Community Tank with ICH!!!

[Welsh]

I have had no luck with buying new fish lately, the first lot died and now the 2nd lot all have ich. My water is always pristine and I've never had an issue like this before until these new fish. The tetra's and platys are the only fish atm that seem to have it -these are the new fish and I can only assume that they brought it to my tank, I don't have another tank to quarantine them so the whole tank is going to need to be treated. I know raising the temperature to 86 degrees will kill the ich but will this be OK for the tetras? I also have a small bristlenose that I've had for over a year. I don't want to use medication and I have aquarium salt but also have 2 freshwater clams so I'm not positive I can use that. Help! lol

Thanks

 

[Welsh]

Well after posting this yesterday I gradually raised the temperature throughout the day and today the tetra's look much better; one which was close to death actually has all its colour back but they are still a bit spotted, like the platties; which seem worse today. The other fish seem fine - touch wood! I was just wondering how much longer it should take for the ich to die? I thought it was around 1-2 days and I was planning on doing a gravel vaccum today, to get rid of any ich that might have already fallen off the fish..... should I do this or wait until tomorrow?

Thanks

 

[HUKIT]

I would keep the temps up there for two weeks with frequent water changes including substrate cleaning to remove the cysts as they fall off, things always look worse before they get better.

 

[Welsh]

2 weeks is longer than I thought lol

How frequent should the water changes be?

Will the heat damage my plants? I have:-

Duckweed
Narrow leaf java fern
Anubias Barteri
Anubias Nana
2 Elodea Densa

Thanks

 

[HUKIT]

I've never experienced any issues with my plants with higher heat over a couple of weeks.

I always perform water changes every 2-3 days when treating ich, and have gone as frequent as daily when I had a strain that would not die while QT'ing new fish.

 

[Welsh]

OK. Well I'll trust you with the plant thing as I have no idea about them lol. Would I need to wash the driftwood etc too, or is the gravel the main place the ich lives?

 

[HUKIT]

I would just concentrate on the substrate to remove the cysts, I would not worry to much with regards the to decorations.

 

[Welsh]

Ok Thank you for your help

 

[librarygirl]

Are you using just heat or heat and salt?

Either way, this guide might help: Freshwater Ich? Yuck!

 

[Welsh]

I'm using just heat atm and it seems to be working great. I'm surprised as the ich has really cleared up, I did lose a platy but i'm not sure whether the ich was the cause of that one as it looked fine yesterday but all in all the heat seems to be working so I'll stick at this and gravel vacs for the time being

Thanks for the help