ICH killed ALL my fish. Now what? :'(

[aramirezo91]

Hello friends,

About a couple of weeks ago my fish contracted a very aggressive ich infection. I tried everything. Nothing worked. I've dealt with ich in the past and it has never been this serious, I had never lost a fish to it and in a matter of a week I lost all 11. I'm so sad. My last fish, a beautiful flame gourami, passed away today.

So my question is, what's next? I had taken away the filter media so the medicine would be able to function, but I know that these meds can also mess with the good bacteria in the fish tank. In an attempt to preserve the bacteria I saved the filter with some tank water in a container. Its been there for a little over a week with no water circulation, but maybe if I put new filter media along with my old one for a couple of days some of the good bacteria will be able to pass along to the new filter media so I don't have to lose the cycle.

Should I rinse out my whole tank? I know ich parasites always live in the tank but I'm scared of putting new fish in there.

Help?!

 

[Delapool]

Hello,

I would heat the tank up to 86F or higher and run that for a week or so to make sure all ich is completely gone. Ich won't survive without a host in an empty tank. It may survive without being noticed in the gills imo but generally I've always been able to track an ich outbreak back to buying something recently from the lfs. Just my experience.

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

 

[lksdrinker]

Hello friends,

About a couple of weeks ago my fish contracted a very aggressive ich infection. I tried everything. Nothing worked. I've dealt with ich in the past and it has never been this serious, I had never lost a fish to it and in a matter of a week I lost all 11. I'm so sad. My last fish, a beautiful flame gourami, passed away today.

So my question is, what's next? I had taken away the filter media so the medicine would be able to function, but I know that these meds can also mess with the good bacteria in the fish tank. In an attempt to preserve the bacteria I saved the filter with some tank water in a container. Its been there for a little over a week with no water circulation, but maybe if I put new filter media along with my old one for a couple of days some of the good bacteria will be able to pass along to the new filter media so I don't have to lose the cycle.

Should I rinse out my whole tank? I know ich parasites always live in the tank but I'm scared of putting new fish in there.

Help?!

Hello,

I would heat the tank up to 86F or higher and run that for a week or so to make sure all ich is completely gone. Ich won't survive without a host in an empty tank. It may survive without being noticed in the gills imo but generally I've always been able to track an ich outbreak back to buying something recently from the lfs. Just my experience.

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

This is good advice. I've found heat treatments work better than anything else for ich. When I have to deal with it I slowly crank the tank temp up to 88-90 degrees and keep it there for 10 days after the last white spot is visible on a fish.

But your bio media thats been out of the tank for a week probably has no beneficial bacteria left. You essentially starved it of both oxygen and an ammonia source. Without that it cant survive.

Also, when you say you removed the filter media while treating....what exactly did you remove? If you removed all of the biological filtration in an attempt to treat the ich you may have caused an ammonia spike and/or the tank started cycling again.

 

[aramirezo91]

ugh. yeah, that's exactly what I did. This fish tank is pretty new and when I bought it, the filter was already up and running (got it at craigslist). I thought it was all integrated, but I just noticed you're just supposed to fill up the baggie with carbon yourself. I had no idea I could empty it!

I tested my water daily, there was a small spike, you are totally right. Nothing terrible or alarming but it probably made it worse for my fishies I was changing 25% every two days with the gravel vac.

Tank's been running fish less for only two days so far. Wondering why I'm gonna do with it now. I've always wanted a planted aquarium, but never seem to do very good with plants. Maybe low tech all java moss could do the job? Moss bonsai with a moss carpet.

Saw this beautiful boy at a bidding site. I'm thinking he might get lucky and end up in a big 10G all for himself. only 10 hours left to bid though, they ship from Thailand but I'm not sure if thats enough time for my tank to go back to normal.

What do you guys think?!

thanks for al the help!!!! <3

 

[Delapool]

Personally I'd give the tank longer to sort itself out. I know it gets boring