Ich with goldfish, how to treat?

[shadylady23]

If you haven't read any of my other posts, I just bought a bunch of fish on Sunday and found out 2 days ago they have ich. I'm treating the tank with heat and salt, but someone on here told me my comet goldfish may not do so well in the heat.

I think I agree with her as he developed some ich spots today. I'm going to put him in the QT tank, but what should I do to treat the ich. Salt? or just come medication or something?

Thanks for the input! I'm watching these guys carefully trying to get this under control before they all perish. I raised the temp as quickly as I could without trying to stress them too much, (but ich will as well im sure) Have more bubbles, and so far I've been adding the 1 Tbsp per 10 gallons. I have corycats so I'm not sure if putting more salt will put them at risk like I've read. I do have a hydrometer on it's way so I can keep track of the salinity. Cause with all these water changes it's getting hard to keep track of what's in there..

Mary-

 

[tyspot1000]

Heat alone is the best method for getting rid of ich in mild outbreaks , however not the most effective on severe outbreaks even for goldfish. Raising the temperature to 86 and performing frequent, partial water changes can help the situation greatly but may not always be 100% effective. This method will help to control the Ich but is not the best primary course of action in your situation. Leaving the tank at such a high temp for two weeks unnessarly stresses the fish far beyond what is required. The addition of aquarium salt dosed at 1 teaspoonful per 5 gallons will eradacate the parasite completly in 72 hours. If done correctly.

With the water temp at 86F
First do a 50% water change and vacume the gravel this will reduce the number of parasites in the tank. Next dose with the pre-disolved salt as discribed above.

The second day repeat, the third day repeat, Ich should now be gone you could leave the temp at 86 for an extra day. On day four do another water change without the addition of the salt. Then return the temperature to your normal setting.

Salt disrupts the life cycle of the parasite by changing the specific gravity of the water and osmotic pressure (the differance between the pressure inside the cell and the water) causes the parasite to expolde. I only added this so you not only know that salt works you'll know and understand how it works.

Please use only aquarium salt not table salt which contains anti-caking agents (yellow prussiate of soda) which is toxic to aquarium fish.

Tyler

 

[dkpate]

Remember that salt does not evaporate either, so you will have to manually remove it.
If I had corys and goldfish, I would not use heat OR salt, I would go get Kordon's Ich-Attack and use that.

 

[shadylady23]

I took out the goldfish, so far things seem okay. Fish are swimming ALOT, dont know if theyre swimming too much or if this is okay. I have 4 Platys, 3 guppies, 6 corycats, and 2 gouramis in there now. (which I listed in another post, so I figured I would add that.)

The gouramis seem to be doing the best, no signs of anything, and happy as can be. (or so they seem)

Corycats seems a little lazy, I hope they pull through..They probably dont like the heat. If things dont look good in the morning I'll probably figure something out, maybe I can give them back and trade them in for some more platys or something.

Platys seem fine, and they're the ones with the spots.

Well see what tomorrow brings, now I just have to make sure the temp doesnt get too hot during the night, then back to cleaning in the morning. Wish us luck! Thanks for the info.

 

[mudraker]

I’ve heard Kordon works well but like other treatments, can only eradicate ich in its free swimming stage, so it is important to keep up treatment for several days after the last cyst has fallen off the fish.

I treated corys for ich last summer with heat and salt and they did fine, still are as a matter of fact.

 

[shadylady23]

Lost a guppy last night. But the corys are there happy little selves this morning, constantly looking for food. I do see a male guppy chasing a platy, is he trying to mate with her? That'd be weird.

Going to clean house now. I'll get that ich attack for the goldfish I suppose and keep them in qt till I can lower the temp in the large tank. Keep you posted!

 

[jsoong]

Best thing I found for goldfish with ich is salt ... in the proper amounts.

Goldfish are very salt tolerant. You can use far more salt compared to other fish.

For basic treatment, you want to keep the fish in 0.3% salt until 2-3 weeks after all visible spots are gone. You want to raise the salt level over 2 days ... say add 0.1% every 12 hrs. <0.1% salt is 4g of salt per gallons or ~1 teaspoon per gallon.>

For heavy infestation, you can do a salt dip. You put the fish in 0.5% up to 1.0% salt for up to 15 minutes to quickly knock off a lot of the surface parasites. Then transfer the fish to the 0.3% solution for the rest of the treatment. You MUST carefully watch the fish if you do a salt dip, you will need to remove the fish to fresh water immediately if it start to lose consciousness. Weak fish might last only a minute or less in a salt dip.

You can increase the temp to shorten treatment time with salt. However, it will be stressful for a comet to get the temp up to 90F to kill ich without salt. However, you can take the temp up to high 70's or 80 with good aeration, and that would shorten the time needed for treatment. <It may take several months to treat ich in a cold pond of 50-60F with salt, but only a week or 2 at 80F.>

 

[shadylady23]

I have him in a 1.5 gallon qt. So far I've added 1 tsp of salt, daily 50% water changes adding 1/2 tsp when refilling. Fish store gave me some quICK cure. I've been adding a drop a day like it says. Just got this yesterday afternoon. Still have spots though....

I'll just keep it up though, waters at like 70, but I don't have another heater to add right now and it's one of those little ones that you can't adjust.

 

[dkpate]

Ich will usually get worse before it gets better. The meds won't kill the ich on the fish, it has to be in it's free swimming stage.
The ich attaches to the fish, makes the white spots, falls off the fish and forms a cyst in the substrate, then the cyst explodes into the free swimmers, which is when the meds will kill them.
I used QuICK Cure with one of my bettas, and the ich was gone after 3 days.

 

[shadylady23]

Yes! Yes! Yes! Things are looking up! I see NO spots on any fish in my large tank! Goldfish in qt still have some though.

 

[dkpate]

Make sure you run the whole course of meds, and don't stop. The ich falls off into the substrate, makes the cyst, and then explodes again, which is when they are killed. So if there are less spots on the fish, that means that that ich has fallen off, and it sitting in it's little cyst house on the bottom.
Glad things are getting better!

 

[mudraker]

^5

Sometimes it can take awhile for the white spots to disappear, especially if the area where the parasite was embedded on the fish gets infected after the parasite sheds off the fish.

Also, in the cooler water, the lifecyle of the ich will be slower than the 86+ degree water.

 

[shadylady23]

Okay, I'm starting to drop the temp in the big tank now.... What do you think, 1 degree every 6 hours or so?

 

[dkpate]

I dropped mine faster with no problems, but since your fish were sick, and mine was a heater malfunction, that sounds like a good temp drop rate.

 

[mudraker]

Most recommend a slow drop of one degree every 12 hours, one degree in the mornining, one degree at night. But I too have done it faster with no ill effect.

How has the recovery gone?