Recovering from ich

[robbyno22]

Sat night, all our fish looked great. Sun night, all 4 phantom tetras were COVERED in ich. I slowly raised the water temp (it's holding at 87), and gave the phantoms a salt bath (I have a snail, so I couldn't add salt to the tank). Within hours of the salt bath, the smallest phantom died (he was the worst off). I did a 50% WC each day for 2 days, and we lost the other 3 phantoms slowly over the next 2 days Our endlers were acting stressed from the heat (they showed no signs of ich), and after going on vacation for 2 days, we came home to 1 of the endlers dead. The other neon is okay (still no ich), and our neons have a few spots on their fins, but are eating and acting normal (a little slower from the heat, but normal).

I was running 2 filters on the tank to cycle the new one for my son's new 20 g. Do I need to replace all filters and/or wait until the ich is gone before I move that filter to the new tank? Since the endler is not showing any signs of ich, should I move him to the new tank to get him out of the heat? The new tank will be his permanent home anyway. Is there anything else I should be doing? I did a 60% WC just now...

Thanks!

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[Pamiam]

The temp might be too high, you really only need 80 degrees to kill ick within 3 days. I never used salt, so I can not comment on that.

When I bought black neon tetras a few weeks ago and isolated them, they became infected with ick. I had 80 degree temp and did daily 50-60% water change, making sure I vacuumed the bottom. I also cleaned the filter daily and I over fed them to make sure they stayed healthy. I only lost 2 out of 12. The 2 that died were complete covered in ick with their fins shredded, so I knew they would not make it. I had signs of ick for about a week, now they are in their 4 week of quarantine and seem to be healthy.

I hope this helps and good luck.

 

[robbyno22]

What about moving one of the filters to the new tank? Will I have to wait until the ich is completely gone?

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[Pamiam]

If you move a filter to another tank I would totally clean it out and let it air dry to remove/kill any ick parasite that was sucked into the filter.