Please help us!

Ok, spade...I take it to mean you've had your tank set up (with fish, lol) for a year? It sounds like you acclimated them somewhat properly, it's a good idea to add about 1/2 cup of your tank water to the bag after floating it for 15 minutes, but that's not a big deal now. I was wondering because sometimes the sudden change from 'just being dumped in' can weaken them enough for disease to take hold. When you are treating ick with salt and heat, you have to leave the temp raised for a good while, like 3 weeks or so. BTW, how much salt were you using per 10 gallons of tank capacity?

Ok, mrakins got the jump on me here...take it away, dude! :D
 
another question i have is about the salt. I added 1 tablespoon for every five gallons. should i up that for the treatment or leave it at that?


ok you guys can type a little quicker that i can....lol sorry for asking about what you already answered.
 
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Up it to 1 tsp/gal to start with (slowly). If that doesn't work, slowly up it to 3 tsp/gal.

Also, if you don't already have them, get test kits for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. They'll help you figure out if water quality is an underlying problem. Actually, if nitrites are part of the problem, the salt will help with those as well (albeit at much lower levels than are necessary for treating the ich).

Sky.eyes--this is one fast moving thread. There were four posts while I was slowly typing my first response!

edit--And now I see that everyone thinks that everyone else is typing too fast :)
 
phoenixspade said:
ok so heres my course of action then. ditch the meds. change water regularly, up the temp, keep up the salt, and vacumm the gravel a lot. any edits?
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That looks about right. Just remember to keep on with the salt and the temp increase a couple of weeks after you last see any ich signs. Also, just so you know, just about any salt (that's NaCl) will work--you don't have to pay the premium for aquarium salt. Table salt (even iodized) will do the job, too.
 
thank you everyone for your help. this is a great place to get info and i appreciate all of your help. keep your fingers crossed! ill post later if i have any more problems! thanks again!
 
If you say you only had the fish in there for a week, then I can only assume that the tank is not cycled ,unless you put a filter from an established tank on the new one. If this is in fact the case, what is happening is that the fish are being weakened by the deteriorating water quality and succumbing to disease. You need to keep you water clean, I would suggest daily 30-50% water changes and this use a salt. This is if in fact your tank has not cycled yet.
 
The article by Daveedka is the Bible for treating ICH. I followed that..didn't loose a fish. Your fish are being stressed going through a new cycle of building up the good bacteria in their tank. Once established, it will change the harmful componemts of fishy waste to less harmful. Even when fully cycled, you still need to do regular water changes, but you will need to do even more frequenct ones to take the harmful waste out. WHen you do this, you will need to replace the salt you are taking out when doing the water change and keep the salt in and the temp up as long as is in the article. The tufts you describe are an opportunistic infection that has "moved in" because your fish are in a weakend state from going through the tank's inifial cycle and having ICH.
WHat kind of and how many fish do you have left? There should be folks that can give additional info on how to treat the secondary infection. But keep up the salt, temp and water changes. Gravel vaccuming is good..keep that up too. Hang in there.
Before I had this board for help I was in the same place you are, so don't feel bad..well you do, but you just didn't know. Stay and read and learn.
 
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