i started treating for ich on monday night with "quick cure". today is the last day of the three day treatment and i still see white spots all over the pike and pleco. do i just do a good sized water change and start the treatment cylcle over again tonight? give them one day between? what do you suggest, this is the fist time i have had to deal with disease.
ich treatment not working
- Thread starter csm84
- Start date
Quick Cure is a good combo treatment for ich, so I wouldn't give up on it. To be effective at catching all stages of the disease, however, it is better to treat for 7-10 days.
As for why it might not have had a noticeable effect yet, there are several possible factors. If you will post what your tank temperature and filtration systems are, as well as when the filters were last maintained, that will provide some useful data. Removing carbon from the filter and keeping tank temperature up around 80 for the duration of the treatment will help, for example.
Also, every day or two during the treatment it is advisable to vacuum the gravel and change a bit (10-20%) of the water. That will will help remove additional ich cysts that settle and mature in the gravel as part of their life cycle, and will counteract the inhibition of nitrification that sometimes occurs during treatment.
As for why it might not have had a noticeable effect yet, there are several possible factors. If you will post what your tank temperature and filtration systems are, as well as when the filters were last maintained, that will provide some useful data. Removing carbon from the filter and keeping tank temperature up around 80 for the duration of the treatment will help, for example.
Also, every day or two during the treatment it is advisable to vacuum the gravel and change a bit (10-20%) of the water. That will will help remove additional ich cysts that settle and mature in the gravel as part of their life cycle, and will counteract the inhibition of nitrification that sometimes occurs during treatment.
i treated my last ick outbreak by raising the temps to 87 degrees, and adding 1 cup of salt per 25 gallons of water, or three teaspoons per gallon. It took about 10 days, so be patient. If your pleco, plants, and other fish can tolerate the heat and salt, that is the way to go. My Uarus, tetras and corys showed no signs of stress. Of course the salt may damage plants.
See: http://www.thekrib.com/Diseases/ich.html
See: http://www.thekrib.com/Diseases/ich.html
my temp is at 82, there is some salt in the water but not as much as described above. the tank is 40 gal, and is being filtered by a fluval 204, with not carbon, all biomax and prefilter. i guess i'll vac the gravel, and continue treatment. there has been a small improvement in the number of white spots, so i'm making progress.
Pike Cichlid
Just be very careful with the Pike Cichlid. They do not tolerate poor water quality. I am also not sure whether they will tolerate salt. It's probably best not to dump salt in the tank.
I have kept many Pikes over the years. None recently. The last one was an Orange Pike.
Anyway, Quick Cure is very effective. Follow the directions carefully and do not over dose. I agree, be patient. It will take some time for Ich to kill a big Pike. So you have a little bit of luxury, as far as time goes. And yes, it can take time to kill the parasites. You'll wake up one day and all the spots will be gone. You just have to be careful when you have a Pike in the tank. I don't know what kind you have, but my point of referrence is the orange pike.
Ease up on the feeding. Preferably, no feeder fish. I have kept my predators disease free by not feeding fish or live foods. Anyway, ease up, just in case biofiltration gets compromised with all the cleaning and the disturbance.
Just be very careful with the Pike Cichlid. They do not tolerate poor water quality. I am also not sure whether they will tolerate salt. It's probably best not to dump salt in the tank.
I have kept many Pikes over the years. None recently. The last one was an Orange Pike.
Anyway, Quick Cure is very effective. Follow the directions carefully and do not over dose. I agree, be patient. It will take some time for Ich to kill a big Pike. So you have a little bit of luxury, as far as time goes. And yes, it can take time to kill the parasites. You'll wake up one day and all the spots will be gone. You just have to be careful when you have a Pike in the tank. I don't know what kind you have, but my point of referrence is the orange pike.
Ease up on the feeding. Preferably, no feeder fish. I have kept my predators disease free by not feeding fish or live foods. Anyway, ease up, just in case biofiltration gets compromised with all the cleaning and the disturbance.
it is a belly crawler pike and he is only about 4 inches long...both he and the GT have almost stopped eating, only a few pellets a day. i actually haven't seen the pike eat in like a week, but he must be eating something. hopefully i'll wake up tomorrow to no spots.
Pike
My advise is to basically stop feeding for a while. I had a Pike similar to that. My first pike, actually. I did not know much about them at that time. So, I fed guppies. It would swallow the guppy, and spit out the heads. Really not a pleasant thing to watch.
Anyway, if they have stopped eating, then something is very wrong. You may have misdiagnosed, or something isn't right with your methods. Quick Cure worked extremely fast for me. Without raising the temperature, I might add.
I had to use it on a Synodontis. Within two days, all the spots were gone. If I recall correctly, because I caught it early, the Synodontis never stopped feeding.
Check that water quality. Take a sample to a dealer and have them test it for ammonia, nitrite, nitrates. Are all of your equipment functioning properly, like the thermometer? Make sure the water is within a reasonable range for those fishes.
Look, if your Pike doesn't show any improvement after the course, then it might be time to try something different. But, first, change some of the water. Try to do so without upsetting the fish too much. Maybe all the gravel vacuuming is upsetting them too much. I never vacuumed mine during treatment. Anyway, change some of the water. Get new carbon and filter the tank to clean out all of the remnants of the Quick Cure. I don't know how long that will take though. You may have to change the carbon out a couple of times. Remove the Quick Cure before adding another type of medication.
A very gentle, but effective treatment is Aquarisol. But it does require gently raising the temperature and it takes a long time. If you are absolutely sure that you have gotten all of the Quick Cure out, then you can try something like the Tank Buddies parasite clear. Very effective against a wide variety of parasites.
I would hate to loose a 4 inch Pike! I'm not sure how long a Pike can go without feeding. Your situation surprises me, because Quick Cure is fast. When they say "Quick Cure", they mean it.
My advise is to basically stop feeding for a while. I had a Pike similar to that. My first pike, actually. I did not know much about them at that time. So, I fed guppies. It would swallow the guppy, and spit out the heads. Really not a pleasant thing to watch.
Anyway, if they have stopped eating, then something is very wrong. You may have misdiagnosed, or something isn't right with your methods. Quick Cure worked extremely fast for me. Without raising the temperature, I might add.
I had to use it on a Synodontis. Within two days, all the spots were gone. If I recall correctly, because I caught it early, the Synodontis never stopped feeding.
Check that water quality. Take a sample to a dealer and have them test it for ammonia, nitrite, nitrates. Are all of your equipment functioning properly, like the thermometer? Make sure the water is within a reasonable range for those fishes.
Look, if your Pike doesn't show any improvement after the course, then it might be time to try something different. But, first, change some of the water. Try to do so without upsetting the fish too much. Maybe all the gravel vacuuming is upsetting them too much. I never vacuumed mine during treatment. Anyway, change some of the water. Get new carbon and filter the tank to clean out all of the remnants of the Quick Cure. I don't know how long that will take though. You may have to change the carbon out a couple of times. Remove the Quick Cure before adding another type of medication.
A very gentle, but effective treatment is Aquarisol. But it does require gently raising the temperature and it takes a long time. If you are absolutely sure that you have gotten all of the Quick Cure out, then you can try something like the Tank Buddies parasite clear. Very effective against a wide variety of parasites.
I would hate to loose a 4 inch Pike! I'm not sure how long a Pike can go without feeding. Your situation surprises me, because Quick Cure is fast. When they say "Quick Cure", they mean it.
thats what the guy at the lfs said too. i'm starting to think maybe it is a fungus of so sort. i don' konw today is the fifth day of treatment, i think i'll add more quick cure today, and stop tomorrow, do a large water change, and start running carbon again for a couple weeks. i'll have to take some biomax out in order to fit carbon in there, what do i do with it? i have another tank that could use some, but i don't know if it would bring up the possibility of spreading the disease to that tank. whats your advice?
Carbon
You can keep your bio-max in the tank, if you want. That way, it will be subjected to the treatment. Now, I know that sounds goofy. And I am a goofy kind of guy. But, maybe it is not Ich. It could be something else. And some of it might be on the bio-max. Put the biomax in a bag, and put it somewhere near a good water flow inside the tank. This is much easier than keeping it in a bucket, and then running an airstone to the bucket and all that.
I know you probably don't want to hear a Pike story right now. I just can't hlep but tell my story to anyone who would listen. I bought an Orange Pike while it was very small. This was my last Pike, after having had a few. I had to feed it live food, which is what the dealer was feeding it. But, after much work, I finally got it to taking pellets, sticks, etc. I stopped feeding live foods altogether and just stuck with Jumbomin, Sinking Carnivore, and Dorored. It was living in a tank with a Synodontis and a Buttikoferi. As it grew, it started to lose its orange coloration, except in the fins. Which is normal for them. The Buttikoferi also started to lose its brightness, which is normal. Due to financial reason, I had to move to a smaller place. I had to get rid of the big tanks. I took the fishes back to the dealer, along with my compressiceps and leaf fishes. A few weeks later, I came back and saw the Pike in a huge tank. It had gotten bigger, but the mouth looked like minced fish. They've been feeding it live foods and it probably caught something from the sickly feeder fishes. It was obviously sick. They put the Buttikoferi in a tank with a mean Oscar and it was badly beat up. That made me sick to my stomach. I ran out of there. So, I have a soft spot for Pikes. If my finances improve and the situation makes it so, I would get another Orange Pike.
I wish you luck with yours. In my humble opinion, the problem is trying to hit all of the possibilities with one treatment. A course of treatment can take a lot of time. And if it is not the right one for the disease, then you have wasted that much time and the fish gets weaker. Basically, you have to go for something that is wide-spectrum and hope for the best. This is just an opinion, but if I suspect bacterial or fungal, I would go with Kanacyn. I would follow the course of treatment. If you suspect parasites, then pick one that would cover a lot of the possibilities. Paragon, if they still make it, was always a good choice for me. Right now, I have one of those tank buddies, parasite clear, I think in the cabinet. Tank buddies might not be a bad choice. There's still a good chance that it's ich. Velvet sort of looks like ich and makes the fish inactive. Look for something that will treat both diseases. I would not wait a couple of weeks though. That amount of time and the fish might succumb to the disease. Just run the new carbon overnight. 25% water change before the carbon and 25% water change after. Quick Cure has a strong smell. You'll know if its still there.
I would not mix medications though. Please keep us up to date on the situation.
You can keep your bio-max in the tank, if you want. That way, it will be subjected to the treatment. Now, I know that sounds goofy. And I am a goofy kind of guy. But, maybe it is not Ich. It could be something else. And some of it might be on the bio-max. Put the biomax in a bag, and put it somewhere near a good water flow inside the tank. This is much easier than keeping it in a bucket, and then running an airstone to the bucket and all that.
I know you probably don't want to hear a Pike story right now. I just can't hlep but tell my story to anyone who would listen. I bought an Orange Pike while it was very small. This was my last Pike, after having had a few. I had to feed it live food, which is what the dealer was feeding it. But, after much work, I finally got it to taking pellets, sticks, etc. I stopped feeding live foods altogether and just stuck with Jumbomin, Sinking Carnivore, and Dorored. It was living in a tank with a Synodontis and a Buttikoferi. As it grew, it started to lose its orange coloration, except in the fins. Which is normal for them. The Buttikoferi also started to lose its brightness, which is normal. Due to financial reason, I had to move to a smaller place. I had to get rid of the big tanks. I took the fishes back to the dealer, along with my compressiceps and leaf fishes. A few weeks later, I came back and saw the Pike in a huge tank. It had gotten bigger, but the mouth looked like minced fish. They've been feeding it live foods and it probably caught something from the sickly feeder fishes. It was obviously sick. They put the Buttikoferi in a tank with a mean Oscar and it was badly beat up. That made me sick to my stomach. I ran out of there. So, I have a soft spot for Pikes. If my finances improve and the situation makes it so, I would get another Orange Pike.
I wish you luck with yours. In my humble opinion, the problem is trying to hit all of the possibilities with one treatment. A course of treatment can take a lot of time. And if it is not the right one for the disease, then you have wasted that much time and the fish gets weaker. Basically, you have to go for something that is wide-spectrum and hope for the best. This is just an opinion, but if I suspect bacterial or fungal, I would go with Kanacyn. I would follow the course of treatment. If you suspect parasites, then pick one that would cover a lot of the possibilities. Paragon, if they still make it, was always a good choice for me. Right now, I have one of those tank buddies, parasite clear, I think in the cabinet. Tank buddies might not be a bad choice. There's still a good chance that it's ich. Velvet sort of looks like ich and makes the fish inactive. Look for something that will treat both diseases. I would not wait a couple of weeks though. That amount of time and the fish might succumb to the disease. Just run the new carbon overnight. 25% water change before the carbon and 25% water change after. Quick Cure has a strong smell. You'll know if its still there.
I would not mix medications though. Please keep us up to date on the situation.
I,ve had real good luck in treating ick...or any similar with Binox....and I'll alternate with a milder one on occasion. Of course water changes, but with the Binox I don't even have to do that, I just add a tiny bit more every other day. Good Luck.....