an ich question

[ddayton21]

i recently dealt with an infestation of ich and my fish seem to be doing good now....sadly i lost a few fish....anyway my question is how long should i wait before putting more fish into my tank?

thanks a bunch

catfish

[nlmadison]

I'd wait at least 10 days to 2 weeks. I waited 1 week only to have Ich symptoms re-appear 2 days later ... very frustrating. Had to start the whole treatment cycle over again.

N.

[ddayton21]

thanks for the advice, im thinking about about changing from gravel to sand so i'm wondering about doing the change during the waiting period while i have less fish to move.

P.S. if anyone has any suggestions about sand or an alternative please let me know

[Holly9937]

without a QT tank (assuming you don't use one) you risk introducing ich or other problems everytime you add new fish too... just something to consider

[Roan Art]

If you remove all that gravel and replace it with sand you're going to lose a lot of good bacteria. You might want to keep an eye on things via test kits et al. Now, your fish are stressed already from the ich and meds and stuff, so if you change the gravel and it causes a few ammonia and nitrite spikes, it might not be good for them. If you can add some gunk from another filter off a good tank to that one, it might help.

Dunno what your bio load is, just a thought and something to keep in mind.

Roan

[happychem]

Most of your nitrifiers will be in your filter media - assuming that you don't have a UGF, so changing the gravel will not necessarily hurt nitrification, although it will cut back on heterotrophs.

Roan is correct about stressing the fish though, substrate changes are pretty messy and intensive. I would wait at least 2 weeks before changing the gravel to allow the fish to recover from the Ich treatment, then at least 2 more weeks before adding new fish to let the tank recover from the gravel change and for the fish to settle. During this time you should be especially attentive of your fishes's health. If any become sick or lethargic, hold off on any new additions.