Is this ich?

[Jacky12]

It developed overnight on 3 severums. These I’ve never seen this before. What should I do? They are in a tank with 2 other sevs. Ok so far.

[Fishlover94]

Originally Posted by Jacky12

It developed overnight on 3 severums. These I’ve never seen this before. What should I do? They are in a tank with 2 other sevs. Ok so far.

Any pictures?

[Jacky12]

Was adding one. Needed to send to laptop for resizing. Hope it’s ok

Reading older posts here & elsewhere. Remedy seems to be elevate temp to 80-86F and use ich med. what’s a good one? I may be limited in options today per what’s available locally.
Should I do large water changes? How often? Think I’m going to have to use buckets so as not to contaminate my auto water exchange system used on all the tanks.

Edit #1: Best advice I’m seeing is in post by Colin is to do large water changes, vacuum & keep heat at 86F, no meds. Does this sound right? Sounds good to me since Colin is an expert.

Edit #2: Best to search fish forums for this type of info. Everyone’s trying to sell me something online.

[rlederer]

Originally Posted by Jacky12

Was adding one. Needed to send to laptop for resizing. Hope it’s ok

Reading older posts here & elsewhere. Remedy seems to be elevate temp to 80-86F and use ich med. what’s a good one? I may be limited in options today per what’s available locally.
Should I do large water changes? How often? Think I’m going to have to use buckets so as not to contaminate my auto water exchange system used on all the tanks.

Edit #1: Best advice I’m seeing is in post by Colin is to do large water changes, vacuum & keep heat at 86F, no meds. Does this sound right? Sounds good to me since Colin is an expert.

Edit #2: Best to search fish forums for this type of info. Everyone’s trying to sell me something online.

I agree with the advice of raising temperature, vacuuming the gravel, and changing water. But use ich meds, they work.

[Jacky12]

Yeah, thanks for responding. I’m struggling with that now. Can I do all of the above plus use meds? What’s a good one?

[Jacky12]

These fish love hiding behind large silk ficus vines. I removed and thoroughly rinsed, but have not returned to the tank. Could they be harboring the ich?

[Aiken Drum]

If you use meds then raise the temperature to 27c/80f to speed up the lifecycle such that a week long treatment should cover an entire lifecycle and kill off all the parasite.

This temperature on its own wont kill the parasite though.

A higher temperature, like 30c/86f will usually kill the parasite without need for meds, but there have been instances where the parasite has survived temperatures as high as 33c/92f.

High temperature and meds together can be stressful to already sick fish, so one or the other.

[Aiken Drum]

Originally Posted by Jacky12

These fish love hiding behind large silk ficus vines. I removed and thoroughly rinsed, but have not returned to the tank. Could they be harboring the ich?

Anything moved from an infected tank to an uninfected tank can potentially introduce the parasite.

[Jacky12]

Thanks, Aiken. Can you suggest a particular med or all they all pretty much the same? I am just about to see what the LFS has.

I’m marking all hosing etc used in cleaning this tank so as not to contaminate my others.

[Jacky12]

I guess I’ll get new vines then. The LFS has Ich-X and metroplex. Is one preferable?

[Aiken Drum]

I would use waterlife protozin, but you're stateside so would have different medications available. Something with malachite green in there. Protozin also has copper sulphate in it, which has a good chance of killing inverts, so thats something to look out for if you go down a meds route. Sorry, i can't remember if you keep snails or not.

[Jacky12]

No snails. Going to get IchX at LFS & compare ingredients to what you suggest. Maybe I can order another product online, assuming active ingredients different. Thanks for your help today. I’ve never had any sick fish. This is freaking me out.

[Aiken Drum]

Andy would be a good guide to what meds are good that are available to you. I would wait on what he and Colin say.

Ich treatment will treat the tank, not the fish. Treatment can only kill the parasite while its in the freeswimming stage, so your treatment wont help an already infected fish. It will either die or survive. Raising the temperature speeds up the lifecycle, and reduces the time a fish will be infected. After that the parasite goes down into the substrate to reproduce, and after that it goes freeswimming when any treatment can kill it before it infects fish again.

Leave the decs in the tank. Any treatment will kill off the parasite in the tank as long as its kept up for a whole lifecycle. At normal tropical aquarium temperature this time is about a month. At 30c about a week. At temperate temperature 2 or 3 months.

Leaving a tank with no fish in it will kill off the parasites too. No host fish, and the lifecycle gets broken. This is commonly done with marine tanks, where medication and heat will kill off coral. Remove the fish to QT and treat them there, while leaving the main tank fishless so the parasite will die off in a month or two.

[Jacky12]

An active ingredient in IchX is malachite green chloride which you reference in an old post.

Would moving these fish to another tank help? I’d have to use the same filters, a HOB & large sponge. Would they not contaminate the other tank? Will the ich on the fish reproduce in the new tank?

Yes, I’m hoping to hear from Andy & Colin. I’d hate to lose my sevs.

[Aiken Drum]

Moving them won't help. I only made the point as an interesting point to show that ich needs fish to survive, and will die off given enough time in a tank with no fish.

The tank is infected as well as the fish. You have to keep the fish somewhere, may as well be in your main tank.

Im sure i read something recently about treating ich by having a pair of bare bottom tanks, and moving the fish from one to the other every day, and doing a 100% water change in the empty tank to remove any parasite from the water. Eventually the fish and both tanks would be free of parasites. In the meantime the parasites would die off in your main tank as they have no host fish. It would work i suppose, but would be very stressful on the fish. Maybe i remember some of the detail wrong.

[Jacky12]

I have the IchX but haven't used it yet. This disease looks different since earlier today. The fish are sloughing off a layer of something. Is it their mucus coating? I noticed thin flakes at the tank surface when i did a 80% water change at an elevated temp. I may have raised the temp too rapidly with water instead of allowing the heaters to gradually elevate the temp. Or is this a natural progression of ich I accelerated? I think i did something stupid, but that ship has sailed.


The IchX says to treat after a water change and repeat every 8-24 hours with another 1/3 change. I will use a stress coat dechlorinator if I use this med which I am inclined to do. I let the water temp drop down to 80.

[Aiken Drum]

Im not convinced its ich.

[Colin_T]

Have you added any new fish to the tank in the last few weeks?

The amount of spots on the fish would suggest this is the second or third round of white spot in the tank. It's been there for a few weeks.

--------------------

Raising the water temperature to 30C (86F) and keeping it there for 2 weeks, or at least 1 week after all the spots have gone, will treat white spot. No medications needed, just warm water. Most tropical fish can tolerate this temperature for a couple of weeks.

Do a massive water change and complete gravel clean before raising the temperature. Clean the filter too. This reduces the number of parasites in the tank so there are fewer to infect the fish.

Increase aeration/ surface turbulence when using medications or heat because they reduce the oxygen level in the water.

--------------------

You can use a Malachite Green (aka Victoria Green) or Copper based medication to treat the tank. Same deal before treating, big water change, gravel clean and filter clean, and increase aeration.

You don't have to raise the water temp when using chemicals and it can be fatal if you do increase the temperature too much. The warmer water speeds up the parasite's lifecycle but the combination of chemical medication and heat can drop the oxygen levels too much and the fish suffocate.
26C is the highest temperature you want if using chemical medications.

Copper will kill invertebrate (snails, shrimp) so they have to be removed before treating with copper.

Malachite Green is a carcinogen (causes cancer) so avoid getting the stuff on your skin and wash hands and arms with warm soapy water after using it (or any medication). Don't use powdered Malachite Green because it is much too dangerous.

Remove carbon from filter before using chemical medications.

--------------------

You can transfer the fish into a clean container of water each day for a week and the parasites drop off the fish during that time. When you move the fish to a new clean container each day, you leave the parasites behind and they can't reinfect the fish. We did this mainly for marine fish in coral tanks so we didn't have to add anything to the tank.

--------------------

Before using medications, work out the volume of water in the tank.
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.

There are 3.785 litres in a US Gallon
There are 4.5 litres in a UK gallon

When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

If you have big rocks or driftwood in the tank, remove these before measuring the height of the water level so you get a more accurate water volume.

You can use a permanent marker to draw a line on the tank at the water level and put down how many litres are in the tank at that level.

More fish die from overdosing with chemicals so work out how much water is in the tank.

[Andy Sager]

Originally Posted by Jacky12

An active ingredient in IchX is malachite green chloride which you reference in an old post.

Would moving these fish to another tank help? I’d have to use the same filters, a HOB & large sponge. Would they not contaminate the other tank? Will the ich on the fish reproduce in the new tank?

Yes, I’m hoping to hear from Andy & Colin. I’d hate to lose my sevs.

Let me start by saying that ick is more a symptom of another problem as much as a problem unto itself. Healthy fish usually easily repel the parasite. So you need to do some research on your aquarium as to why the fish succumbed as badly as they have. Something has them stressed.


Seeing the fish as covered as they are, it looks more like oodinium/ velvet vs ick. Ick will eventually get to that stage but it takes days for that to happen. With oodinium, that can happen within hours so treatment should be quick.
If the spots are larger and look like salt crystals, that's ick and malachite green is an effective treatment. IchX or Fritz product FIXICK should work as they both contain malachite green.

If the spots are smaller, that's velvet/ oodinium so the best treatment for that is copper sulphate. You can use Mardel's Coppersafe for this. You will need to also get a copper test kit that measures chelated copper so you dose the coppersafe to the correct level. This is a 10 day treatment and there may be items in your tank that can absorb some of the copper out of solution. You also want to turn the lights off and keep the tank as dark as possible as velvet photosynthesises the light for food. You should also raise the temperature to at least 82-84 degrees. Be sure to increase aeration as the higher temperature will reduce dissolved oxygen levels in the water.
There have been some good results with doing saltwater dips of the fish but if it's an advanced stage, it's better to add salt to the tank than stress the fish with capturing it/them to dip it/them. All the fish in the tank may have some stage of the parasite so all fish need to be treated.

If you are unsure which it is, go to this link: https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...d-info.626692/ and about a third of the way down will be pictures of both conditions for you to compare.

If you are still unsure, I'd treat with the coppersafe, heat and darkness. Malachite green will kill ick but not oodinuium. Coppersafe will treat both but is a harsher treatment so used more carefully.

[Jacky12]

Thanks, Colin. I do monitor this tank carefully; it’s next to my stationary bike. I swear, this popped up overnight, unless only a well trained eye would have detected it sooner. No new fish were added to this tank, however other new fish were there before & moved to another tank. I thought I thoroughly cleaned this tank before adding the sevs, but apparently not.

The IchX directions say 5ml per 10 gallons.

I’m concerned moving the fish around will stress them more. I am not very good at netting most fish. The goldfish, guppies & angels are easy, but the sevs resist.