What is this?

[snoopy65]

Ok, what temp is your tank at? I would slowly raise it to about 80-82 F. This will speed up the life cycle of the ich. We can only kill ich when it is in the water. The spots you see on your fish are not the ich you are killing. The spots on your fish fall off and then the new ich look for a new host. The life cycle of ich is about 2 weeks, so you need to treat your fish for 2 weeks after you see the last spot on any fish. I have to tell you, the odds are it will look worse before it gets better. I do hope you are at the "look worse" stage. Hang in there.

 

[aj2494]

I know how the cycle works, and this started 4 days ago counting today. I am doing daily wc's, meds, and I heard that ich can't survive above 85F, so I'm bringing it up to that temp. It's at almost 82F right now.

 

[snoopy65]

If you have an extra airstone, I would add it to the tank. The higher the temp the less O2 the water can hold.

 

[aj2494]

My powerhead is delivering massize amounts of O2. I don't think that it would help, plus, I would have to go buy one.

 

[mel_20_20]

There are some strains of Ich that are heat resistant. I had Ich that took 18 days to drop off my fish, in 86 degree water, and I had .3% salinity, which is three level teaspoons per gallon.

Once they dropped off, I went another 10 days with the heat and the salt. I did big water changes every 24 hours because my biofilter had been destroyed by a power failure, and I vacuumed the substrate good each time to try to remove the cysts that had fallen to the bottom of the tank.

 

[aj2494]

I have been vacuuming every day too. I brought the temp up to 88.

 

[mel_20_20]

That should help. Hang in there... I'm sorry you're having to deal with this problem, what a royal pain.

I remember in one post of Pinkertd, one of our mods, she stated that the Ich protozoan can't attach to the fish at temps of 82 and above, so that's a really good thing.

Once the buggers hatch out of their cysts on the substrate, they won't have anywhere to run, nowhere to hide....and it's DIE DIE DE!!! :grinyes:

 

[aj2494]

I'm afraid I'm developing a secondary infection. Some areas on the male cichlid have a cottony thing on them. I'm thinking it's fungus, not columnaris. The good news is that it can't spread, and I am already using the best treatment for fungus.

 

[aj2494]

Just an update:

Male cichlid appears to have lost most of the ich, but has quite a bit of fungus.
Female has the ich still.
1 barb has ich, and 2 have clouded eyes and slight fungus on the fins.

I'm doing what I can, just hoping everybody's fine in the morning.

 

[mel_20_20]

The description "cottony", can be fungus, but it can also be Columnaris. Here's some photos for comparison:

The two pictures below are fungus. Notice the long hairy appearance of the fungus. Like a piece of vegetable left in the tank for several days, or like mold on bread.






The two pictures below are of Columnaris.




Columnaris can have tufts of cottony looking lesions, but it mostly looks like filminess, or wet cotton. Closer to the body, not long hairy strands like fungus.

Can you tell which one of these looks more like what's going on with your fish?