ick...help

sloshy said:
Well I'm pissed, but you reap what you sew. My ghost was in my crayfish's mouth when I got home, and upon a close exam. of my other fish I saw that the top dorsal fin on my red tail is missing. The only thing that could've done that was my cray. I got so mad I killed my cray which I paid 32.99 plus shipping from liveaquaria.com. My ghost cost 22, so together that's over 50. I will never own a cray again. I WILL NEVER GO WITHOUT A QUARANTINE TANK AGAIN! My tank has ick or I would have given the cray away. All this because of two $3 loaches. I also lost another neon tetra. I'm so let down -after all the money, time and effort I'm losing my breath. I will continue with the salt/high temp. for four more days. Thanks to everyone who answered.
Stop blaming yourself, it gets you nowhere. Your cray attacked the knife because he was dying, nothing more. Your redtail was probably on its way as well. That's what *many* fish do, not just crayfish. I know it's too late for the crayfish, but please keep that in mind if something like this happens. Ask yourself if the animal was behaving as it should, if it was, then you can't blame it.

As for the rest of this, it's not YOUR fault. There are NO warnings on the medications that you used and IMHO that's just not right.

All you can do is learn from this and move on. Cheap words, I know, but other than offering sympathy for the losses, there's nothing else I can do :(

Roan
 
See the positive side of this. Your experiences have taught you and many other people what not to do. I am sure your tank will recover and you will soon have strong healthy ich free fish. This reminds me of an experiece I had in my earlier days of fish keeping. I got a strain of ich and thought "oh well this medication would take care of it." The problem was that this strain was some medication resistant form that formalin, malachite green, chitosan etc did absolutely nothing for. I even tried the salt and heat cure with no avail. I eventually out of despiration raised the salt content to 0.6/0.7% which is very dangerous and not reccomended. The ich was wiped out but an septicemia ended up killing my fish. Even though that episode hurt me emotionally and financially I must say that I am a better fishkeeper from it. I learned the value of a simple 5 or 10 gallon quarantine tank and am very proactive when it comes to caring for my fish/plants.
 
update

Well I've lost my skunk cory, and 1 more tetra. If anyone is reading this just starting out I hope you learn from my mistakes. I take very good care of my fish. I acclimate them for 1 1/2 hours- sometimes more. I've done lots of research and thought I was above a quarantine tank- lol. My friends with tanks were impressed with the assortment of fish I had and so was I. I will be getting another ghost, probably around March, as I plan to set up a 55g with my tax return. I will be getting a 10g quarantine tank around christmas. I put carbon in last night and will do the salt treatment/ high temp. until a week after I see the last grain of ick fall. My lobster was very good around my fish until yesterday. He did'nt show any interest in them, they even swam in his cave and I never saw any nipped fins. The combination of salt and med. was too much for him to handle. If my fish would've never gotten ick he may have made it thru his natural life cycle with no harm to my fish. I'm glad to have a place to talk about this with people who really know what they're talking about(unlike my lfs).
 
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