take sick fish out and spare tank of ich?

[aquajeck]

One of my orange platies does not seem to be fairing so well, and I think it has Ich. He/she and the algae eater lived in this established 10 gal alone until I added a few fish 2mos ago. One molly died a day after a water change early on, but everyone else great,except the one original platy! Here's what I think happened. I'm not sure how,so I'll blame my husband, but the fish were stressed,so checked the temp-88! I turned it down, and all are fine 2weeks out...except that platy. It lingers at bottom. I have been watching for Ich, and I have kept temp at 82/83 and put more salt to prevent it but saw white spots 4days ago. I know the water's infected, not just the fish, but I isolated him anyway, and have watched others, who show no signs. Is it possible to keep the others from getting ich by temp up/salt/daily water changes?am I kidding myself thinking that I eliminated the prob?

 

[joy13]

At higher temperatures the ich parasite doesn't stay on the fish as long so it is possible to help eliminate ich with just the temperature. Doing water changes helps and so does increased aeration. When you do water changes vacuum the gravel.

Are you blaming your husband for the ich?

 

[aquajeck]

thanks for the info... and no, i'm only kidding about my husb......but he did mess with my heater....

 

[jim692]

Get him his own tank, to mess with. lol.

Better yet, get a new bigger tank and give him your old one!

 

[missileman]

It is possible that you didn't contaminate the main tank but not likely.
Alot of people use temp above 86* to treat ich but you need to leave the temp up there for at least a week.
High temp interferes with the Ich reproductive cycle effectively eliminating the infection.
I prefer Kordon Ich-Attack myself for treating Ich, it will not hurt your bio-filter like other meds can and works very well.
A side note on the heat treatment method, I have recently read about a heat resistant strain of Ich that is known to survive in temps up to 92 degrees, at that temp it starts to get dangerous for some fish so heat treatment would not be viable.

 

[joy13]

thanks for the info... and no, i'm only kidding about my husb......but he did mess with my heater....

Whew!! Had me wondering what he had done to get blamed for ich.