Ich in my community tank

[IHaveADogToo]

There’s ich on a betta (female) and a tetra so far, that I’ve seen.

I’ve started to raise the temp of the tank slowly. I’ve only gone up one degree so far, because I just noticed it, and I’m gradually going to raise to 86. I can QT the betta but not so sure the tetra will be easy to catch. I feel like I should treat the entire tank though.

I have scaleless fish in this tank, Khuli lioaches and corydoras. So I’d like to avoid salt. I also have ghost shrimp and a nerite snail.

How should I proceed? Should I QT the betta and tetra, or should I just treat the whole tank? What medications should I use? You know how bad cell phone pics are and look how much this shows.

I just rearranged the entire tank and moved it yesterday. Changed probably 90% (maybe more) of the water at that time. Maybe the stress brought this out. Maybe something got exposed to outside germs somehow during all that. I noticed some red/brown worms crawling on the glass, above the water, before the big clean and move. Whatever caused it, it's here.

 

[Fishmanic]

I also think I have a mild attack of ich in my tank...Just showing on one fish near his head. Best to treat it early.

Filter must be free of any carbon. I raised the temp to 80 so far..will raise to about 83 or 84. I dosed the 35 gallon tank with 20 drops (dose recommended for tetra) of mardel quick cure (malachite green) as indicated in directions. Will dose again tomorrow and the next day. Then will reassess and possibly after a 30% water change, will repeat the above regimen one more time.. Then will do a gravel vac and partial water change. Then will put some carbon in the filter to remove the meds.

 

[IHaveADogToo]

I've noticed several of my female bettas "scratching" against the hairgrass plants. But they've done that the entire time they've been in this tank. Now I'm reading that can be a sign of oncoming ich. That scares me because all of my betta fish do that.

It's too late here now to buy fish meds. It will have to wait until I get home from work tomorrow. The store just isn't open right now, and they don't open until I've been at work for two hours. But none-the-less, I will buy some meds tomorrow on my way home. I just don't know what meds to buy. I don't want this to overtake my entire tank. I want it gone.

Should I quarantine the 2 fish showing white spots? The one betta and the one tetra I showed pics of? Since I won't have fish meds until tomorrow evening. I have a cycled 2 gallon quarantine tank but IDK about the 2 of those fish living peacefully together in that tank.

 

[Fishmanic]

you should treat the whole tank instead of quarantining as ich is most likely not just on the fish with symptoms but probably are elsewhere in tank/substrate. You might want to do a substrate vac and 50% water change before doing the first treatment. Be sure to remove any carbon in the filter. Any med that has malachite green as a main ingredient would be ok. Stay away from meds with copper.

 

[IHaveADogToo]

Okay thanks. I'll continue to raise the temperature before I go to bed to probably 82, then in the morning up to 84. I've read that 86 is where it needs to be to treat ich, so I'll bring it up to 86 after work, as long as nobody on here stops me. I normally keep my tank at 78/79.

 

[IHaveADogToo]

And yes I will look for a medication with malachite green and no copper. Should a chain pet store like PetSmart have that?

 

[Colin_T]

I can't see any Ich (white spots) on the Betta, however the neon has a white spot on the blue line but I am unsure if that is a dirty camera lens, dirt on the glass or stuff in the water. There are lots of white spots in the picture and most are not on the fish
Does the neon tetra have a white spot on the blue line behind her eye?

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You have to treat the entire tank and all the fish in it because the parasites are on the fish, in the gravel and swimming around in the water.

If you contact any petshop they should have a broad spectrum medication to treat protozoan infections, and it should contain Malachite Green. However, if you get the water temperature up to 30C (86F) and keep it there for a couple of weeks, that will kill the parasites too and you won't need medication.
If you do add a medication, use it at half strength for catfish, loaches, eels and other scaleless fishes.

Do a big (75%) water change and complete gravel clean before treating.

To work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.

When you measure the height, measure from the top of the gravel to the top of the water level.

Remove any carbon from the filter before treating.

The link below is about whitespot. The first article on page 1 uses more scientific jargon, whereas the last article on page 2 is more for beginners.
http://www.fishforums.net/threads/what-is-ich.7092/page-2

 

[IHaveADogToo]

Colin, the white spots you are seeing in the water (look closer) only show in the background, not the foreground. Those are bubbles along the back wall of the tank, where I have redirected my filter output. The whole back wall of my tank has tiny bubbles moving along it. The spots on the fish (I count 4 spots) are actually on the fish.

You don't see the white spots on the betta? Look just in front of the base of her dorsal fin, and behind her pectoral fin.

I have my tank at now 84 degrees F, and it will be turned up to 86 when I go home from work today. Is it bad to do medication and heat together? I'll do whatever is best for the fish.

 

[IHaveADogToo]

Is it safe for me to remove the filter cartridge from the HOB during medication, store it in a bowl of tank water, and return it to the tank after treatment, or will I need to replace the cartridge? Here is the kind of filter cartridge I have.

 

[seangee]

iirc you have peppered corys. They won't tolerate a temp of 30C. Happy for someone tto correct me if I am wrong but best to check.

 

[IHaveADogToo]

iirc you have peppered corys. They won't tolerate a temp of 30C. Happy for someone tto correct me if I am wrong but best to check.

They are albino bronze corys

 

[seangee]

They are albino bronze corys

According to SF bronze corys can be kept up to 27. I'm still hearing alarm bells though, especially as I think the albino bronze cory is in fact an albino peppered cory.

 

[Byron]

First, take a step back. Most fish can deal with ich on their own--after all, if not, ich in nature would have killed off the fish long ago. One or two spots is not something to start dumping in medications like malachite green that will make things much worse for the fish, adding additional stress. I frequently see flashing from newly acquired fish in the QT, but I never treat for it unless I see spots and more than a couple.

Ich is caused by stress, period. Many believe ich is always present in most of our tanks, but it is only severe stress that brings it on. This is borne out by your own experience here, the upheaval in aquascaping obviously triggered the ich from parasites already present. Water changes, avoiding stress, are the first steps to take. Observe.

If you do see spots increasing, treatment of the whole tank is needed because ich is in the tank, not on individual fish. And salt is far safer. I have treated wild caught cories and loaches with salt and heat with no fish losses and the ich was dealt with.

Raising the temp to around 90F/32C is said by many to kill ich. But not all fish can tolerate this for the week. My treatment with cories and loaches was to raise the temp to 86F/30C, slowly [you can increase the heater setting and do a couple of water changes over the course of a day, slowly increasing temp with each]. Then add salt at a level of 2 grams per liter. A level teaspoon of dry salt is roughly 6 grams. Use aquarium salt, not marine salt, or plain sea salt as used in the kitchen provided it has no other ingredients except plain sea salt. Dissolve completely in water and pour in; add this over a few hours, slowly. Maintain the temp for one week; I usually do a second week, but if you do a water change make sure you add more salt but only for the displaced water. Then lower the temp back to normal naturally (turn down the heater, do not do cool water changes). The salt will be reduced with each future water change.

Malachite green and copper are both extremely bad for sensitive fish such as cories, all characins, and some others. Salt is much safer. I learned this from Neale Monks, and as usual, he was right.

 

[Colin_T]

You don't see the white spots on the betta? Look just in front of the base of her dorsal fin, and behind her pectoral fin.

That looks like a scale has been lost at each place on the Betta but it doesn't look like whitespot.
The neon definitely has ich tho.

If you use heat treatment you can leave the filter cartridge in the tank.

Do not use medication with heat, just try heat treatment first. Keep the temperature at 30C (86F) for at least 2 weeks. The white spots will drop off the fish in a day or two but you still need to keep the water hot for a couple of weeks to kill the parasites after they hatch out from the white spot cysts.

Warm water has less oxygen in it and when you add medications you reduce the oxygen in the water too so it's preferable to use heat only without medication. Just increase aeration when using heat or treating with any chemicals.

Corydoras will be fine in 30C water for a couple of weeks.

 

[IHaveADogToo]

@Byron, you are echoing a lot of my own thoughts here. 86 degrees being the maximum temp for treating loaches and corys, even though the bettas and tetras can probably tolerate up to 90 degrees... redoing the aquascape probably being the cause of the ich outbreak... we're in agreement here.

@Colin_T, okay, good to know, I'm glad I asked. I won't be doing medication and heat at the same time. I'll just try the heat for 2 weeks and see if that does it. But it looks like @Byron is suggesting I use salt and heat at the same time? Is that right? I do already have aquarium salt on-hand, so I won't need to buy any. Should I remove the filter cartridge for salt treatment? I understand that since I have scaleless fish I will have to be super careful with the salt.