ich or what...help

[anniekm5454]

I bought a few new fish, all were healthy. I put new silk plants and a new decoration in my 65 gallon fish water tank. A week and a half later I have what looks mostly like ich, but some fish are almost completely covered and look slimy. My red tail shark has a huge white spot near his tail. Almost all my fish have ich looking spots. I have raised my temp to 82 degrees and am treating with "rid ich plus" I added a little aquarium salt too. Now what?? Is this just ich, if not what do I do? I have a few different kinds of rainbows, red Honduran, red head earth eaters, emperor tetras, upside down cats and a couple feather head cats. Under ground filters with power heads. Water check all normal. I'm really confused.

 

[Thrawn]

Ok he are some ways
1 remove anyfish that appears to have a lot of the white spots( those are the ones that arent going to make it sorry if you for your lost)
2 go to your lfs and buy a ich treatment asap
3 clean out enitre tank since it will certainly still be infected
4 add only water no substrate or deco
5 add fish
6 apply the ick treatment as read in directions
7 it should certainly work(also change and clean filter)
If it appears to be working then clean your substrate well 1hr in a bag filled with water or bucket. Slowly add deco also wash them.


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[anniekm5454]

I am treating and doing gravel vacuum daily and have the temp up to 82' if I remove ALL fish won't this stress them more, and make it worse?? I haven't had ich for 20 years and don't remember how I got rid of it. Thanks for your reply.

 

[treemanone2003]

Ok he are some ways
1 remove anyfish that appears to have a lot of the white spots( those are the ones that arent going to make it sorry if you for your lost)
2 go to your lfs and buy a ich treatment asap
3 clean out enitre tank since it will certainly still be infected
4 add only water no substrate or deco
5 add fish
6 apply the ick treatment as read in directions
7 it should certainly work(also change and clean filter)
If it appears to be working then clean your substrate well 1hr in a bag filled with water or bucket. Slowly add deco also wash them.


Sent from my NX008HD8G using Aquarium Advice mobile app

This is the worst advice I've ever seen printed or heard !!!!!

You're #1 is absolutely wrong. Just because a fish has ich DOES NOT mean it's going to die !!!!
#2, WRONG AGAIN !!!!
#3, re-read #2.
As for #'s 4-7, WRONG WRONG WRONG AND WRONG !!!!

PLEASE DO NOT GIVE THIS ADVICE AGAIN AND DO SOME MORE RESEARCH.

 

[treemanone2003]

I bought a few new fish, all were healthy. I put new silk plants and a new decoration in my 65 gallon fish water tank. A week and a half later I have what looks mostly like ich, but some fish are almost completely covered and look slimy. My red tail shark has a huge white spot near his tail. Almost all my fish have ich looking spots. I have raised my temp to 82 degrees and am treating with "rid ich plus" I added a little aquarium salt too. Now what?? Is this just ich, if not what do I do? I have a few different kinds of rainbows, red Honduran, red head earth eaters, emperor tetras, upside down cats and a couple feather head cats. Under ground filters with power heads. Water check all normal. I'm really confused.

I suggest you go to the search area and type in Ich. There are many threads that cover this. I won't tell you exactly what to do, as I've never had an Ich problem, but you will find a better plan of action after searching some of the threads. I can say what the other poster mentioned is like I said above, WRONG !!!

 

[Delapool]

I bought a few new fish, all were healthy. I put new silk plants and a new decoration in my 65 gallon fish water tank. A week and a half later I have what looks mostly like ich, but some fish are almost completely covered and look slimy. My red tail shark has a huge white spot near his tail. Almost all my fish have ich looking spots. I have raised my temp to 82 degrees and am treating with "rid ich plus" I added a little aquarium salt too. Now what?? Is this just ich, if not what do I do? I have a few different kinds of rainbows, red Honduran, red head earth eaters, emperor tetras, upside down cats and a couple feather head cats. Under ground filters with power heads. Water check all normal. I'm really confused.

Ok, ok - all is not lost. Ich is pretty survivable. It's just that if you get it in a new tank for example, a bit harder on fish. Perhaps that was being thought of.

Is the ich like white, salt grains? We should confirm this is ich first.

The slime could well be excess mucus coat being produced to try and stop the ich latching on. I've seen that on catfish or sharks - can't remember which.

82F sounds fine - how are they doing at that temp?

Edit - how much salt did you add? Ich can take a week to two weeks to get rid of as well, plus treatment for the same period once visible signs of ich are gone.

Also have some links on the heat treat method if interested as you are almost there to the 86F needed but we need to find out more first on your tank.

 

[anniekm5454]

Ok thanks! My tank set up is old....23 years old! I did add new silk type plants and a new decoration a week and a half ago. The temp seems fine on them so far. I'm not seeing new whites spots and yes, it looks like salt, but, on a couple FISH the spots are larger and cover fins and body, on another fish spots are smaller and on his head and a few on his fins, his body is not covered though with spots. The fish that have the spots are new.

 

[anniekm5454]

TANK set up is old....23 years old. I put 1/4 the dose of salt due to having the cat fish. Yes spots are like salt, on some fish it's really big and slot others it's small and just a few spots. They seem to be ok with the higher temp so far, and all are still eating.

 

[Delapool]

Wow - 23 years old that's a heck of a few decades. I missed the ugf's with power heads. I had air powered then got out of the hobby and came back in to canister filters

You mentioned the fish that have the spots are new so I'm suspecting that's where the ich came from. It does sound like ich.

Gravel vacs sounds good. Also the salt sounds good to help. Just in case, did you remove any carbon in filters? I think I found the product below? If similar it should be fine, do you have a liquid based test kit to check ammonia, etc to make sure the filter bacteria are doing ok? Also it will help to increase tank aeration if possible - both the heat and the meds will remove O2 from the water. Keep an eye on the fish the fist night of treatment, that's when I'm mostly noticed the fish struggling.

Rid Ich + | Kordon!

Raising the temp will also speed up the life cycle of ich so it will look to get worse before it gets better unfortunately. A tank temp at 86F will treat ich (heat treat method) and I've added a few links below with more detail. If you heat treat, you don't want any cold spots in the tank.

However it is usually not suggested to combine heat with meds. You need excellent aeration and the fish need to be coping well with the heat.

Last time I treated for ich I did use meds plus heat (running three filters) and it took about 10 days for the last spot to go (so not a quick process), and then you should treat for about a week to 10 days after to make sure it is not hiding in the gills or anything.

Hope that helps, post any questions or others will add where I have missed.

Edit - forgot to add. Increasing the heat also increases the risk of other bacterial or fungal infections as well (lovely isn't it), so you want to keep an eye out for that. The good news is the meds will help a bit to prevent any secondary infections.

Using Heat to Treat Ich in Freshwater Tropical Fish - Article at The Age of Aquariums - Tropical Fish

Aquarium Ich Disease | Ichthyophthirius Multifilis & Cryptocaryon

Disease Treatment Tips