curing ick in goldfish?

Question

i just bought a new fantail. some of the fish in the tank had ick, so when i took my fish home i did an ick treatment for two days. i didnt think i would see ick, but a couple days ago she developed a case. i treated for ick yesterday aswell as today. the water temperature is currently 72/22 . i read you should keep the temperature higher for two weeks to speed up the lifecycle of the ick. on the bottle for the treatment it says to treat the water daily until all spots are gone, but i have read it is a bad idea. how often should i treat my tank? for how long? and what temperature should i keep my tank? how many hours a day should the light be left on? and should i put the light on for say 2 hours in the morning then 2 hours at night? or just put it on at night? thanks in advance..

Answer 1

fantails can't stand very high temps, but you can raise it up to 75F for two weeks, that wont help much though. keep with the treatment, I'd treat at least 3 days after you stop seeing the spots, preferably a week.

next time don't buy fish until there is no disease in the tank.

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another way I've heard to treat ich is keeping the tank dark, I don't know if it works, but it won't hurt leaving the light off until the ich is gone if you'd like to try it. of course this only helps if you're treating with meds or something as well. which makes me wonder how they know it worked at all and it wasn't just the meds? lol again, it's just another theory on how to treat it that I've read about, I've never personally tried it.

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I just wanted to add, as the person said bellow charcoal filters will filter out the treatment. however DO NOT remove the whole filter, just remove the part with charcoal, on most filters it's a white bag in the filter, it always has little black rocks in it. goldfis are too dirty to not have a filter

Answer 2

First, lighting has nothing to do with curing ich. It's only a factor in curing velvet, which is able to use photosynthesis to stay alive off your fish. You still shouldn't have it on more than 8 hours a day because of potential for problems with algae and your fish need to be able to have a day/night cycle for resting.

I'm not sure what type of product you're using to treat your ich, but one with the combination of malachite green and formalin is the most effective. You can also use salt, as long as there isn't iodine added (aquarium salt, kosher salt, pickling, canning, or rock salt are all fine to use) at a teaspoon per gallon.

You're correct about raising the water temperature to speed up the life cycle. When the parasite is on the fish, it isn't affected by medications, and this is the stage when it does the damage to the fish. So by heating the water, it makes the parasites drop off the fish faster, where they can be killed by the tretment in your water. For tropical fish, the treatment can be done in 10-14 days, but in cooler water, it can take 3 weels (or more) depending on the temperature.

A temperature of 86oF or over is ideal, since this interferes with the ability of the parasite to reproduce, but the warmer the water, the less dissolved oxygen it holds, so this is why some don't recommend raising the temperature for coldwater fish. Goldfish are capable of tolerating temperatures this high, as long as the change is made slowly (change the temperature by 1-2 degrees every hour) and have good water movement (usually, just having a filter is enough) to keep high dissolved oxygen content. If you don't want to raise it that high, that's okay, any increase at all helps.

The other things that are important when treating for ich are to remove any carbon from your filter (it absorbs the medication, but not salt), and to continue treating for 3-5 days after you no longer see spots. Since the parasite can only be killed in the water, you don't want to stop too early and have some of the parasites survive and reinfect your fish. Also, if you do any water changes during the treatment, add back only the amount of medication that's removed, not the dose for the entire tank (of couse, this depends on the medication you suse - follow the label instructions). This is another reason I like the malachite green/formalin - you only add it once (not repeated doses unless you do a water change) and the dose is one drop per gallon, so it's easy to figure out how much is removed/needs to be added.

Answer 3

Well, I have ALWAYS treated my fish for atleast a week- maybe even 10 days. I haven't seen any bad side effects in the fish, and it kept the ick from just reoccuring. I would treat it once a day for a week. I would leave your tank at the normal temp, if you heat it up you can stress out the fish, which WON'T help[ them fight off the ick. You can leave the light on during the day but you should turn it off at night so as not to disrupt your fishes natural light cycle.....I hope this helps

Answer 4

I have tabs called Jungle brand Tank Buddies, Fungus Clear.
It turns your water a bit green and you put one tab in for each 10 gallons, make sure you take out your filters while you are treating, it clears up fungus like ick and other bacterias. You can treat with a 2nd dose in 4 days if the ick isn't gone, no need to raise the temp with these... I got them at Walmart after 6 of my fish died due to a bacteria, and they rest of my fish have been spared. It worked good for me, and it works good on ick too. Once you've treated your tank for a couple day without the filters in, replace your filters with brand new ones and the green color takes about 24 hours to filter back to clear water. I leave my aquarioum light on constantely, the only thing I battle is brown alge which I also use PhosGuard for (availble at petshops) it takes out the alge's nutrients from the water, and prevents it's growth, but it's just a habit for me, because I like being able to see my fish. Temps should be kept around 78 degrees for most tropical fish. With the chemical you have, treat as directed on the bottle.

Answer 5

If you have a charcole filter you will need to remove it while treating. You should treat your fish for a week. Leave your light on as normal which should be for 8 hour at least kind of simulate a natural inviroment. If your tank get direct sunlight move it to a darker location. At the end of your treatment put in a new filter pad.

Good luck