My crazy ich-fish question

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Devilishturtles

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Jul 9, 2003
Messages
8,543
Location
Frederick, Maryland
I recently bought 3 small clown loaches to put into my 55 gal tank. The filter on my QT was broken, so they were no QT'ed. I acclimated and everything, they were doing fine. I was examining the fishies the other morning before heading off to school, and I noticed that one of the loaches had ick on it's tail. And I'm 99.9% positive that is what it is. So, off to Wal-Mart I go to work. I was going to buy some meds, but totally forgot about it. I got home at around 10 pm, and checked in on the fish..and No ick to be found anywhere.

Ok, I'm thinking, maybe I was seeing things, it was kinda early :) So, a day passes, and no sign of Ich. I look again, the following day, and the ich is there again. Ok, I'm going to buy some ick meds tonight. I go to work, and don't ya know, we are sold out! (My fault I know, since it is my responsibility to order the stuff), but none the less... I order some before I leave, and get home. The ick is there, but it seems in lesser amounts. In the morning, it is gone. That was this past week, and the ick has since come back again.

So, to my question. Is this a common issue? Is the ich there? Should I treat the tank viciously, make sure it is all gone? I have risen the tank temp slowly today to about 78 degrees, took my snail out to reside with the betta, and am going to add some salt tonight I think. I will go out to WM tommorow to get some medicine, but is there anything special that I should do?

My parameters are:
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - about 30, soon to come down, water change planned tommorow.
temp - 78 currently

Any comments would be greatly appreciated, I just want to understand what is going on and prevent anything to happen before it spreads to my beloved fish, which if they were to die, I would probably cry! :wink:

Thanks ahead of time!
 
I don't like that is common for ich to come and go. I do know that clowns are susceptible to ich infections. Also, loaches do not react well to many meds, so make sure to research ahead of time---better yet, treat the whole tank with heat.
 
Thanks for the response menagerie. Just an update, the ich is gone again... So, I'm not sure what to do... I have never, in a year with this tank, had ich... so I think I'm just going to buy some loach-safe meds and treat the tank. I'm a little unsure about treating with heat because as for now, I still have my goldies in their, while I set up a new tank to put them in... They can't survive the heat treatment can they?

TIA
 
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