Unbeatable ICH?

[FishNiX]

hey all-
as some of you know from some other posts that ive made,
my rombo barbs came into my tank and soon thereafter came
down with ICH. ive treated for the recommended 6 days
with malachite green and an elevated temperature, but it doesnt
seem to help.... ive lost 3 of the 5 rombo's so far and now my
tetras are covered with it and my angels have a little on the ends
of their fins!!!

i dont know what more i should do.

water changes? salt? nothing?

help!

thanks!!!!

 

[smb]

If you use carbon, have you taken it out during medication?

Try using Aquarisol. That works really good and should be available to you. Do a large water change then add it. Keep up the meds for at least 2 weeks.

 

[FishNiX]

hey- thanks for the reply. i was told that carbon is no longer active after several months...so i didnt take it out. i will do the water change and actually i have aquarisolon hand, but i was under the impression that it could kill my plants...
thanks!!

 

[yhbae]

How high is your temperature?

I had to treat my community tank with over 20 fishes few months ago, and managed to cure them without any fish loss. The only thing I did was to keep tank at 87F without any medication for 2 weeks. At one point, every fishes were covered with ich, but all of them got cured.

I expected fishes to get stressed out at 87F but I was surprized at how active they were and acted completely normal, eating very well.

 

[mindy0368]

I understand your frustration. I too have ick, have lost all but one fish, and had 5 fry and only 2 of them are living. I've put in medication, raised the temp, changed water, to no avail. There is still ick and I'm getting frustrated.

 

[Cian McLiam]

It really is time to take out that carbon! Once carbon becomes over-saturated it will start releasing some of the toxins back into the water, just like in the film 'ghostbusters' when the nasty guy pulls the lever and lets all the horrible ghouls back out!

Anyway, back to the Ich, this pollution could cause the Ich outbreak you are seeing. What temp do you have the tank at? As yhbae said, it needs to be above 86F or around 29-30C to kill off the Ich parasites.

I have read that sometimes the Ich parasites can sometimes go through their whole life cycle inside the fishes skin, without the cysts releasing the parasites into the water. In this case meds wont work and temps would be the best option.
Increae aeration if possible when raising the temp to this level if you can, do plenty of water changes, 10% daily works well, and be gentle with the meds, chemical warfare on Ich is bad for fish too, all anti-parasites need to be poisonous in one way or another. Do not switch medications without filtering through fresh carbon for at least two days and changing 25% of the water.

Good Luck!

Ken

 

[paulh]

Get rid of that carbon, my fish had ich last week, i'm new to this and didn't notice it till late, i got a lot of help of people on this site and thankfully now a week later my last parrot is looking a lot better, this is what i was told to do
1. remove carbon from filter and raise temp. to 80-82
2. add medication (anti white spot)
3. next day do a 25-30% water change, and remedicate
4. 2 days do same as 3 again
5. wait 4 days and repeat again

This is what i did thanks to people on this site after losing 3 of my parrots i at least saved one

hope you do ok