Problem with ich?

[goldfishlover101]

I bought 3 goldfish at Petco 13 days ago and all three looked healthy. I went around to all of the LFS and none of them carried goldfish, the closest thing they carried was koi and those are pond fish. Well, around a week ago I noticed white dots on my goldfishes and when I had bought them there was no signs of any white dots. I went out and bought some ich away medication and I am following what the directions say, add 2 tsp. (20 gallons) every 3 days and after you add the 2 tsp, do a 50% water change. It said to do the process three times, I have to change 50% of the water tomorrow and that will make it the third time and the ich still hasn't cleared up and one of my goldfish recently died today and that goldfish barely had any ich but I thought I saw some around and inside it's gills. Is there anything else I can do to get rid of the ich? The temp. is around 75 degrees right now and because goldfish are coldwater fish I don't think I would be able to put a heater in, also, the only kind of heater I have is a 25 or 50 watt.

Doing 50% water changes is also hard because I'm very busy during the day.

 

[WhiteDevil]

Id put a heater in just set it at 68-72.

Ich is best cured with Aquarium salt( not marine salt) and heat, goldfish can handle temps to 90 degrees and more I am sure, they are very adaptable fish.

You are also in Connecticut and it gets cold there especially in the months that are only coming to us faster.

WC's wont help ICH. especially if you are treating for it, keep the water in the tank, alot of WC's will only make matters worse. ( ich isnt waterbourne so taking out water is only wasting time and money you spent on chemicals and meds)

put the heater in, do you have a thermometer? if so get that temp up a few degrees every couple of hours as to not shock them and add the salt per direction.

 

[jsoong]

Ok the water change when using ich meds is so you remove the chemicals before redosing, otherwise you will end up with toxic levels of meds. <This has nothing to do with ich per se. so i would not skip the water changes.>

More important question - is the tank cycled?? Ich is usually bought on by stress, such as ammonia/nitrite, etc. You should check you water parameters. If the tank is not cycled, you will need to do water changes to keep levels down until it is.

I disagree that water change is a waste or harmful. Even in a fully cycled tank, water changes (temp & parameter matched of course,) can only help. BTW, one phase of ich is water borne (the tomites), and there is a no-med treatment of ich using 100% water change daily. <This is too much work IMO, but it is possible to cure ich with massive total water changes.>

Goldfish can stand high temp as long as the water is well oxygenated. <My tank goes up to the 80's in summer.> However, your heaters won't get your tank up to the 88F needed. You might consider using the heaters to prevent the water temp from dropping below the 70's in winter.

I generally use salt to treat ich. I would increase salt level to 0.3% over 24-48 hrs. Ich is usu. gone within a week of this. I leave the fish in salted water for 2 more weeks after the last spot is gone, then gradually drop the salt back to zero over weeks. However, you have already started with meds, you may as well stay with it. It is a bad thing to jump from one thing to another without giving time for the treatments to work.

Right now, the most important thing is to keep perfect water conditions. Check your parameters & make sure water is pristine. Fish in polluted tanks will not survive diseases no matter what treatment you use.

 

[JustOneMore20]

How soon after adding the meds are you doing a 50% water change? It could be the way you worded it but it sounds like you are doing the water change soon after adding the meds. Perhaps it hasn't had time to work. I would do the 50% water change 3-4 days after adding the meds, then dose again if you need to. It's a good idea to dose for a couple weeks after the last spot goes away.

 

[goldfishlover101]

My tank is fully cycled, although it's probably cycling again since I heard that the medication destroys the good bacteria. I put a 50 watt heater in my aquarium and it heated the water to around 77 degrees. I'm doing a 50% water change 24 hours after I add the 2tsp. of medication. I have stopped the medication though and I'm going to see if the heat works because I don't have a very strong heater and if I do a 50% water change, It will take a long time to get the water back to 77 degrees. I was also adding the meds every 3 days. The ich went away, but now it's starting to come back.

 

[JPKeenan]

it is the build up of the poisons in the medicines which make you need to do the water change.

I guess a human analogy would be chemotherapy. You basically pump poison into a person to kill cancer. The idea being it's better to kill off the cancer/disease by killing some healthy cells as well.

I dosed my tank. Actually didn't do anything. After following the suggestions here I found the better treatment was to raise the temp for two weeks and add a pinch of salt. It has been a week or two. The fish effected have died (all but 1, they were new fish) but none of the other fish have shown any signs of ich.

 

[jsoong]

77 degree is not going to kill ich. You need to get up to at least 85+.

Ich has a 3 staged lifecycle. It grows on the fish, then falls off into the substrate, where it multiplies & comes back to infect the fish (in even higher numbers!) Only the free swimming tomites are susceptible to treatment, so it is actually important to treat the tank when you see the spots disappearing. This is when the ich leaves the fish to multiply.

When you see the ich going away & now coming back, you are seeing that changing life stages. It does not mean the ich is going away ...

If you are going to give up on the meds, I would suggest using the salt treatment, as your current temp is not high enough to kill the tomites.

Also ... you should NOT have temperature swings when you do water changes. You should have the change water up to the same temp of the tank before adding it to the tank. <There should be no need for your tank heater to "bring the tank back up to 77".> Temp swings are stressful to fish & will bring down immunity & bring on diseases.