Tiger Barb TERRIBLE with ich - so sad

[Gennifer]

We had 5 little tiger barbs in a small 10 gallon tank, and our heater cooled off without us knowing it, and BINGO they got ich BADLY!! Seemed overnight almost! Anyway, we've since done 2 ich treatments, but everyone started telling us we just needed to warm up the water, which we did. We bought a brand new heater and the water is much warmer now. We're gradually raising the temp to around 84-85 degrees in hopes that will kill off the ich. 2 of the barbs died with it already and our pregnant female has got it BAD. It's all over her little face and eyes, and her tail fin looks like it has a blob of cotton on it, like a Q-tip. I guess it's all frayed with it?? Anyway, she looks terrible and is just staying in one spot, not swimming around. The last 2 barbs look good, and they aren't bothering her at all. She seems to already be feeling somewhat better, now that the water temp is slowing coming up, but MAN she looks bad, and we don't know if we should just put her out of her misery, or if she will bounce back.

Does anyone know if they recover well once they're that torn up with it? If she stands a chance, we'd like to keep her of course! Her tail just looks like HELL and I feel bad for her since her face is so messed up too.

Any advice would be appreciated.

~ Gennifer

 

[Gennifer]

Okay, after reading the fish disease section, it appears not only do our barbs have the white ich spots (like salt grains) but obviously, this one barb also has the fungal tail rot/fin rot. She has a huge white fluffy plume like thing on her tail fin.

Now my question is - how do we treat for both? Our other two barbs don't show signs of ich as far as spots go, but all our others had signs. HOWEVER, they are swimming about in a crazy manner and "throwing themselves up against things" like the decorations in the tank etc. This seems to be an early sign of ich from what we've read here. I thought they were just going crazy on us, but it seems this along with strange breathing (which they are) are signs.

How do we treat for both? Is it okay to put fungal medicine in for our pregnant barb, and just let the warm water heal the ich on the others?

PLEASE HELP ASAP!! Obviously the cool water and no doubt poor water conditions have contributed to this. We tested the water last night and indeed had high nitrites and low Alkalenity. We're working to correct this ASAP.

Thanks again for all advice -

~ Gennifer

 

[gaya]

Are you sure you don’t mean nitrates? If it’s nitrites than your tank is cycling. What are the ammonia levels? I recently had a bout of ick and turned the temp up to 86F but that can be dangerous if you have any ammonia in there. I covered the tank with a towel as ick is not supposed to do well in the dark and I did 50% water changes daily for a good week (total pain in the rump and my back is killing me). I would check this site or the web to see if barbs can tolerate salt and if they can I’d give your barb a salt dip (if you don’t know what that is check the web). Since you’ve already done two med treatments I’d being worried about giving them any more meds. But some may not agree with that.

 

[Gennifer]

Yes, I double checked the readings, and our nitrItes are high, about 3.0 which shows to be stress, near danger level. Also our KH is low, as we're only registering about 40 and it should be much higher, right? Anyway, our nitrAtes are sitting at 20 which shows to be in the safe zone.

Well...our tiger barb died - so now we're wondering if medicating the water with our fungus medicine is going to affect the good bacteria in our filter. Have we done more harm than good now to our tank system? The fungal medicine said to pull the carbon out of our filter (which we can't - they're pellets) and I'm assuming that's so the carbon won't pull the medicine out of the water before the fish benefit from it. But will this fungal medicine kill off all our good bacteria and cause our tank to be uncycled now?

Aaaaahhhhh!!!

Too many questions - my head hurts and now I'm down to 2 tiger barbs out of 5.

~ Gennifer

 

[gaya]

Well if this med is antibacterial then yea it will kill the good bacteria you need. Since the fish with the fungal infection died are there any other fish that are having this problem? Like I said b4 you should do daily water changes to keep the nitrites down and clean water is always good for fungal infections, along with eliminating some of the ick that is in your tank.

 

[Gennifer]

Well, we have 2 last remaining barbs in there, and they don't show signs of any fungus, nor ich that I can tell. Other than they were swimming strangely last night, like purposely ramming themselves into things...

I hear this is a sign of something bothering their skin??

But I don't see any little white spots on them yet.

Well, my hubby added the fungus tablet, but wasn't able to pull out the carbon without just tossing the whole filter pad, which we didn't want to do. We'd have to start the cycling process all over. But it sounds like we'll have to anyway, yes? I bet that medication treatment killed our biological filter we had going on. (Bacteria) The tablet package says for fungus and bacteria. *sigh*

Thanks for your advice and input!

~ Gennifer

 

[gaya]

You shouldn't add meds unless you know what the problem is. Have you changed the water yet?

edit: fish will react like that when their water specs are messed up.

 

[Gennifer]

Well, the barb that died yesterday definately had fungus on her tail. It looked like a white cottony plume, almost like her tail had been shredded and then cotton stuck on it. We treated the tank for fungus hoping to save her, and she died right after the treatment. She was already pretty far gone. I guess we should have just taken her out and not treated the tank? But from what I gather, you have to medicate the tank anyway to rid the water and other parts of the fungus?

Our other barbs had ich, but we've just raised our water temp to help that. I didn't want to add ich chemicals on top of the fungal medicine. I think warming the water has helped significantly for our last 2 fish.

My hubby is doing a water change right now as well.