Ich And Rams

[korunks]

I have two german blue rams, got them less than a week ago, and got home for my class break and lo and behold white spots on the fins and tails and body about the size of a grain of salt. Water params are 0 nitrite and ammonia, 15 nitrate I believe. did not test ph or hardness. I believe it is ICH but I wanted to see if there was some special ram disease I had not heard of before. Also white spots on a few cherry barbs. Non on the plec or the gouramis yet. Just looking for confirmation that it is ICH. Thanks.

Shawn

 

[Spooky76]

Ich is like small white grains on the fish.
Normally Ich is brought on by stress etc, like bad water or temp, moving the fish etc. Cichlids like the water to be spot on.
Check all your stats are OK - what do you use to test your water ?
I normally use King British WS3 to treat for ich. I do a 20% water change then start adding the treatment as per the instructions. Also increase your temp slightly. What is your temp at now though ?

Read this pinned topic for more info
[URL="http/www.fishforums.net/content/Tropical-Fish-Emergencies/128880/Treating-Ich-whitespot/"]http/www.fishforums.net/content/Tropical...-Ich-whitespot/[/URL]

 

[korunks]

I checked my water parameter's before adding the treatment. I use api's master test kit(liquid test). temp is around 80 to 82. I increased the temp as soon as I added my ich treatment. I am using api super ich guard I think its called. I mostly made this post if there was some urgent precaution, or unknown quirk of german blue rams As I have never kept them before. I believe my tank experienced a cold spike brought on by the fact it had gotten cold recently here and I have not turned my heat on. I thought I had read somewhere that a cold spike can awaken dormant ich parasites. I have since turned the heat on in my house so future cold spikes should not happen.



***UPDATE***

Wow I forgot how rough ICH is I have lost 6 Cherry barbs so far. down to 2 cherry barbs. The rest of the fish seem to be coping well. My 2 gouramis and my plec don't have a spot on them(but they both where in my first tank that had ICH) and the surviving two cherry barbs are also spot free. I am in day 4 of treatment. Tomorrow I do a 25% water change and retreat for another 4 day cycle. I still have two sick rams who are still acting normally, and 3 red tail rasboras also with no spot. I am updating this so this be helpful to anyone else suffering with ICH.


Cheers

Shawn

 

[korunks]

Another Update I believe this is the 7th day for my ich treatment. The ICH is in remission on the rams and I have had no further losses in my tank. Funny thing is I went to the same LFS that I bought the rams from to get the meds and I look in their Ram tank, blink, and recheck. The whole tank has ICH. I pulled the associate over and said, "umm I think your rams have ICH" she looked at them and said "oh ok" then called the manager to know what to do. *Sigh* any way I am going to try to call the manager, maybe I can get them to replace my lost fish because they sold me sick Fish. And now I can prove it. Just had to post this so people would see how nutty some LFS are. ]



Cheers

 

[Spooky76]

Hey there, thats good its on the mend.

Rams / cichlids as said are prone to these things if anything is slightly out. That has taken a long time to treat though. You could try another ICh medication, I have found king british Ws3 to be the best as I had ich problems several times and tried several treatments. It does stain your carpet if you spill any though

As for the heat, I would be pretty sure thats what causes it, these fish are tropical Yes - I think its always there ich, but dormant as you say.

Well done anyway - least you sorted it out. Just add carbon to filters once you finished treatments for a week to remove the old medication.