Discovered Ich and fish fry at the same time - what to do?

[Slabfork]

Hello - I am the part caretaker of a 30 gallon tank at work, but I'm just beginning to get some more knowledge about fish tank care. I have a coworker who knows more about the water conditions and behavior. The issue is that we both spotted a few fish with the white spots from Ich bacteria on them today. That prompted me to push to really clean the substrate, which was long overdue, and also change the water, which was also long overdue. In that process, I discovered that there are something like 6-10 small yellow fish fry that were hiding in the crud I was trying to clean.

Months ago when we first got the tank and had fewer inhabitants we had the white spot issue and it hit hard, because we didn't realize how to fix it. At the end of that my coworker bought a treatment for it, which he added to the water today before I changed the water. We had some recent fish additions; 9 from an aquarium store 5 days ago, when I also finally got a reliable heater, and 2 weeks ago a bunch of others were added (those are listed below.) The white spots were visible only on some of the new additions: neon tetra that we got two weeks ago, and a harlequin rasborra that I got 5 days ago. Unfortunately, we did not quarantine those fish before introducing them, which I just recently read about. The tank temperature has also risen to a controlled 78-80, as before it was lower because a heater wasn't working. At the moment, it is running a little higher, at 82, because I was considering the approach of increasing to 86 but then wondered with all the diverse life in the tank if that would be too risky.

Essentially my question is - with fish fry, and the range of other creatures, what is the recommended method for treating the Ich?

Here are the details of the tank. I need to get some more of the info from my coworker, but this is what I know for now:

Tank size: 30 gallons
pH: Unknown for now
ammonia: Unknown for now
nitrite: Unknown for now
nitrate: Unknown for now
kH: Unknown for now
gH: Unknown for now
tank temp: 80-82 F

Fish Symptoms: 3-6 fish are showing white spots

Volume and Frequency of water changes: Infrequent until today

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: Ich fish treatment, once

Tank inhabitants: Several live plants, moss balls

White skirt tetras (5), black skirt tetras (5), cherry shrimp (30+), ghost shrimp (10+), ghost catfish (3), black mystery snail (1), bladder snails (10+), dwarf african aquatic frogs(1), plecostamus (1)

Recent additions to your tank:

2 weeks ago: 6 Platy, 10 Neon Tetras, 2 loaches, 2 more dwarf african frogs
5 days ago: 6 Harlequin Rasbora, 3 smaller pleco-like fish
Today: spotted 6-10 unknown small yellow fish fry

Thanks for any advice! I have read a lot of other helpful info on the forum so far, I'm just wondering how the fish fry might affect the treatment.

 

[Kellz9019]

Hello - I am the part caretaker of a 25 gallon tank at work, but I'm just beginning to get some more knowledge about fish tank care. I have a coworker who knows more about the water conditions and behavior, but they have been too busy to help at the moment. The issue is that we both spotted a few fish with the white spots from Ich bacteria on them today. That prompted me to push to really clean the substrate, which was long overdue, and also change the water, which was also long overdue. In that process, I discovered that there are something like 6-10 small yellow fish fry that were hiding in the crud I was trying to clean.

Months ago when we first got the tank and had fewer inhabitants we had the white spot issue and it hit hard, because we didn't realize how to fix it. At the end of that my coworker bought a treatment for it, which he added to the water today before I changed the water. We had some recent fish additions; 9 from an aquarium store 5 days ago, when I also finally got a reliable heater, and 2 weeks ago a bunch of others were added (those are listed below.) The white spots were visible only on some of the new additions: neon tetra that we got two weeks ago, and a harlequin rasborra that I got 5 days ago. Unfortunately, we did not quarantine those fish before introducing them, which I just recently read about. The tank temperature has also risen to a controlled 78-80, as before it was lower because a heater wasn't working. At the moment, it is running a little higher, at 82, because I was considering the approach of increasing to 86 but then wondered with all the diverse life in the tank if that would be too risky.

Essentially my question is - with fish fry, and the range of other creatures, what is the recommended method for treating the Ich?

Here are the details of the tank. I need to get some more of the info from my coworker, but this is what I know for now:

Tank size: 25 Gallons (I think)
pH: Unknown for now
ammonia: Unknown for now
nitrite: Unknown for now
nitrate: Unknown for now
kH: Unknown for now
gH: Unknown for now
tank temp: 82-84 F

Fish Symptoms: 3-6 fish are showing white spots

Volume and Frequency of water changes: Infrequent until today

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: Ich fish treatment, once

Tank inhabitants: Several live plants, moss balls

White skirt tetras (5), black skirt tetras (5), cherry shrimp (30+), ghost shrimp (10+), ghost catfish (3), black mystery snail (1), bladder snails (10+), dwarf african aquatic frogs(1), plecostamus (1)

Recent additions to your tank:

2 weeks ago: 6 Platy, 10 Neon Tetras, 2 loaches, 2 more dwarf african frogs
5 days ago: 6 Harlequin Rasbora, 3 smaller pleco-like fish
Today: spotted 6-10 unknown small yellow fish fry

Thanks for any advice! I have read a lot of other helpful info on the forum so far, I'm just wondering how the fish fry might affect the treatment.

Hey, your issue is you have way too many fish in there. There should be at least 3gal of water per fish for small fish. Max I would say 10 fish in that tank and that would require weekly water changes. If you are not changing water frequently I say you cut down on fish and just do frequent water changes and continue to treat with ich medicine and change water as directed. What kind of filter are you using? Also you should almost always treat a tank when you add new fish.

 

[Slabfork]

Thanks for the thoughts. I mistated the tank size, it is 30 gallons not 25, but I realize that doesn't solve the issue of too many. I'll have to check on the type of filter tomorrow. I guess the only solution for the overstocking would be a second tank. I'll have to figure out a way to make that happen.