Please help: Goldfish with Ick!

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Ratlova30

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Apr 2, 2010
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Chelsea
55-60gal aguarium
6" comet(3yrs.), 3" common(2yr.), 3" Ryukin(1yr.), 2" Ryukin(3wks.), 1" oranda(3wks.), 2" moore(1yr.), 3" moore(1yr.)
Sand substrate
Aqueon filter(no other labels on it but VERY strong output) cascade filter (rated for 50gal)
2 air pumps with 12" air stone
Heater
Misc. fake decor and fake plants & some lava rock
Temperature: 82F(and slowly climbing)
No Natural sunlight really, lights are on 8-12hrs. a day
Current treatment being administered(heat and salt)
Daily food intake: 1" square dried seaweed,pinch of kelp flake, tsp. goldfish pellets, tsp. various frozen food(mainly blood worms), 1/2 algae wafer

API Master Liquid test kit
pH: 6.8-7.0
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0.25ppm
Nitrate: 20ppm

This tank has only been running for about 2 wks. The 5 goldies I've had the longest were in a different 55gal about a month and a half ago and I had to stick them in a 30gal temporarily because I was taking the fish room down and their tank needed to be moved to a new room. Then I set up a newer(slightly taller then their old 55gal) tank for them a couple weeks ago. Their old filter media and some decor from their old tank was moved to the newly set up 2wk. old tank. However I did not transfer their old gravel substrate to the new tank I used sand substrate from a cichlid tank I had taken down. The two newest goldies were not QT'd prior to being added with my 5 goldies. Normally gravel vac and remove 5gals of water once or twice a week.

I do not think the ick infestation was caused from the new goldies(although still possible). The sand I used from my old cichlid tank may have had ick cysts in it. Right before my mom got sick and I decided to take apart my fish room I had bought a cihclid for the tank that ended up having ick. I was unsuccessful in treating the fish and it died. The cichlid tank had been running empty for about a month before I drained it and took out the sand. Before adding the sand to the new goldfish tank I put it in a bucket and rinsed it out with the hose until the water ran completely clear. Then I added it to the goldie tank. I'm not quite sure why it didn't occur to me that there was probably cysts in the sand but I didn't and in my haste to get the tank up and running again I stupidly added the sand to the newly set up goldie tank.

So everything was going fine for two weeks and then two nights ago I walked into the room the goldie tank was in to feed and play with them and that's when I discovered ick on my panda moore and the more I looked the more parasites I saw on all my other fish. I couldn't see any on the 1" oranda but I'm sure they're there. I immediately vacuumed out 10gals of water, refilled the tank and added 10tbsp. of aquarium salt. Then I reluctantly threw in a large heater. The temperature has steadily and slowly been rising from 65 degrees F to 82 degrees F since two nights ago and I am continuing to steadily raise it. Last night I again vacuumed out 10gals of water(I vacuum the substrate every time) and then added 12tbsp. of aquarium salt(2tbsp for the water I replaced + 10tbsp to raise the salinity to .2)

So this is where I'm at right now, totally freaked out and feeling helpless. I didn't want to add the heater because they are a cold water fish but I couldn't stand the thought of dragging this agonizing and possibly deadly process out for weeks. I'm going to add 12 more tbsp. tonight after their water change(to make the salinity .3). I'm not sure where to go from here and what to expect. I've read that it'll get worse before it gets better and I'm trying to prepare myself for it. I'm not sure if I should add meds(what meds) or continue with just heat and salt. I'd prefer to stay all natural with the heat and salt but I don't want to play games with my fishes health. What I'm most afraid of is losing my 6" comet Dennis. That fish means the world to me and he's the only reason why I still have fish and out of all of them he seems to be the one carrying the most parasites. He was acting a little lethargic last night but has perked up a little and my panda moore is acting really lethargic and her tail fins are slightly shredded. All of them are still eating. I haven't noticed any labored breathing. I plan on hooking up another air pump with an air stone tonight to increase the oxygen as the temperature increases.

What do I do? Are there foods that will help with the immune system? Like I said I'm terrified that my goldfish Dennis will die. Any advice would be so very much appreciated. I just want to fix the very very stupid mistake I made.
 

Ratlova30

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Chelsea
Can someone please let me know if I'm on the right track? Temp has risen to 86F degrees. Panda moore appears to be getting worse.
 

Big Mike

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IDK anything about Goldfish so I cant really help with their ick treatment. I dont think the ick came from the sand. From what I have read ick has a life cycle of a week or so and if it doesnt find a host then it dies. Good luck.
 

Ratlova30

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Apr 2, 2010
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IDK anything about Goldfish so I cant really help with their ick treatment. I dont think the ick came from the sand. From what I have read ick has a life cycle of a week or so and if it doesnt find a host then it dies. Good luck.
Well thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to post something.
 

SOUPNAZZI

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Aug 12, 2010
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best thing to do is keep up with the salt treatment. I believe the temp is 86 not sure though.

This will speed up the process for ick. then after some times it dies off.. make sure you have plenty or air stones, the more oxygen in the water the better..

key is patience...... keep it up, you're doing good..

See the below link

http://www.happy-goldfish.com/goldfish_ick.php
 

Ratlova30

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Apr 2, 2010
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Chelsea
best thing to do is keep up with the salt treatment. I believe the temp is 86 not sure though.

This will speed up the process for ick. then after some times it dies off.. make sure you have plenty or air stones, the more oxygen in the water the better..

key is patience...... keep it up, you're doing good..

See the below link

http://www.happy-goldfish.com/goldfish_ick.php

Thanks I appreciate the feedback. I totally expected my panda moore to die on Oct.3rd. She was just laying the bottom behind a bubble wall. Which from what i read that's perfectly normal because they don't feel good but she wouldn't move to eat. At the time I had a 12" air stone and a 6" air stone in the tank. Inconveniently I couldn't find my whole slough of air stones that I thought I had but I finally ended up finding a 14" bubble wand and I hooked it up to a huge noisy air pump I had. Well anyways the goldfish seem to finally be getting better today. The panda moore seems to have pulled through and when I walked in the room today she immediately swam to the end of the tank for food.

The goldfish that seem to be affected the very least are the two new ones. I never ended up seeing any parasites on the baby oranda oddly but who knows. I've been kinda measuring the parasite level by "Dennis". He got hit the hardest, mostly on his beautiful tail. And most of the parasites appeared to have dropped off but they left behind little cloudy white spots. My best guess was scarring? Tail rot is in the back of my mind and hopefully it won't come to that. Of all the fin rot cases I've encountered it usually seems to start at the end of the tail and slowing the tail gets eaten away and with Dennis it's just cloudy white spots. So I'm crossing my fingers that it's just scarring. His tail is pretty translucent so it's not hard to spot imperfections.

Anyways I'm preparing for round two, I know they can only be killed in the free swimming stage and hopefully I'm lucky enough to have avoided one of the more resistant strains. I'll keep this post updated for future reference and maybe it might help someone else. This was a very hard lesson for me to swallow and I know I brought it on myself and the end result was that my fish were the one's who suffered. Even though I had a QT tank I was already using it for other fish(from the same store that ended up being sick later on)and because this particular store had really stepped up their A game and I had no longer seen dead/diseased fish in their tank I let my guard down and am now paying the price.
 

SOUPNAZZI

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Good to hear..... I would extend the salt & temp treatment for another week or so ... just to play it safe..
Then keep an eye on things.
Make sure you keep up with the water changes
 

Somervell

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Glad to hear that things are looking better. Goldfish become very sluggish at high temperatures. The average recommended temp normally for fancies is about 72 degrees. Any warmer than that, and they do kind of get lethargic, much as they do at very low temperatures. The temp, combined with dealing with ich is probably what made the Moor look worse than it was.

.
 

Ratlova30

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Apr 2, 2010
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Thanks everyone, treatment definitely will continue. It's the 6th day of treatment and I plan to continue it to the 15th day. I definitely thought I would lose the panda moore on the third day. I understood that she felt like crud and just want to lay on the bottom but she wouldn't move for anything and her breathing was pretty labored. She's always seemed to be a very delicate fish compared to the others so the fact that she acted much worse then the rest of the goldies didn't surprise me. But she bounced back and and seems so hyper now. 10gal water changes are continuing to happen everyday with the salt being replaced. The cloudy white spots on Dennis' tail fin seem to be going away so maybe it was just scarring from where the parasites were sucking the life out of him. I have to give major kudos to the use "plague". I don't think I wouldn't have been nearly as successful or successful at all with out his thread. Thanks for the support and I'll keep you updated.
 

Ratlova30

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So the goldfish are doing really well, there was no losses and no signs of ick. Tonight's water change, I will not be replacing the salt. This is day 12 of treatment and they actually looked healed on the 5th say but I didn't want to take the chance so it was prolonged. Definitely if your treating cold water fish for ick it's essential that you hook up as many air stones/pumps as you possibly can/afford. I truly believed hooking up as many as I did saved my panda moores life. Good luck for whoever is going through this and is dealing with the same issue. It's very scary and can definitely put your spirit for keeping fish in the dumps but you'll get through it. Now my platy tank has ick, my best guess would be cross contamination before I knew the goldies had ick. Treating them will be a little more tricky with the snails, live plants,prego mamas and fry but everything seems to be going ok so far at a salinity of .2 . Tomorrow it will be upped to .3

If anyone has any questions on ick feel free to send me a PM. I am by no means an expert on the subject but I've gained much need experience and I'd be happy to help any way I can.
 
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