Ick keeps killing my fish?

Question

I have a 10 gallon freshwater tank. I got it like 8 months ago and have gome thru soo many fish. I don't want to put any more fish in there if they are just going to die. It's not fair to them. Just in the last month I had 2 fancy gold fish and one guppy who survived from a prev. "batch" of fish I brought home. They were all doing great, eating swimming doing what fish do, then they started to get a little ick. So I started treating the tank for ick but it didn't help. They died within days. Just a week ago I bought 5 of the medium size feeder gold fish. and now they are all dying. I have treated the tank over and over again for ick. But it seems like no matter what I do it comes back. Since all the fish are dead should I completly empty the tank and get new rocks and plants before buying more fish? I take good care of my fish but why won't they live?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Ditto to VG and Cico
Just a few things I will add:
Don't empty out the whole tank, only do a partial waterchange of 50% right away, and put 10 tablespoons of aquariumsalt in there and turn the heat up to 90 degrees, that will kill any diseases still in your tank
Get yourself an ammonia test kit, and check it every day, and follow up with 25% partial waterchanges every day until your readings are at "0"
your tank is definately ready for fish after that time
When your ammonia is at "0", turn the temperature back down to 76-82 degrees, because you won't get any more goldfishes, because your tank is to small for it

You can go with bettas if you like them, like up to
5 FEMALE bettas (no males)
2-3 cory cats (bottom feeder)
lots of live plants to hide out in for the bettas

with that your tank is full and colorful as well but not overcrowded


Hope that helps
Good luck


EB

Answer 2

Well, I would say that, after all this time and dying fish, it would be cycled but for the fact that medications kill all the beneficial bacteria along with the bad bacteria, viruses, parasites and anything else that causes diseases. Salt kills the beneficial bacteria too and anytime you treat a tank for disease, you have to recycle your tank when you've completed treatment. So, start from the beginning. Don't clean out anything and start all over again. Start with it just as it is. Don't worry that there might still be ich in the tank. Ich can't survive without a host and it will die as a matter of course while you're cycling your tank as I describe below. I'm betting more than anything that, while ich can kill, certainly, it's not the ich, but that you have toxic water levels (from too many fish). You can't keep goldfish and tropicals together. You need to get a 20 gallon tank for the two goldfish alone and you can only have about 7 tropicals in a 10 gallon tank. And you need to test the water. Get a test kit (drops not strips) that test for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. As you don't have fish, you can do a fishless cycle. You start by adding plain, non-sudsy, no fragrance, no additives ammonia to the tank water until you get a reading of 5 ppm. Make sure you keep track of how much ammonia you add. Then add that same amount of ammonia every day until you get a nitrite reading. This isn't going to happen for probably about two weeks. Then cut your ammonia in half until you get a nitrate reading. At that point, do a 50% water change and stop adding ammonia. Wait for the nitrates to reach 0ppm and then your tank is ready to add fish. Cycling takes 4-6 weeks. It's a long wait but worth being sure you have healthy water that won't kill your fish. Good luck the next time around!

Answer 3

Well, the good news is that after 8 months of fish at least your tank is cycled -- unless you've let it sit without fish for more than a couple of days at some point.

The bad news is, you can't keep feeder goldfish in a 10 gallon tank. You could get away with one, just one, fancy goldfish for a while, but the feeders grow fast and should reach adult sizes of around 2 feet. They belong in ponds.

I suspect your fish MAY be dying of ammonia and/or nitrite poisoning related to overstocking. The ich is common enough, especially in feeder fish which aren't taken care of very well since they're not intended to live long, but it's usually not that hard to cure and won't kill healthy fish unless you leave them with it for a pretty long time. BUT it kills fish that are weakened, for example by poor water conditions, a lot faster.

So, before you give up -- figure out if you're changing your water enough, figure out how to stock your aquarium properly, THEN figure out what to do with the ick. (I personally used the heat treatment on my tank back in January and the fish got over it without a single death -- they never even acted sick.)

If you want experienced, friendly advice to get you through step by step, check out www.aquahobby.com/forum -- it's a great site. Good luck!

P.S. Cleaning out your tank completely should always be the last resort! Ich is SO easy to kill and an established aquarium full of nice bacteria and biofilms takes SO long to grow... Also, don't change your filter that often. You're throwing away half your bacteria when you do that and kicking off mini-cycles with the ammonia that goes along with them every time. PLEASE go to Aquahobby and learn about taking care of your fish the KIND way, since you seem to want them to live longer than a few months, unlike some people!)

Answer 4

You will need new gravel before you get any more fish.Clean your tank in the hottest water possible.Always rinse the gravel before putting it in the tank,same goes for the plants.Always put a conditioner in the water to get rid of chlorine and minerals before adding the fish, allow your tank to sit filled and set up but no fish for about 48 hours..Make sure you have a good filter on it and change the filter at least every 2 weeks or more if you over feed them.Look at the fish you buy very closely , if there are any sick or dead fish in the tank with them DON'T buy them.If you have a heater on your fish tank and this happens again treat it for ick and also turn the heat up to 80 this kills the ick.However you can only leave it at 80 for 36 hours for the safety of the fish.Start with new gravel and go from there.

Answer 5

Keep your tank water slightly salted, that is about 0.02~0.03% salt (2~3g per litre) of water in your tank. That should keep ich at bay.

Ich will have a hard time in water with salt thereby they can't established themselves too well in such environment.

I also hope you cycled your tank before introducing all the fishes in the tank, poor water quality and stress lead to low bio-resistance in fishes and thereby letting the ich parasites a chance to infect your fishes. This is the root problem, so ensuring the health of the fishes is priority.

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Answer 6

the reason your fish keep getting icch is cause the stuff in the tank is harboring the organisms, so if you want to get more fish, you need to completely clean out and sterilize the tank. Replace the filter, bubble stones, rocks, etc.

I found a really informative site that has a lot of great info and treatment steps to help you out: http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/ich.php

Check it out and don't give up - just get smart about how to handle ich!

Answer 7

initially - Ich is an Ectoparasite that has 3 diverse ranges. if your fish have very small white spots on them (form of like somebody salted them) then you definately have Ich. although - identifying to purchase meds at this element is a waste of money because of the fact the parasite isn't liable to meds in this point. as quickly as the white spots have fallen off the fish - they bypass down into your gravel/substrate and start up an encysted point the place a single Ich parasite multiples as much as two,000 diverse ones. while they become loose swimming - they're liable to meds/salt, yet not earlier that element. I purely have been given via treating certainly one of my tanks with Maracide focus by utilising Virbac Animal wellness, and Evaporated Sea Salt. All you fairly choose however is Salt. in case you have a biolocial filter out which has carbon in it , and manage with meds, you will might desire to take them out all jointly (because of the fact in case you do not they'll purely get rid of your medicine from the water). Salt by utilising itself although you do not might desire to do something yet placed it in and carry the water temp. Salt, and elevating the water temp to 80 5-86 ranges (provided your species of fish can tolerate that temp) is the suitable thank you to handle this mess. I wish i might have had the object out on Wiki earlier i began my scientific care. might have saved a ton of time and funds had I performed that. i'm going to place up it for you right here in my sources. the guy who wrote this particularly is the information superhighway authority on Ectoparasitic remedies. purely use Evaporated Sea Salt, and warmer water and you'd be ok. bypass to the information superhighway internet site in my sources and study the object obtainable. you will have an entire understanding (better than you ever had to understand) as quickly as you study it.

Answer 8

Your tank is too small for goldfish. Your overcrowding them and this causes ammonia to build up making the fish susceptible to diseases like ich.

Go do something called "research" and know the needs of the fish you buy. Goldfish need 20g of water per fish for fancy and 30g per fish for comets and commons,

For your tank do a complete tear down, throw out all the plants, gravel and and basically anything in the tank at this time.

The soak the tank in a bleach solution. Then wash it in clean water till there is no bleach smell. Never never use soap.

Set it up to cycle for a few weeks with new plants, gravel, etc.

Then get fish that can actually live in a small 10g tank.