i guess my gold fish have developed "ICH"....wat do i do..?....any home remedy.....???

Question

(white spots on the fish body n fins)

Answer 1

First off salt is the worst thing you can add to goldfish or koi. Too many other problems arise from it.

Heat is not an option sice they are cold water fish. Please do not do this to your fish. You will loose more than you save.

Also, Use medications designed for white spot. Most people will tell you to increase the temp and add salt to gold fish since most people do not care about a .10 fish. Do not do this if you want to save your fish.

keep the temps cold, water changes as well will not rid your fish or the tank of ich.

Salt will bloat your fish, force your fish into a slime coat that will be thicker than normal and create more chances for ich to attach itself.

Raising the temperatures will stress the fish if it is set at a constant and unless it is high enough will not kill the ich. Some people may swear by this for other fish, it doesn't work for gold fish or koi.

Use meds. Seriously. If you need help with fighting ich in gold fish please feel free to email me.

Answer 2

Unfortunately Mantra is incorrect. 70 degrees will not kill ich, if raising the tank temperatures, they must be higher than 90 to be effective. 90 is not for goldfish. No home remedies most take time like salt. In order for salt to work in droping parasites from the fish (and will not kill it in the tank) your temperature needs to be above 90. Your goldfish will not survive. Go to the store and get medicines.

Answer 3

the only problem I see with the heat and salt method is goldfish are cold water type. Most preferring 50-68F 88F is what I found on most forums to be the temp that works the best. If you raise the temp fast (1-2F every 12 hours) it will still take a while to get up there. 1 TBSP aquarium salt/5 gal, unless you have plecos or catfish (which is not good anyway because they are tropical/warm water fish), then half that since they are scaleless. If you are going to raise the temp that much, watch them and if you see any problems, start to lower the temp back down. Heat and salt is the only 'home' remedy I am aware of.

Ich can only be killed while it is free-swimming. So while it is on the fish or on the gravel, it cannot be killed, only when it leaves the fish or the gravel. Heat speeds up the life cycle, in cold temperatures, its life cylce can last a week or more. At 88F it is normally 3 days. You always want to treat more than the cycle of the Ich, maybe twice. Remember, just because you don't see it on the fish anymore doesn't mean it is gone.

While you are treating for Ich, before you put in each dose of medication, do a quick vacuum of all the gravel, helping to remove some of the Ich parasites in its stage of multiplication, before it is free swimming again. This can speed up the elimination of this disease.

If you have other tanks, and you have used the same equipment before letting it completely dry out, then go ahead and treat the other tanks. If you haven't done so, then make sure the stuff is dry and do the maintenance to those tanks first so the stuff can dry out before you use it again after the infected tank.

To prevent future infections of any disease, it helps to have a quarentine tank for any new fish. They would need to be in that tank for at least 4-6 weeks, to give time to inspect for odd behavior and disease. Usually by that period of time, anything would have become apparent and it is usually safe to add the new fish to your established community.

If the spots don't look like 'salt crystals' ... or has a fuzzy, hairy, or can look like gray splotches, it also could be a fungal infection. Can be treated with MelaFix and PimaFix. I have heard people using this for Ich to, but I am not sure how well it works, but it is natural, so safer for the fish. If you are having a fungal infection, step up the water changes, those type of infections come from stagnant water, or filter boxes that haven't been torn down and the slime and food wiped out including the impeller and impeller housing.

It is a myth that ich is always present. It is easier for the fish to be infected if it has been stressed/weakened/living in bad conditions. But it has to be present. If you have recurring problems of ich, it is bad fish husbandry. UF had an article on it, that I currently cannot find, but if you search through http://www.oscarfish.com/ or ask in their forum, the person that had the link I am sure would give it again.

Good luck on treating your gold fish.

Answer 4

Best thing to do is go to your local pet store they should have something to take care of the ich also if you have other fish with the sick fish you may want to treat them all or just seperate them for the time being & see if the others develope ich too you can also contact your vet & ask them what the recommend

Answer 5

i work at a pet store and i know that there is no home remedy, the only way to get rid of ich is to buy a chemical from like walmart or any pet shop. i think its called ich gaurd or ich away. i hope you goldfish survives it!!!

Answer 6

I'm not sure about goldfish, but I do know the treatment for bettas that might help.
Ick is a parasite. Because ick is contagious, it is preferable to treat the whole tank when one fish is found to have it. Ick is temperature sensitive: Leave your betta in the community tank and raise temperature to 85 F and add one drop of Aquarisol per gal every day until cured. It will only take a few days to get rid of the pesky little parasites. If your betta lives in a jar/bowl, then you cannot raise the temperature. Do not attempt to put a heater in a tank smaller than 5 gal. You cannot control temperature fluctuation in a small tank/bowl and will probably end up boiling your betta!!! Do a full water change and add one drop of Aquarisol and salt (per above proportions) to the water. If you have empty tank and heater, then move betta to it and raise temperature of water to 85 F as per above. The reason is that the parasites are sensitive to the heat and at 85F they become free swimming (detach themselves from betta’s skin and go for a swim in the water which contains the Aquarisol. Aquarisol then kills them). Guess their mothers never told them to never go for a swim right after dinner!! :)))). Note, BettaZing (included in our Betta First Aid Kit) can also do the job, in case you do not have aquarisol on hand. if you have both, go with the old fashion Aquarisol recipe, it works great.



I copied it from another website, so it's not that clear....sorry. :(

Answer 7

Yes there is. You can treat the fish with heat and salt to effect a cure. You would do this by slowly bringing the temperature of the tank up above 86F while slowly adding a total of 1 tablespoon per gallon of salt to the tank. Kosher salt would be fine for this. Keep both the heat and salt at those levels for at least 2 weeks or for 5 days after you see the last white spot on any fish.

Even though the fish would not be harmed in the least by the salt or truly endangered by the heat, you would probably encounter fewer problems by using a ich remedy from the pet shop. Treat as directed on the bottle except treat for 10 days no matter what the bottle says. It will take that long for the ich to be completely killed from the tank.

MM

Answer 8

For this second you can raise the tank temp by 4 degrees on your heater and get yourself to a LFS or Wal-mart and buy some Ich treatment and maybe even some melafix medication. Use both as directed and remove the carbon filter cartridge in your filter to make sure you don't remove the medication the instant you introduce it to the water. Keep a close eye on your fish and repeat the medicine as needed. In extreme cases you can take a fish out of water with the small net and actually rub the excess ICH off of them. This is a rare treatment and most people wouldn't even consider it. But I worked in a pet store for years and if we'd get fish in on Fri pm and they'd get Ich that night and we wouldn't catch it until Monday morn (when we turned all the bright lights on) we'd get out the most coated ones, the ones that would surely die with or without medication, and we'd rub them a little to remove the thick layer of ich, treat the tank and in one week all was back to normal. Strange treatment but it works. Good luck.

Answer 9

A good old salt bath should work good. also go to a fish Store and u can buy ICH medication.

Answer 10

Go to local pet store and buy ick medication-follow directions on container. Do quickly, don't wait.