Ich

[Rufio]

My fancy guppy has ich i realized about 3 days ago

i finally had time to go out to the store today

i bought some "Ap Plus+ Cure Ick"

hopefully thats good

10 drops a day into my 1 gallon for 1 month..

hes swimming in the top left corner with his mouth up to the water.. is that a bad sign?

 

[aquariumfishguy]

Erm... I've never heard of a fish medicine which you have to treat the tank for a MONTH, and certainly not ich medicine.

Thats a long time, with ich the medicine is usually used for 4-6 days...7-10 days at the most.

 

[RioXingu]

Without significant water changes between treatments (even in a 1 gallon bowl), the build-up of medication over that length of time will certainly kill your fish.
The behavior you described does not sound good. I would change most of the water in the bowl immediately and see if your fish perks up.
Then, only add 1 drop at a time of the medication, building up the dose to perhaps 1/2 of what is recommended over a period of several hours.
With water changes between doses, as described, and a treatment period of a week or so, your guppy should be ok.

Bill in WI

 

[Neo Sithlord]

I'm treating my 29 gallon for Ich atm but I'm not sure if it's a differnce in meds that we're using but mine is 1 drop per gallon. It's RidIch btw. I'm also using salt to treat it I'd say maybe a 1/4 tea spoon might help in a gallon of water. That may be to much but I'd assume it'd be safe since it's one table spoon for every 5 gallons normally.
-Neo Sithlord

 

[QCppg]

I am still treating Ich, and I know how much of a pain this is. I am currently using the "hot salt" method without problems to my fish. However when I tried using actual ich medecine I had a total of five deaths and a suicide (three pictus cats, three goldfish, one neon tetra from the 18 tall). ALL of these were because of the medecine. Only one fish died from Ich, and technically it died from a secondary infection. To prove the medecine was to blame only one of the three pictus had visable Ich, yet two died within six hours of applying the medecation. The third died six hours after that. Then I removed all decorations from the tank, did a 75% water change and reapplied the medecine. Two days later one goldfish was dead in the tank and another dead on the floor (I can't find a cover-glass anywhere and the cost of a hood is extortion).

Following that disaster I drained the tank, sterilized the tank with 200-degree salt water and began using the heat and salt treatment. My heater won't hold the water above 85 degrees but no new ich has appeared in a week and a half and I have had NO deaths since then. Thanks to the forum for that.

 

[daveedka]

I just killed off the ich I purchased with my Pictus, salt and heat was all it took. I got most of my info from this article Ich It's well worth the time to read it, and just for the record. I have never had a pictus live through ich meds, this time my pictus was the one with ich and you'd never know there was anything wrong after a week. I highly reccomend salt and heat to cure ich.
Dave

 

[QCppg]

Is it just me or are pictus cats especially suseptable to Ich? That's where my whole mess came from.

 

[daveedka]

Smooth skinned fish seem to be more susceptable than others JME, and pictus in particular are pretty skittish and get stressed easily. One of the things I gleaned from that article is that some fish are more prone to it than others, and the channel cat was used as an example although not the same fish, channels have some similar charicteristics, and anatomy. The other biggie is that those smooth skinned guys are much more difficult to treat so they tend to be the ones you remember as always getting ich. I am really thankful for the info I've found here and other places. I almost went ahead and euthanised the cat when I saw how bad he had it. I've never had one make it through ICH when I used med's in most cases I have been convinced that it was the med's that actually killed the fish not the ich. This time things couldn't have gone any better for me and my fish. My pictus is back to normal, everyone in the tank is appropriatly grumpy (cichlids) and things are doing well.
Dave

 

[Emaan]

My boss just had a recent bout with ich in her tank which included 13 neons, 1 red fin shark and 1 pleco. When she was 2 days into med treatment she lost all but 6 of her neons. We did a partial water change and stopped the treatment, everything is fine now. I tried to tell her that maybe it was the meds that killed them, not the ich.

I, however, have had problems before with ich and treated it with meds by miracide and never lost a fish. My fish at the time were goldfish, mollies and guppies. Once they all died off on thier own I took my tank down for a while. Just now getting restarted (without all of the goldfish my husband likes).

So I think it really depends on the brand of meds and the type of fish that you have. What can help one fish will kill another.

Emaan