Wicked Case of Ich - This is becoming serious!

[amaruq]

Ok i have read everything on ich... On this forum and in my books and on-line.

Had it for a week already.

I turned up the temps. 82 degrees. Put the salt in.

Today ich is so much worse and I lost a Gourami this morning :( Now I'm freaking thinking I will loose others :(

Ok now what?

[CACAdmin]

What else are you using to treat it? I have had great success with RidIch+.

[Pamelajo]

I have had great success with RidIch+.
Me too with the regular rid ich.

[RatMan]

I normally use rid Ich and then raise the temps to 82* using the meds as it says on the label; then I also do a 25% waterchange before I start the meds and as I am vacuming the gravel really well to get any tomites that have dropped off, and every time it calls for a water change I vacum the gravel. if that does not work I remove all the fish and treat just the water and vacum the gravel and in a Q tank I treat the fish and it is a bare tank other then a few pots to make the fish feel better. Because free swimming stage of ich cannot live without a host for more then 48 hours, so removal of the fish from the tank for about three days will do the job.

[amaruq]

So...just so I'm not confused...use the RidIch and salt together?

I been vacumming the gravel everyday.

I looked today and they looks like new cysts on them GRRR!

[RatMan]

I have never used salt and don't vacum everyday you need to let the meds do thier work.

[CACAdmin]

Not sure as I've never used salt to treat Ich but I do use salt in my tanks (maybe about 1/3 the amount that you have in there now... I guestimate when adding it at water change time) and it doesn't impact the RidIch+ treatment in any way.

Salt aids in keeping bacteria levels down and with Ich in the tank, fish are susceptible to secondary infection. I don't know if I'd leave the salt level that high or not. Maybe reduce the amount gradually to about 1/2 when doing water changes (which you'll be doing lots of while treating for the Ich). That's my best guess for what it's worth.

[Canadian]

I use the ick gone from my local pet store (LPS) and I just put it in and it turns my water um.. either blue or green I can't remember what one turns the water blue and what one turns it green. and after 1 week the icks gone! ill usually lose 1-2 fish because they usually have it bad and thats what makes you see it. GOOD LUCK! :thumbup:

[Melody]

One thing about aquarium salt is if you have it in the tank on a regular basis, it won't be effective on the Ich unless you use much more. It can successfully treat Ich on it's own but med's are more of a sure thing. In the cases where salt doesn't work your fish have then suffered longer than they would have if you opted for med's first. If there's a lot of fish infected I would treat with med's first or the two combined.

Ich is an opportunistic parasite that often attacks stressed or weakened fish. Your fish could be sick with something else or stressed for some reason. Have you checked the water parameters? That's the first thing I do if I see Ich. I do waterchanges as directed on the bottle but always start with a big one. My parasite med of choice is RidIch+.

[amaruq]

Got the Ridich...so far they don't look any better...but they don't look any worse.

You know i think i got ich from LFS...I got a fish and this weekend i went the tank was loaded with ich. Ticked me off cause i don't think he is treating the tank either. I told Hubby I'm not going back there cause I think that's irresponsible!!!! I also told hubby i loose any more fish I'm gonna do the War dance on his door step GGRRRRR!

[amaruq]

Another fish died this morning *sniff* Comes to 2 now.....I am sending good vibes to the rest.

[James]

Sorry for your lose. I was given some fish that where covered in ich, which I treated in a QT tank but still lost 2 of them. The two Yo Yo loaches seem to be fine now but still keeping them in the QT for couple more weeks. I treated them with Coppersafe which I would hate to have to use in the community tank, as it was, it killed the snail clutches I had.

One thing to remember, ich can exist in fish and not show any signs if the fish are healthy, its when they get stressed that the ich can show up. The white spots you see are acually the second stage of ich (it has 3 stages).

One more thing you might want to check is the phosphate lvl just to insure it is not high which will cause stress, which will just make the problem worse.

Good luck

[CACAdmin]

They won't look better for a while. The spots live on the fish for 4 days. The next phase (after they fall off the fish multiply) lasts 1 day. Then comes the free swimming stage (the only stage at which they are vulnerable) which lasts 2 days. If they are not killed off during this phase the vicious cycle starts again. Hence the need to follow the treatment with great care.

Here is an article (http://www.aquamaniacs.net/forum/cms_view_article.php?aid=27) (which a nice graph) which explains the ich cycle fairly simply and clearly.

Edit: Sorry to hear you lost another fish (I didn't notice you posted while I was finding the article)

[amaruq]

WOW excellent article CAC!!!!!!! I am now slowly dropping the temp. I think i may have another guy stressing :(

James..thank you for telling me that ich can show no signs...it's been bothering me about the LFS..cause I looked at the fish before i bought it and i swear i didn't see anything.

Ok going to see what i can do..I have been thinking about a question about gravel but will post in a general area.

Thanks so much..i am so stressed out right now *sniff*

[amaruq]

I lost another Norte :( I feel so bad for them!!!!

[amaruq]

I am seriously upset!!!

I have lost another little guy this morning so total now is 4.

I have no idea what the heck to do and I totally feel I'm letting these guys down!!!!

Should i take drastic measures????? Taking out fish removing gravel..I have this awful feeling cause my gravel is quite deep 4" and then i have the sand box...I wonder if the depth is cause the ich to have better hiding spots????

Some fish look ok...others are covered head to toe and stressed!

I take this stuff very seriously and have been reading and asking questions but this seems to be an extreme case here. They have been suffering for over a week now.

I don't want to have mini funerals!

What do I do???? What would you do????

I'm sorry for being a pest here but I feel very devasted right now!

[CACAdmin]

Amaraq, I combined the threads so that people will know what you have done so far when offering advice (I combined the titles to include the title of your last post to ensure people see the urgency of a response.)

I know this is really hard :hugs: but you do have to give the RidIch (which you've just started treatment with) time to work. Remember nothing treats the white spots on the fish, it's only a day after they drop off that the Ich is in the swimming stage and can be killed. The meds will be currently killing off these but the white spots stage on the fish lasts 4 days.

Removing the fish to another tank means two tanks to treat and the one with the fish in it will have to be treated for a full cycle of at least a week anyways. To reduce the stress on the fish, I'd suggest maybe keeping the lights turned off.

Best of luck and hopefully you don't lose any more fishies.

[amaruq]

I really am trying not to freak out.....but this seems like a super strain of ich. I have ich before and no where near the problems i am having with this.

I just did a water change and put more stuff in and turned off the lights... let's see if that helps????I am so hoping so!

[CACAdmin]

I understand how you feel. Lights out will be quiet time for them and less stressful and hopefully allow them to cope.

[amaruq]

Well hopefully I'm over the worst...well that was selfish or what? Hopefully the fish are over the worst. I did loose another fish last night :( Total at 5 now.

The white spot are gone??? i hope I'm not jinxing things by saying that.

I sure hope i never go through that again!!! Ok selfish again! i hope the fish never go through that again.

[PintoHawk]

Awww, I am so sorry to read all this, that's horrible. It sounds to me like you are doing everything you can (so don't feel bad), just have to wait and let the meds work. *HUG*

[CACAdmin]

Sorry to hear you lost yet another fish. And remember this is the time where it is extrememely important to continue the meds diligently for at least a full 7 days. The ich are now in the Tomont stage waiting to hatch into the swimmer stage where the meds work. If they aren't killed off the ich cycle continues.

Don't panic if you see white spots reappear on the fish. These would have been ich that attached themselves to the fish before you started the meds and so all it means is that you will have to extend treatment past the normal 7 days. ( Just continue treating an additional 3 days after the last ich spot drops off).

[amaruq]

Amazingly it did get worse! Another fish died!

But now my 20 gallon and my daughters Tank has ich.

Now my Daughter bought her fish at the same place i did. That fish is covered (Betta)...I imagine others will start but we started to treat with Ridich.

The 20...I took the snails from the 55 gallon to the 20. So I'm thinking the snails carried it over?? Is that possible? That is the only link to this?

I am following the book on the link Cadamin posted. And have them covered lights out and resting.

My 55 looks so empty :( I'm not gonna replace for sometime....I just want to get them all healthy.

[CACAdmin]

Sorry to hear your battle continues. ::(: Don't give up. It's a battle worth fighting.:yes:

Snails don't get ich but all it would take would be a tomont (anywhere on them) or theronts (more likely) in the water on them and it could easily be transferred from one tank to another. To ensure you don't spread the ich you need to be sure to use seperate nets, etc. for each tank or it spreads with ease. Wash your hands thoroughly between tanks as well.

Note: snails can be moved from a tank with ich to another by moving them first to a tank or container with no fish in it, leave them there for 3 or more days and any ich will die off because it doesn't have a host. Then they can be safely transferred to the destination tank.

[Melody]

There always seems to be a Spring outbreak of Ich. A healthy fish can usually handle a case of Ich so I suspect there's something else up or the fish weren't healthy overall when you got them. I hope things improve for you soon.