Ich Disaster! (Or "and Then There Was One...")

[mbpted]

I've never experienced Ich before, so this was a shock.
 
I noticed the odd spots 6 days ago on one of my 9 Serpae Tetras and wasn't sure what it was. (I had to do a search to find out what was happening.)
 
I went and got some medicine from the Pet Store. Something called "Ich Attach" that they said was what they use. I followed the instructions on the bottle hoping I could nip this in the bud, but apparently the problem was much more severe.
 
By the next morning, I had lost one Serpae Tetra and my Pleco.
 
That afternoon, 4 more Tetras were dead.
 
The next day 2 more.
 
A week later, and I'm down to one lonely Serpae Tetra hiding behind a rock, covered in Ich and half his fins gone. 10 fish to 1 in less than a week. I'm beyond emergency, but want to know what I can do next.
 
I've read up on Ich, and what people have done to get rid of it. My heater is not adjustable, so I was not able to increase the temperature to try to reduce it's life span. I don't have a quaranteen tank, so I couldn't separate the sick fish to see if that would help, but from what I've read, once it's in the water, it's going to look for a fish to cling to, so I'm not sure what separation would have done. At this point, it's moot, with only one fish left, It's already in isolation.
 
I have aeration to increase the oxygen in the tank. I did water changes, added salt and the medicine. I'm not sure what else I could have done to save my fish. This happened so quickly.
 
If/when this last one goes, from what I've read, the Ich will die out with no fish to thrive on.
 
I'll have an empty tank. How long should I wait before I try to repopluate the tank with different fish? Is there anything I should do to prepare the tank for a new batch of fish?
 
And I guess, most importanly, is there anything I could have done to prevent this from happening? Or to prevent it from happening again? 
 
Some history to help troubleshoot:
The latest fish to be added to a 30 (us) Gal. tank were 3 Serpae Tetras and the Pleco. I had removed about 9 more agressive Blood Fin Tetras and Danios at the same time - donating them back to the LFS. I wanted to fill out a larger school of Serpaes. This was about 4 weeks ago. None of the new fish showed any sign of sickness except for one who had a small amount of fin rot. It healed within a week and all of them had full fins and were active and seemed happy. I have never had a pleco before, so learning it's habits was new to me. I noticed he was much more frisky in the late afternoon than the morning. When I added the new fish, I tested the water every other day and everything was normal.

 

[StevenF]

I would recommend replacing your heater with an adjustable one and heat the tank and heat it to at least 80. If you don't  have any plants  you could go even higher. Once that is done I would wait at least a month before trying to restock the aquarium.  In the future the use of a quarantine tank would be a good idea.   Otherwise Adding a Uv sterilize could be added to prevent reoccurrence.  Any parasites floating in the water would be killed when they pass through the sterilizer.  That way if any ick get in your tank again it will hopefully be killed faster than it can infect other fish.

 

[nic1]

I would say go 2 weeks minimum before adding more fish. Higher  temps will speed ich up and higher temps (above 86*F) will put the double whammy on it. It will starve to death quickly without fish.

 

 

[mbpted]

Thank you both. I will replace my existing heater with one that I can control. I'll also look into UV Sterilizers.
 
Does anyone have a preference for filters or bulbs? I'm reading about both. I'll see what my LFS has to offer, but knowing what to look for going in, would be useful.
 
Thanks again.

 

[nic1]

I personally have never used a UV in my tank so I wont know, but the guys at the LFS should be more helpful. Let us know what you decide.

 

[mbpted]

I personally have never used a UV in my tank so I wont know, but the guys at the LFS should be more helpful. Let us know what you decide.

 
I dropped by the LFS on my way home last night and got an adjustable heater. When I was there, I asked one of the salesmen about UV blubs, he said they worked in conjuncture with the sanitizing filters. Then showed me a box that was about half the size of my aquarium. (and just as expensive) He said I'd need a separate pump to operate it. It was close to their closing time, so I didn't get a chance to take a close look at it. I'll do some more research and report back. There's a larger pet store that might have more options that I can try to get to later this week.

When I got home, my poor fish was completely finless and struggling to even move, so I did what I thought was the correct thing to do.

I'll spend the next few weeks cleaning the tank and prepping for new fish.