"ick"

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brill757

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Oct 10, 2003
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Hello Everyone:)

I have 2 red pacu's in my 20 gallon tank, yes I know they will out grow my tank in no time:D. I recently had an out break of ick, and have been treating it for 3 days now with quick cure, non-iodized table salt ( 2 tbl spoons), and have raised the temperature to 78 degrees. My question is when or if I should perform a partial water change or should I wait until my out break is cured. I do plan to treat the tank for an additional 12 days after the spots have cleared up to make sure the ick has been cleared of my tank.
Thank you very much for your help:D
 
The bottle does not say anything about doing a 25% water change before each dose it just says quote " Directions-Remove carbon from filter, add one drop per gallon daily until cured on all fish except Tetra group. Thanks again:D
 
The only things I am using are "Quick Cure" by aquarium products and regular non-iodized table salt. Currently the white spots are disappearing from the fishes bodies, but they do not have much of a appetite, I am feeding them "Tetra Min Flakes" and "Baby sized Cichild Staple". They eat they flakes only if the filter pump pushes it down to the bottom of the tank, and they do not even touch the pellets:mad:
 
DARN!

I have been treating my 2 pacus for the last 4 days with quick cure and 1 tbl. spoon of non iodized table salt, raised the temp to 82 degrees. The ick started clearing up, but then one of them started getting this funky looking white fungus on them, so I performed a 20 % water change sweeping the gravel real good.. Then I get up this morning and both of them have it so I put in a few additional drops of quick cure. When I get home that evening the one that cuaght the fungus first is dead and the other one has the ick big time. Then I performed a 50% water change and replaced my filter and added cycle the nutrafin because I have no idea what else to do:confused: Please someone help me:mad:
 
First off I dont want to sound mean in responding to your post. I realise that you must be a beginning fish keeper so there are many issues when it comes to keeping fish that you are likely not aware of.

1. I don't reccommend that any casual aquarium keeper without a tank in excess of 300 gallons purchase Pacu. In reality I dont think that aquarium shops should even stock these fish since they get so large. Pacu can literally get four feet in legnth and eat a quarter head of cabbage in a few bites. I would not reccommend purchasing another Pacu to replace the one you lost.

2. For your fish to have developed what you described which sounds to me like a cotton fungus your water quality is simply not up to par. I dont know how old your tank is, or if it has cycled but for that type of fungus to form something is not in check. How long have you had the Pacu that has the fungus.

3. You have several serious issues on your hand. One your water is full of Quick Cure, and the ick has become more severe, and second you now need to treat your with with a fungus medication as well. If you mix the fungus stuff with the ich stuff you will likely kill your fish so you dont want to do that.

Here is what I think you should do. Raise your water tempature to 82-85 degrees. Continue with the Quick Cure as directed until the ich shows signs of clearing up. Remember no carbon in the filter. Next once the ich has shown signs of being gone do a 25% water change and let the carbon back into your filter for 48 hours, clearning out the remainder of the Quick Cure. Now pick up a product called MelaFix. Remove the carbon again and use the MelaFix for one week as directed. Now after that week another 25% change is needed. MelaFix is going to kill all the good bacteria and the bad too so you will want to boost your bacteria bed when you do that change. I reccomend using a mix of Stress Zyme and Bio Zyme. Also when you do that change hit your fish with Stress Coat.

Follow that and you should be fine.
 
Thank a lot macman

Macman I really appreciate your reply to my thread, but hate to say it's to late and both of my pacu are now dead. I have owned pacu's in the past and raised from 3" to about 8" with just an occasional ick out break, but I worked through it. I do realize that you or others that repsond to threads do not camp out online nor on aquaria central, but wish I could have had your adivce sooner and again thanks a lot:D I am currently cycling my tank and have been doing so for about 4 days now before I put anymore fish in my tank, which is a new 29 gallon. 8 years a go, when I had my previouly mentioned fish, I had never herd of cycling tanks but after reading about it on forum boards here I am definitely going to try it if it means I am not going to loose anymore fish. My fish to me are like my kids and when I lost those two I was heart broken for almost a week. So in closing please to all keep up the great work this is a great site.:)
 
Brill,

I went ahead and added you to my buddy list on AOL Instant Messanger. Next time you have an issue or a question just add me to your list my name on AOL is the same as my name on this site. As for your 29 gallon if you want to try something a little different I would reccomend some dwarf cichlids like Apisto gramma or Rams. These are more timid then full size cichlids and a lot of fun to keep. Also on a positive note cichlids tend to be hardier than other fish types.
 
Originally posted by macman7010



Here is what I think you should do. Raise your water tempature to 82-85 degrees. Continue with the Quick Cure as directed until the ich shows signs of clearing up. Remember no carbon in the filter. Next once the ich has shown signs of being gone do a 25% water change and let the carbon back into your filter for 48 hours, clearning out the remainder of the Quick Cure. Now pick up a product called MelaFix. Remove the carbon again and use the MelaFix for one week as directed. Now after that week another 25% change is needed. MelaFix is going to kill all the good bacteria and the bad too so you will want to boost your bacteria bed when you do that change. I reccomend using a mix of Stress Zyme and Bio Zyme. Also when you do that change hit your fish with Stress Coat.

Follow that and you should be fine.
Click to expand...

Pretty new here, but just want to comment that even when IcH has signs of clearing, it's still advisable to subject the fish to concentrated salt baths so that any occurance of any surviving IcH into it's "free swimming" stage, the osmotic pressure can eliminate it......

Otherwise, most often, there may be recurring impending issues of white spots.....

Also, want to confirm with all here, does Melafix evidently kill the beneficial bacteria laden in our matured established tanks???Thought it's supposed to be harmless to our filtration systems:confused:

Please advise, thanks. :)
 
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