HELP! i think my fish have ich!

[ilovemydragongoby]

i saw a white spot of my dragon gobies fin. i've looked it up and we've narrowed it down to ich. it says its hard on scaleless fish to treat. are any of the fish in my tank scaleless? dragon goby, bumblebee gobies, guppies, mollies and swordtails? i have a puffer as well and i know he is scaleless, how do i treat them, i dont have a QT tank set up! HELP!

 

[kaiofcanada]

Ich can be deadly. but if you are only seeing one spot right now, you are in the early stages.

First thing I would do is a 50% water change (temperature matched). Add aquarium salt if you have it available at the recommended amount, which should be 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons. Once you have changed the water slowly increase the temp in your tank 1-2 degrees per hour until your reach 85F. Ich goes through a life cycle. But it can not reproduce at a temp of 85F or above.

It will have to run its course, but essentially by adding salt and increasing the temp you prevent the cycle from occuring, and ick from reproducing. This will take 2-3 weeks. Keep the temp up until you see absolutely no signs of ich...white spots, fish scratching themselves on various surfaces, labored breathing etc.

After 3 weeks, slowly lower the temp back to wherever you prefer to maintain it. All of you fish will be fine at 85F for this treatment. So ensure that they can breathe okay...also lower your water level to increase the surface aggitation. This should increase the amount of oxygen in the water. Ich infests fish gills and higher temperatures mean less gases, including oxygen, dissolved in the water. Keep the water level lowered until your treatment is done.

During the treatment, I also recommend doing frequent water changes (temperature matched to 85F). This will dilute whatever ich is in the water while you are treating your tank and will be good for the overall health of your tank. I suggest doing 50% water changes every 3-5 days.

Keep us posted on how they are doing.

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

thanks for the help, we were waiting a couple more days to make our tank brackish anyways so we're going to get some salt tomorrow when the store opens. i dont have any right now unfortunately. i'll keep everyone posted. the mollies and guppies are scratching themselves on the substrate. and the dragon is the only one i can see the spot on. the mollies are dalmations so it's hard to tell. i do have 2 very pregnant mollies in the tank, will the salt affect them at all with the pregnancy? i know that mollies can be brackish but i was trying to wait for them to have the fry before i added the salt.

 

[kaiofcanada]

thanks for the help, we were waiting a couple more days to make our tank brackish anyways so we're going to get some salt tomorrow when the store opens. i dont have any right now unfortunately. i'll keep everyone posted. the mollies and guppies are scratching themselves on the substrate. and the dragon is the only one i can see the spot on. the mollies are dalmations so it's hard to tell. i do have 2 very pregnant mollies in the tank, will the salt affect them at all with the pregnancy? i know that mollies can be brackish but i was trying to wait for them to have the fry before i added the salt.

Aquarium and marine salt are different. You need marine salt to go brackish.

I would not make this tank brackish with its current inhabitants. Sorry I did not catch the whole list before and make the connection that they were all in the same tank. The dragon and bumble bee gobies should be by themselves in a brackish setup!!!

The rest are community fish and can be kept in freshwater. Aquarium salt will not affect fry, but changing your tank to brackish requires that you acclimate all of the fish. I would not do this with the guppies and mollys period, and definitely not if you plan to keep the fry. Live bearers should never be kept with a dragon goby anyway. The fry will just become a nice snack.

 

[taylorodw]

Actually all of those fish are fine in brackish The gobies, puffer, and mollies actually do much better in it, the guppies just plain don't care

Except the Swordtails, I do not know if they can handle brackish conditions.

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

yes i have done my research and all the fish that are in there right now are and can be brackish. i wouldn't have gotten them if they couldn't be, since the set up was around the dragon goby. dragons do not even touch other fish at all. i had him in a 20gal with 6 albino cherry barbs and 3 otos for a month and half and didnt lose a single fish.

but thank you for letting me know about the aquarium and marine salt. i'll get the aquarium salt once the stores open and i'll go brackish after everything is looking better.

 

[kaiofcanada]

Actually all of those fish are fine in brackish The gobies, puffer, and mollies actually do much better in it, the guppies just plain don't care

Except the Swordtails, I do not know if they can handle brackish conditions.

First, the point IS NOT that the others can't go brackish. It is that they should not all be in the same tank together. The gobies should be in a tank on their own and the live bearers in theirs. This is my opinion and also one not recommended for compatibility reasons.

Second, I also would not convert a tank to brackish while a mother is carrying if I wanted to keep the fry.

Third, dragon gobies should be in a tank with cool brackish water. This is NOT ideal for small fry that need not only a higher temp, but also not to be eaten. Dragon gobies are not necessarily predatory, but they grow large and should be in a tank of 30g minimum size and not with tiny fish, as they will get eaten. Even while all of the adult livebearers can do fine in cooler water, none of their fry should be raised at this temp.

 

[DragonFish71]

Um, not to fuel the fire here but I keep mollies in my BW with 2 dragon gobys, 12 bumblebee gobys, 5 unpainted indian glass fish, and 12 ghost shrimp. Everybody is happy and healthy and I always have lots of molly fry (which are eventually food unless I save some)

80g tank, temp at 75 degrees, SG at 1.010 (ish) I let it go through flux stages to mimic the FW/BW tides, heavily planted.



But yes, the best ich treatment for the would be the salt/heat route. Since they are very sensitive fish medications should be used sparingly.

 

[DragonFish71]

Oh, and welcome back Kai. Forgot to say that on your tetra post

 

[kaiofcanada]

Um, not to fuel the fire here but I keep mollies in my BW with 2 dragon gobys, 12 bumblebee gobys, 5 unpainted indian glass fish, and 12 ghost shrimp. Everybody is happy and healthy and I always have lots of molly fry (which are eventually food unless I save some)

80g tank, temp at 75 degrees, SG at 1.010 (ish) I let it go through flux stages to mimic the FW/BW tides, heavily planted.



But yes, the best ich treatment for the would be the salt/heat route. Since they are very sensitive fish medications should be used sparingly.

Heyyyyy

Thanks for the welcome back.

I am shocked you even have ghost shrimp in your tank. They are not lunch yet...or do they do the sideways spring dance? Those suckers can be really quick.

But to the point...livebearers equal live food. I used to keep guppies for this reason in my angel tanks. Until the angels got too big and the male guppies became dinner. Poor guys. Even I didn't see that coming.

If you want to keep your fry to raise/sell/breed/etc...don't keep them in a tank where they will be eaten.

Also...my reasons for suggesting not to convert while the mothers are carrying is that it could be stressful. Stress leads to weird fry sometimes...which in your tank will probably be eaten anyways .

 

[DragonFish71]

The ghosts own the tank. *lol* No one messes with them at all. They'll even stand on the dragons when the dragons are resting, but those ghosts are great for snail control and as a clean up crew. Between them and the mollies algae and extra food aren't a problem either. Since I have yet to come across an algae eater or clean up crew that can handle BW and also stay the right size I make it a point to suggest them for BW tanks now. Once acclimated properly, they do great.


I keep the livebearers so that the fry are a live food source and because mollies have such diverse colorings. I might put a female in a net breeder if I want to save some fry. I did that when our golddust female was ready to give birth.


I'm not sure if converting from FW or BW would do anything if done slowly. Some fish do swim from FW to BW to give birth and vise verse. Hmmm I think research might be in order so we can know for sure Time to google!

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

lol, and yes that is why the live bearers are there. as my boyfriend says (i know it's cruel) ' it's the survival of the fittest" i'm leaving now to get aquarium salt...i'll keep y'all posted

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

ok, igot the aquarium salt. i have a 5gal pail i'm going to mixing it in. it says to use 1 rounded tbsp per 5gallons. now since the tank is 80 gal do i mix the concentration of salt for 80 gallons or just for the amount of water i'm changing?

 

[kaiofcanada]

I usually mix the salt in a smaller volume of hot water to dissolve it. Allow the water to cool and add the concentrated mixture slowly to the tank by pouring it in at the filter outlet.

I maintain all my tanks with aquarium salt and only need to add salt for the amount of water being added after an initial dosing. If water has just evaporated much like a marine tank....you just top off the water beyond the initial aq salt dosing.

I would dissolve salt for 80g treatment in about 500ml or so. Allow the heated salt water to cool to the temp of your tank before adding 75-100ml at a time. Allow a 5-10 minutes between additions to let the aq salt mix with your tank water until you have added it all.

After this first go round, when dosing, you can prepare the salt before hand and simply add it in with partial water changes.

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

alright so i've added salt water twice now...my gsp already seems to be happier. the spot that is on the dragon has gone away. so is this the free swimming stage?

 

[kaiofcanada]

alright so i've added salt water twice now...my gsp already seems to be happier. the spot that is on the dragon has gone away. so is this the free swimming stage?

If you don't see spots anymore, it is likely the free swimming stage. This is when the higher temp is crucial for stopping the life cycle. Keep the temp at 85 -86F for the next 3 weeks or until you see no signs after 3 weeks.

I usually stick to 85 as I have found that many plants deteriorate beyond 85 after too long.

Glad to hear that you fish are feeling a bit better. Keep the water well aerated and do frequent partial water changes during the treatment.

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

ok, i did a cleaning/pwc last night and added salt. did the same thing today. is there such thing as too many pwc during the treatment?

 

[kaiofcanada]

ok, i did a cleaning/pwc last night and added salt. did the same thing today. is there such thing as too many pwc during the treatment?

well...your tank is established...so likely not, unless your intensively vacuuming as well. But...A 50% change every 3 days should be more than sufficient.

For myself, whenever I have fish get sick I am pretty crazy about water changes. I sometimes do 50% changes every other day for a couple weeks. In a planted tank this can be good and bad. Good in that it keeps the water clean, phosphates and nitrates down (less algae and brighter reds in my plants), replenishes many trace elements...down side, adding more salt, more ferts, and more dechlorinator.

Sounds like you don't mind the work involved. Neither do I as long as the fish are happy. Don't overclean or do anything to stress the fish obviously. Sounds like you are off to a solid start and ich is on it's way to no mans land/tank.

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

so it`s been about a week today since we`ve started the salt and heat treatment. but i don`t know how well my dragon is doing. im not sure how hes handling the heat. he only came out once yesterday that we saw. and he just poked his head out of his hiding place to eat and then went back in. should i move my big piece of drift wood out to monitor him better? or should i just wait and see? i dont wont to lose him

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

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