit. C are found to be very effective for keeping ich at bay.

Keep your water quality readings up. Test your water frequently. Try to keep your fish from getting stressed out by keeping the readings, PH and temperatures at a constant. When introducing fish, do it one at a time. Never try to add 3 or more fish to any tank at once.

Now that you know what ich is, you have the knowledge to fight it off. Remember at the first sign of ich outbreak, time is not on your side. Treat the tank immediately. If you need more help on ich, feel free to email me.