Ick Any Treatment?

xohaibshahzad

Mostly New Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2014
Messages
45
Reaction score
0
Location
PK
i have about a 90G aqurium, in which i have 4 Goldies, 1 Koi and 2 blue line sharks, they all got ick :(
i have raised the temprature to 28, had applied salt water treatment, and used methylene blue as well but no signs of betterment :(
it started about 2-3 days ago.
 
No medications can affect the ich parasite when it's on the fish, or in the gravel (it has a complicated lifecycle).
 
The medications will work, but you have to wait for the spots to burst and the parasites become free swimming.
 
sad.png

how did they got there?
 
 
+ the Fish store keeper told me to add salt to the aquarium water itself,... 
 
I waited 7 days until after the spots disappeared before removing the salt with water changes and they didn't come back. I can't remember exactly, but I think the spots started clearing after 3 days. If you google the parasite you'll get some info on it's lifecycle.
 
I have changed the water about 3-4 days ago, do i need to change it again?
 
goldfish are cold water fish and shouldn't be in warm water. they should be mixed with any tropical fish.. just my 2 cents on that..
 
from my experience with ick (now treating with for my new marble hatchets -.- ) is to not raise the temp.. mine is at 25.. i find the cycle is to fast for the fish and the meds to take affect. then i just dose heavily with methylene blue and boom all done. and when you think everything is clear and good to go i keep dosing for a week (not heavily, but make sure there is enough meds to kill anything left) even though there are no signs to make sure i got everything.
 
The one surefire way to get rid of ICK is to raise the temp to 86 for a few days.  This helps speed up the life cycle of the little critters.  I keep my tank at 82 since most all of the fish come from warm temperatures.
 
I would raise the temp in the tank and add salt.  I wouldn't use any ich medications with the sharks in the tank.  A lot of catfish are scale less and will die from the medication.  I hate to say it but you are going to have a lot of future problems with this tank.  Every fish you have will outgrow this tank if they don't die from organ failure.  It starts with ich and just keeps getting worse from there.  I learned this the hard way when I first got into fish keeping.   I would start over with some smaller fish and make things easier.    I hope everything works out for you.  The fish should be fine in a week.
 
With the salt method it's best not to change the water unless you have to, otherwise the salt dilutes. A simple top up of salt will sort that out though, but you have to make sure you don't over do it. I missed that you have goldfish, so it might be better to go down the route Ryan10 suggests. 86f will really speed up the lifecycle and kill the parasite at the right stage, the salt would make sure of that. I don't know how goldfish would cope with that temp though.
 
If your fish have spots right now then a water change won't do anything because they are on/in the fish. I think....
 
Raising the temperature will speed up the parasite's life cycle, to kill the parasite you would have to raise the temperature higher than most fish can tolerate, that is a special concern with your goldfish. When you raise the temperature of your tank, also increase the oxygenation of the water. You can do so by lowering the water level if you have a waterfall-type filter, it will create a bigger splash when the water returns to the tank, creating more bubbles, or by adding an air-stone to the tank (connected to a pump and airline!)
 
If using medication follow the instructions on the package exactly, and never mix treatments unless it is stated so on the package!!!
 
If using the heat salt method, as said before, raising the temperature speeds up the life cycle. The spots will fall off the fish into the gravel. At this point doing gravel vacs daily would help remove the en-capsuled cysts from there, preventing those to become free-swimmers! Ensure to replace the right amount of salt/water mix back into the tank, and always dissolve the salt before adding it to the tank!
The remaining en-capsuled cysts hidden in the substrate then mature and the free swimmers emerge. Any fish spending a lot of time near the substrate are most susceptible to get infected, but it is during this time that the medication or salt is actually effective. The way the salt works, as I understood it, is through osmosis the water is being pulled out of the parasite's cells killing it. 
With scale-less fish you can still try the salt method, but go with only half the dose of salt. With scale-less fish, doing daily gravel vacs will be advisable since it reduces the chances of re-infection greatly since you reduce the amount of possible free-swimmers!
 
I have no experience with gold fish, or Koi, but doing a quick google search showed people have used this method with them successfully.
Good luck getting rid of the ich, I believe most strains are taken care of in two weeks time! :)
 

Most reactions

Back
Top