My platies are rubbing her side against leaves and driftwood

[yhbae]

Its been 5 days since the tank has been at 86/87F. I can see that most of the fishes lost their white dots on their body, but one of the blue ram still has some which are clearly visible. Isn't the initial form of ich surviving for little too long? (supposed to be few days?)

Any how, so far zero fishes are lost and all of them looks pretty good. I lost one little ghost shrimp (which I am not going to cry about... ) but the large one seem fine... Hope another week and all of this is over!

 

[Allivymar]

Nope; sounds like you are right on track. Keep in mind it has that 3 stage life cycle and only one stage is susceptible. As long as the amount of spots on the ram are decreasing, just continue with what you are doing

 

[yhbae]

Unfortunately I saw the first casualty today - last night, the female platy didn't eat baby brine shrimp which is very unusual - all of my fishes eat them regardless of their condition... I found her dead when I came back from work...

I originally had 1 male and 2 female platies. One female is sick right now as the male pretty much harrased her to catch ich, which I'm dealing with right now (she caught a fungal desease after ich)... I moved her to another tank, and the male is also in a different tank. Despite this, the second female died today... Are all platy males this aggressive? Next time, I'll go with 3 females to 1 male...

 

[Allivymar]

They can be; horny lil buggers. Sorry about the platy females

 

[yhbae]

Almost all ich is now gone! I can only count a few from few fishes and one of the blue ram no longer has any on his body... Yeah!!! (Still keeping the temp at 87F though, perhaps for another week).

Man, this male is turning out to be a real pain... Few days ago, I separated it in a 10g with young fries about 1 month old and he started harrasing them! (Yes they are females, but they are only 1 month old!). Luckily, I have a huge java moss in there so the fries can dart into it when he attacks but still... :x

My wife HATES this male for what he has done so far... (1 dead fish, 1 sick fish and ich on every fish I have in all tanks! He caused all of this...) 8O

 

[yhbae]

One more small update...

All fishes have survived, except for 1 female platy which was sick to begin with, and few ghost shrimps which I'm not going to cry about... I don't see any signs of ich on any of the fishes, and they are all acting normal.

I'll leave the temp at 87F for two more days to fill up 2 full weeks, then will lower it down to the normal temperature of 77F (I guess slowly over few days).

Allivy, your method really does work! Thanks for the advice!
(Oh by the way, I talked to the lady who works at LFS, and she thinks what I'm doing is insane - will loose most of the fishes. She claims you must use medicine!)

 

[Allivymar]

*snickers*

I'm not surprised she thinks that; I'm sure the companies that make ich meds never mention it (why would they? means no moolah for them *grin*), and quite frankly *I* had no idea this was a viable ich treatment till I went and did research on it. Heh, make her a copy of the article. If she's open minded maybe the lfs will give it a go and save some fish!

I am SO pleased your guys are doing well! Its so nice to know we DO have some control over the nasty lil buggers that show up in our tanks, and in a way that is cheap, easy and doesn't mess up water parameters