ich help!!!!!!! 10 points?

Question

i have a tropical aquarium with neon tetra,female platies,guppys, cory catfish(peppered), algae eating shrimp,american flag fish, white cloud minnows, golded cloud minnows, my neon tetras caught ich and about 3-6 have died of it now i have been using anti ich chemicals and it started to work, the white spots dropped in frequency, but now since its been almost completely killed of the tetras, its hopped all over the platies!!! how can i rid my aquarium of this parasite.

also on posibly another problem some of my flag fish have got tatty fins, and have been giving white excretions :S, i had to flush a live guppy down the toilet because of this, it just looked ill, what could this be, and any cures? answer both q's please

Answer 1

nitrofuracin

This is a wide-spectrum agent that should get rid of the ich. Please read the directions carefully though, no shortcuts.

Answer 2

Liam,

The reason your neons died is that they're sensitive to ich medications (also to salt). So is your cory, and the shrimp will be sensitive to any medication containing copper (or any that specify not to use with invertebrates). This doesn't mean you can't use them, but you shouldn't add them at full strength (at least not at first). Start with half the recommended dose, then slowly add the rest over the course of the day.

A medication with malachite green and formalin is the most effective for fish - and one of the easiest to dose, since the full does is one drop per gallon of tank volume. Salt is a teaspoon per gallon.

It also helps to raise the temperature, but do this just 1-2 degrees per hour. A temp of 86o or over is best, because this interferes with the ability of ich to reproduce, but your collection has several coldwater species. Keep an eye on them to see if they show any signs of distress when you raise the temperature - you may not get all the wat to 86o, but any increase will help, since it speeds up the lifecycle of the parasite so they drop off the fish faster. When on the fish, they're protected by a cyst - it's only when they drop off the fish into the water that they get affected by the medication/salt. Also, keep up good filtrations, since warmer water reduces the amount of dissolved oxygen the water can hold. Try for the maximum amount of surface disturbance you can get (fill the tank all the way so you get a "ripple" effect on the surface).

Also remember to remove any carbon if you treat with medications - it will remove medication from the water, but it doesn't remove salt.

Since your shrimp isn't able to get ich, if you have a spare tank (or any container you can cover) and use an airstone for aeration, you can remove the shrimp and have a better selection of medications/treatments you can use for the fish. You'll need to keep him out for a month, just so any parasites in the water die for the lack of a host. This is assuming you aren't able to heat the container he's in, since ich lives longer the colder the water. For the fish in the tank, if you have a heater for them, you should need to treat for around 14 days, or at least 3-5 days after you no longer see any spots on the fish (to be sure that all the parasites in the water have been killed).

The problem with your flagfish seems to be a fin rot. This can be treated with a wide-spectrum antibiotic, but this will disrupt the beneficial bacteria in your tank. This is often associated with a buildup of organic matter in the substrate, so do a throrough vacuuming of the gravel and water change before adding any medication (this will also help to remove ich parasites in the gravel so they don't attach to your fish, and copper-based medications bind with organics lowering their effective concentration in the tank).

Some reading on ich and fin rot for you:

Answer 3

I find that increasing the temperature to about 82 F and treating with aquarium salt works best for ich.