Can Anyone Please Tell Me What to do Next Here?

[Osage_Winter]

Alright.

This situation with my 60-gallon goldfish tank is getting out of hand now, through all the mistakes I have been making and all the conflicting advice I am getting from all different sides; can someone perhaps walk me through what I need to do AT THIS POINT in time, based on what I am going to explain below, please?

Okay. So I am currently in the middle of treating for Ich with Kordon Rid-Ich (one of my fancytails exhibited signs of the disease a few days ago). I am on the second day of treatment, giving SIX teaspoons a day based on the directions of the bottle and my water load, and the bottle is almost empty and the stuff turns my water blue.

Outside of that, I have also been treating the water with Stability but I started this BEFORE the fish came down with Ich -- so I don't know if I should continue this or not. I have also added aquarium salt, 30 teaspoons for my tank, based on instructions, but my main concern now is what to do with the Ich medicine and the Stability and how it all comes together with my water changes...

Can someone tell me what I need to do now? Should I keep using the Stability WHILE I'm treating for Ich? As I said, I am on the second straight day of treating the Ich, and Stability I have three or so days left to go, to make it the recommended week. Should I stop stability altogether?

What about water changes -- I have not done any since the Ich appeared; how much water should I change at this point, and how do I medicate/give Stability through the changes?

If anyone could help in the simplest terms possible, I would greatly appreciate it...

[neilanh]

I'm not familiar with your issues, so I'd have to ask what prompted the use of Stability?

[Osage_Winter]

Let me see if I can go backwards a bit here to explain better...

We bought the tank, cleaned everything, filled it with water, treated the water with conditioner, let an Aqueon QuietFlow 55 do its thing and after a few weeks, took readings -- the levels seemed safe, so we introduced two fancytail Orandas, which thrived. Then, more time passed, the water quality went up and down a bit, and it finally stabilized, so we added a third fancytail. He seemed to do well.

Then, the water became horrendously cloudy, and while I thought it was just a bloom, I was told to begin an in-fish cycle with Stability -- so we started the procedure of adding Stability, but then one of the original Orandas came down with what looks like Ich. So, I began adding salt and Rid-Ich + but at this point, I don't know whether or not I should be using the Stability WITH the Rid-Ich, and if I should be doing water changes through this procuedure at all...some sites say DO NOT do water changes when treating with Kordon Rid-Ich...

[Osage_Winter]

Alright.

This situation with my 60-gallon goldfish tank is getting out of hand now, through all the mistakes I have been making and all the conflicting advice I am getting from all different sides; can someone perhaps walk me through what I need to do AT THIS POINT in time, based on what I am going to explain below, please?

Okay. So I am currently in the middle of treating for Ich with Kordon Rid-Ich (one of my fancytails exhibited signs of the disease a few days ago). I am on the second day of treatment, giving SIX teaspoons a day based on the directions of the bottle and my water load, and the bottle is almost empty and the stuff turns my water blue.

Outside of that, I have also been treating the water with Stability but I started this BEFORE the fish came down with Ich -- so I don't know if I should continue this or not. I have also added aquarium salt, 30 teaspoons for my tank, based on instructions, but my main concern now is what to do with the Ich medicine and the Stability and how it all comes together with my water changes...

Can someone tell me what I need to do now? Should I keep using the Stability WHILE I'm treating for Ich? As I said, I am on the second straight day of treating the Ich, and Stability I have three or so days left to go, to make it the recommended week. Should I stop stability altogether?

What about water changes -- I have not done any since the Ich appeared; how much water should I change at this point, and how do I medicate/give Stability through the changes?

If anyone could help in the simplest terms possible, I would greatly appreciate it...

[Fishguy2727]

Stability should not interfere with the meds or bother the fish in any way, keep it up.

Follow the directions for water changes on the bottle of the med. They should specify whether or not to wait until the end of treatment to do water changes. If they

[Osage_Winter]

Originally Posted by Fishguy2727

Stability should not interfere with the meds or bother the fish in any way, keep it up.

Are you sure? From everything I am reading, these medicines simply wipe out the good bacteria...I think even Kordon's site confirms that...

Follow the directions for water changes on the bottle of the med. They should specify whether or not to wait until the end of treatment to do water changes. If they

Did you finish what you were thinking here? I would like to know the rest...

[Fishguy2727]

If that med kills bacteria then monitor ammonia and nitrite. If the med doesn't specify when to or not to do water changes then do them.

I would just use Quick Cure.

What are the active ingredients in that med? It should say somewhere on the bottle.

[Osage_Winter]

Originally Posted by Fishguy2727

If that med kills bacteria then monitor ammonia and nitrite. If the med doesn't specify when to or not to do water changes then do them.

I would just use Quick Cure.

What are the active ingredients in that med? It should say somewhere on the bottle.

Can you get anything out of what they're saying here?

Kordon LLC - Kordon - Rid-Ich+

[taylorodw]

Hello Osage,

Well, we are at a bit of an impasse, because there is so much going on in your tank at once. Most of us try to change only 1 or 2 things at a time so we can easily back-track if something causes a problem. Here is how I would proceed:

Read the instructions (including fine print) on the bottles of rid-ich, stability, and any other chemical treatments (including dechlorinator) that you use. Does Rid-Ich say anything about "biological" additives (like Stability) or salt?. Does Stability say anything about medications, salt, or ich? If any chemical says not to use salt, "biological" or "bio-filter" additives, or medicines, then follow that instruction and don't mix the two chemicals.

For example, IF (and I am making this up as an example) Stability says not to use with ich medications, you need to stop using Rid-Ich or Stability.

We can help pick which chemical to stop in situations like that. I would stop using Rid-Ich in the above scenario.

Secondly, I believe you added the full treatment of salt to your aquarium directly, at once?

If your fish are fine, then joy to the world But I would be worried because we generally change the salinity very, very slowly in our tanks. I hate to be the bearer of bad news (because you are getting the worst of it right now) but problems may arise due to that shortly as well. Time will tell.

However it could be different depending what sort of salt you used. I am not experienced enough (I never put any salt in a tank) to tell you, sorry.

Okay, that said, if the instructions don't seem to have any conflicts, I would continue using salt, stability, and rid-ich. After the rid-ich treatment is over, run carbon in the filter to absorb the medicine. Remove the carbon and continue with salt and stability, slowly removing the salt after 2 weeks of no signs of ich.

Best of luck.

[fearlessfisch]

Hi there, I am not a goldfish keeper, but I did a quick search, and this thread from another board may be helpful to you, especially the last post at the bottom.

Fancy Goldfish with ich and fin rot? Medication advice needed

You are dealing with a tricky situation given the combination of coldwater fish, ich, and cycling. If you had tropical fish instead of coldwater fish, you could kill the ich with just heat, but you are probably going to have to go with meds that, as you suspected, will delay your cycle.

Good luck. I hope you'll let us know how it goes.

[Mark Hewitt]

Originally Posted by Osage_Winter

.some sites say DO NOT do water changes when treating with Kordon Rid-Ich...

First of all we need to know your water parameters, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate. For the most part Ich only manifests itself if there is some other underlying problem. The most common of which is ammonia poisoning.

Do you have a heater? I know goldfish are coldwater but they aren't tapwater cold so raising the temperature can help a little especially in getting rid of the Ich.

Next is to treat with salt, a heaped teaspoon per gallon is usually the amount and start doing 50% water changes maybe every other day - remembering to re-dose the salt according to how much water you've taken out.

Good luck, I lost my first two fish to Ich within days of getting them, if I'd known more and visited this site then I wouldn't have had that problem!

[Fishguy2727]

Sounds like a diluted version of Quick Cure.

[Osage_Winter]

So, continue using the Rid Ich IYO?

Also, would it be better at this point to drain the tank completely, put the fish into a holding tank using the Aqueon 20 for oxygen, clean all bacteria and infection off the plants, etc., replace the Aqueon filters with an AquaClear and just start over?

[cogburn]

did you take any carbon out of your filters before you started dosing?... its important to do that

[Fishguy2727]

If that med is not working I wouldn't keep using it.

Starting over like that will only throw things off, they have it and even if you put them in a truly sterile tank they would bring it right in with them.

[cogburn]

change 75% of the water... slowly SLOWLY raise the temp maybe 2 degrees a day at the most... 1 degree every 12 hours til you hit 90 degrees... that will kill all ich... leave it at 90 degrees for a week to 10 days... then slowly decrease the temp exactly the same way to get it back to where you normally keep it... i have 2 tanks a 29gal and a 180 gal... ive had ich in both and cured ich exactly the same way in both tanks without any medications... you already started with medications but just change a large portion of the water to get as much out as you can and do the temp. trust me it works

[Fishguy2727]

If you do that method make sure you have massive amounts of aeration (lots of air stones) because the warmer the water the less oxygen it can hold.

[cogburn]

yes very good point... add an extra air stone... i forgot about that

[Osage_Winter]

Originally Posted by cogburn

did you take any carbon out of your filters before you started dosing?... its important to do that

No I didn't -- I realized afterwards that this was a mistake, but now it seems like the Rid Ich just screwed my filters and cart pads up even more...it stinks like death warmed up in the cart containers...

I don't even know if my Aqueons contain carbon in their pads...

[Osage_Winter]

Originally Posted by Fishguy2727

If you do that method make sure you have massive amounts of aeration (lots of air stones) because the warmer the water the less oxygen it can hold.

I do have a lot of aeration in the tank -- there are two massive Top Fin bubble wands connected together and they put out a massive curtain of bubbles on the rear wall. I think this is what saved the fish all this time, to be honest...