Arghh!!! ICK!

[emmaS]

Hi. Just noticed one of my tetras has ick. It's the black fins one who is now solo (his buddy died a couple weeks ago). Both are minimum 5 years old and part of the aquarium when given to me.

It's 2am and I am reading on how to treat ick. So can I use regular morton table salt (non-iodized) or do I need to wait til morning to use aquarium salt.

Also would it help if I treated the tank simultaneously with an antibiotic like amoxcillin or metrozidinale?

Thanks!

[emmaS]

To complicate matters I'm reading about how ick has a life cycle. I am cycling two tanks right now. There is a used filter catridge, rocks, plastic plant, a bit of gravel as well as several gallons of dirty water I transferred from the established (ick!) tank to the new tanks last week!

Does that mean my new cycling tanks may soon be ick infested? One is empty so I unplugged it. It had no fish in it and I don't want to cycle it now. The other (the 26G) currently has 6 white clouds as of 3-4 days ago.

[J double R]

pick up some ich treatment and turn the heat up on all the tanks to 82 degrees.. by the time the other tanks are cycled it should have killed any ich that was in those tanks, and your fish should be a-ok. ive never used salt with the treatments and theyve worked great.

[TheMightyQueenPixie]

What are your water parameters? Temp? Ick cysts need an 8 degree drop ( if I remember correctly) in temp quite rapidly to hatch the ick parasite. Ick is a constant in all water, but it needs a "trigger" to hatch. Personally I just use maracide and be done with it. Some salt and raise temp, but the high temps for a week are stressful. Maracide will kill the hatched parasites (nothing kills the white cycts) quite quickly. It really isnt a big deal and if treated early you can clean it up quite quick.

[emmaS]

Thanks for the info. I started the salt tonight after reading the article on this site, but will go to the fish store tomorrow to pick up some ick meds as well. I am worried about that cycling tank but it looks okay--but I know that doesn't mean anything. The temp was 75-76 but I moved the thermometers to 82.

My other concern is white fuzz growing on a plant and on a few pieces of feces (which I vacuumed up). I also took out the plant. The fish that had died had disappeared and I just assumed the pleco ate him--but several days later the fish surfaced (it had been hidden behind the filter tube) covered in white fuzz--which I assumed was fuzz that happened after his death. I immediately removed him, but it now looks like the white fuzz has spread a bit in the tank. I can't see any now and there is no fish with any fuzz on them, but I'd like to know what exactly this is and how to treat.

Thanks!

[J double R]

the fuzz is just fungus that grows on rotting flesh and food. remove immediately any rotting food or dead fish and it should be ok.

[TKOS]

Ich is in all water? Is there a link to that info?

emmaS - The empty tank will be fine. Ich needs a host to survive. Raise the temp in that tank to 86-90F. That speeds the life cycle up drastically. As the tomites (free swimming stage) will not be able to find a host they will die off. Let that run for 2 weeks (consider doing a fishless cycle at this point) and you will be fine. As for meds versus salt well both will be hard on the fish, but if you read about the life cycle of ich you will see that it can take several weeks to kill it all off. Meds will "cure" it faster but there will still be ich left behind which will probably lead to future infestations.

Doing a forum search for ich will give you a whole bunch of recent threads on this topic with lots of great info.

[fish_freak]

Ich is not in all water. Read this for more info on treatment and other info.
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88601

[TheMightyQueenPixie]

If I could find a source online for you I would. This was research done by Dr. Gene Lucas and sent to me in a printed material format. Very interesting. His conclusion is that all water tap, city whatever carry this parasite that is not eliminated by chemical treatment etc in the cyst stage.... In his clinical experiments he noted that ick needs a trigger to become active and colonize. That trigger would be a temp swing doing 2 things- causing the cysts to hatch and stressing out fish whos immune system is weekend by the temp shift...Makes sense. It is the only thing that can answer the mysterious "where did it come from" question..

[emmaS]

Sob...the black fin died this afternoon. I finished putting in the 40 teaspoons of salt. I think 2 of the neons have a couple white spots on their tails--not sure if it could be the salt since I didn't notice it earlier. Their color is also faded. The pleco is also covered in white spots. I think that is the salt but not sure since the pleco had been hiding when I had panicking this morning.

The tanks therms are saying 82. Kinda scared to move it up.

So leave the salt in for a week--no vacuum/water change? Keep salt in for another week after that?

I think the ick came from my sis's guppies. She put them in my tank (formerly her tank so she still thinks of it as hers unfortunately)--I made her take them back to her place cause I didn't like them. I should've never let her put them in the tank. She doesn't think they were the cause because her guppies don't have ick.

[emmaS]

Came home and the therms (one top, one bottom) were reading 86! I noticed one neon (two now have the ich) at the top of the tank gasping so I opened the hood. It immediately went down to the bottom where its mates were hanging out. I thought I set the therms at 82, but I had set them for 85. Yikes. I moved it down to 82.

I'm confused whether to do a water change or to wait out the week. Also do I add more salt? And would the salt granules create white spots on my pleco? Or is that ich?

[kveeti]

I'm confused whether to do a water change or to wait out the week. Also do I add more salt? And would the salt granules create white spots on my pleco? Or is that ich?

If it's time to do regular water changes, then yes, do them. Only add salt to the new water - mix it up first at the same proportion that's in your tank. Salt should be dissolved first before adding to your tank so there should not be any granules showing up on the fish.

[TKOS]

You would have to have an awful lot of salt in the water for it to show up on the scales of a fish. Salt dissolves pretty quickly in water.

Water changes can be done evry day with ich and it can actually help. Gravel vacuums will suck up some of the cysts in the gravel, water changes will also pull out some of the free swimming tomites.

Just add in the amount of salt you took out. So removing 2 gallons of water, if you are at 2 tsp per gallon then add just 4 tsp of salt back since the rest of the salt is still in the tank.

A little more salt added won't hurt things if you accidentally add too much, but keeping it around 2tsp per gallon or so is best.

[emmaS]

Ich is hideous. I did dissolve the salt in water first and slowly poured it in over the course of a day so the white spots on the pleco must be ich. He has been hiding out in his cave during the day so I never noticed but he is pretty much covered. He also has a couple of fresh wounds (bleeding) on his side--maybe from trying to rub off the ich.

One of the neons is covered in ich and is now missing it's tail. I don't know if it fell off or was ripped off cause I've seen the neon rubbing up against rocks. I've heard of fin rot disease but it looks like a clean break. None of the other fish's fins look abnormal, but I'm seeing a couple white spots on the other neons on their back fins.

Thanks for all the help. Hopefully this is the worst of it.

[jgulecas]

High temps and salt are usually the most effective/economical/safest treatment for ich. If you have some salt sensitive fish and/or plants, you may want to look into alternatives.

High temps are more easily tolerated by fish if you add aeration.