anyone tell me what this is on my fish

[Joe5688]

Only my tiger barbs have it and not all of them. Kind of looks like sand



I've googled it and it looks like ich. If that's the case should I put the infected fish into my other tank that's cycled and only has 1 fish in it?

 

[Joe5688]

1~What type of fish is afflicted? Some of my barbs and rainbows
2~What are your tank parameters
ph: 8.0
Amonia: 0
Nitrite:<20
Nitrate:0
I may have mixed those 2 lol.
3~ How large is the tank? 100g L How long has the tank been set up? 2 months
4~What type of filtration are you using? Sunsun 303b
5~How many fish are in the tank? 24
What kinds of fish are they and what are their current sizes? touquiouse rainbows, platnimun tiger barb, buenos aires tetras, angels & loaches
6~When is the last time you did a water change and vacuum the gravel? Last week
How often do you do this? once a week
How much water do you remove at a time? 20%
7~How long have you had the fish? If the fish is new, how did you acclimate it/them? 2 months, the most recent are the tourquise rainbows. Got them about 2 weeks ago
8~Have you added anything new to the tank--decor, new dechlorinator, new substrate, etc.? New food
9~What kind of food have you been feeding your fish, have you changed their diet recently? Feeding frozen brine shirmp and for the past week i started feeding omega flakes once in a while

 

[Mumma.of.two]

It looks like ich. Leave the fish where they are. Treat the whole tank like its infected.
Slowly over a day or so increase the temperature up to 86-88F/30-31C.
Increase aeration.
Leave the temperature high for one week after the last spot is seen.
Increase water changes and gravel vacs during this time.
http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_ich2.php

 

[Joe5688]

I have a 12" bubble wand on one side of my tank so teh aeration should be all good.

I just did a water change and added some aquarium salt. Turned the temps on the heaters up too.

Sucks that i was just at petsmart and told my firned how i never had ich and i come home to it.

THanks for the help mumma

 

[Mumma.of.two]

No problem

 

[Joe5688]

Couple questions lol

How likely it's death? I noticed some of the barbs tails look like they have been nipped. I'm assuming from the tetras and the barbs not swimming as fast cause they are sick.

The barbs seem like their heads are heavy. As they are just sitting there floating it seems like their tails want to float up lol.

 

[Steo the great]

I've had this problem before and tried raising the water temp and also adding salt.
But what I found best was meds.
Went to local fish store got some blue stuff for treating ich popped it in for 2 days and the problem was gone.

 

[Joe5688]

Guy at work told me the same thing. Except he said 3 days lol

 

[Mumma.of.two]

I'm not going to lie to you. Some of the heavily infected may die. Ich can make its way into the gills affecting breathing and secondary infection can take hold because of all the open wounds after the ich falls off. That is why really clean water is needed. You can try a salt bath for the bad ones. 4 teaspoons of salt per gallon of tank water in a bucket. Let the fish 'soak' for half and hour then remove them back to the main tank. Keep a very close eye on them. If they tip over, freak out or breathing becomes labored remove immediately.

 

[Joe5688]

Ok thanks I might try that on some of the heavily infected barbs. I'm going to pick up some medicine called rid ich by kardon. Anyone have experience

 

[Mumma.of.two]

No. I really think you should wait it out a bit longer. Nothing is going to cure it over night. Patience.

 

[Steo the great]

Hey I used a white spot terminator. Made by someone called king British, original formula WS3. It was brilliant.
And as I said before I tried the salt and water temp raise.
But with the rising temperature I found any found I put in the tank went bad very very quickly and all the fish seemed to be very agitated. And eventually they all died so was completely pointless.

So the next time I had this problem I said I'm going for science over these natural remedies. And sure enough cleared out everything on all my fish.
And all I had to do was add 1ml of this formula into my tank twice and do some water changes following.

Let me know what you use in the end and how well it worked for you.

 

[Joe5688]

Will do thanks for the advice

 

[skywhitney]

Rid Ich is pretty good. I prefer it over the other meds. Its all organic so it doesn't contain the Formalin or Malachite Green (the two main meds for treating Ich). I used Rid-Ich and it seemed to help but be prepared to use it for a lot longer than 3 days. I was fighting Ich on and off for a few months and hands down the best treatement I can tell you is what Mumma recommended, Heat and salt. Its what finally cured my guys.

Please don't believe that you can rid your tank of Ich in a couple of days using meds either, the little suckers are quite persistent and resistent and you will need at least a couple of weeks of continuous treatment to cure the system.

 

[Joe5688]

Yeah I know that. temps are slowly rising and I added half the required salt for my tank last night. I just want the boogers off my fish!

I'm going to keep temps up for a while even after I don't see them anymore.

About them going into the substrate. I have sand should I just sweep the top a usual whole doing water changes.

 

[skywhitney]

yeah, you need to make sure you get them out of there as well.

 

[Mumma.of.two]

Extra vacuuming and water changes will help remove them from the substrate and water as they leave the fish.

 

[Joe5688]

Will my UV light in my filter help at all?

 

[Mumma.of.two]

Will my UV light in my filter help at all?

Yes it will a bit by killing the free floating stage of the ich.

 

[Joe5688]

wrong thread