Ich not responding to treatment?

[venymae]

I have a fairly new tank. One month old. 10 gallons, waterfall filtration. I cycled it with three tetras for two weeks and also started it up with two gallons of water from a friends established tank to speed up the cycling process. I then added 4 more Neon tetras and have had an outbreak of ich (probably came in with the new fish). I have treated the tank by upping the temperature to 80F, treating with nox-ich at half strength, and feeding them Tetra Anti-Parasite Medicated flakes for the last 7 days. They seemed to not be getting better, but not worse either.
Today however it looks like several of them have gotten MUCH worse, the number of spots looking almost double. They still are acting fine, and eating very well. I did a vacuum and water change right before I started (so 7 days) and planned to do another today, but I'm still worried that they are getting worse. They look worse anyway. Any advice? The medicated flakes are a bit old....but I figured with the nox-ich it would be ok.

 

[venymae]

Oh also last time I had the pet store check the water it was good Ammonia-0 Nitriates and Nitrites safe levels (they didn't tell me exact numbers) Ph is a little hard on account of our water being very naturally hard here. hope that helps.

 

[Fishfur]

Part of the problem may be that you dosed at half strength. If you are going to use meds, do what the instructions say. Half dosing only kills a few and those that live will become more resistant to the meds.

If you do plenty of large water changes, it helps remove as many of the parasites from the water as possible before they turn into more of their kind.. see this article, it explains it far better than I can typing a half page here. I'll go find it in a sec.

There is also a heat and salt resistant strain of ich out there. If that's what you have, it will take much longer to cure, but it can be cured. Hang on while I find the article.

Edit. http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/ich.php

Also, if at all possible, get your own test kit and test your own water. You can find if there are problems faster and fix them sooner than having to wait for the store to do it, plus you can get exact numbers. In a cycled tank, the only acceptable number for ammonia and nitrite is zero. Nitrate can be anywhere from 5 ppm up to 50 ppm but most try to keep it around 20 or less.

Btw, aquarium water has virtually none of the beneficial bacteria, BB, that are needed to cycle the filter. Rinsings from a mature filter, or a piece of dirty media from a mature filter can cycle a tank in a day or two, so either one is well worth doing, but the water really does not help and depending on the tank it came from can bring critters with it you don't want or need too.

 

[venymae]

Thanks for the advice! Well, the nox-ich did say to use half dose for sensitive fish such as tetras and skin fish- which is why I did. Just got my water tested and my Nitrites were a little high. I did a big water change (60%?) as you suggested -also vacuumed the gravel. Hope it helps. I did read the article on Ich that this website has (just now), didn't know I needed to remove carbon filter with meds so I just removed that too. Fish are all still acting well, except the little one that has twice as many spots as everyone else. He's a little less active and is not eating as well. I really hope he doesn't die.