jamesbarr Posted April 17, 2012 Report Share Posted April 17, 2012 my fish have ich, what do i do? My wife is going to buy some treatment stuff tomorrow. what else do i do? I also have the heat at 26 C help me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckmullin Posted April 17, 2012 Report Share Posted April 17, 2012 Scratch them of course silly! Oh, thought you said itch. Easier than typing a bunch of stuff. Treating Ich As long as the Ich parasite is protected inside its cyst, it is virtually impossible to get to - the levels of medication that would be necessary to affect the parasite inside the cyst would kill the fish as well. This is why we must focus on the free-swimming tomite stage when the parasite is much more vulnerable. Bring up the water temperature to 85-88 degrees F (if you think you fish can handle it). As mentioned above, Ich can attach itself to the gills of fish and make it hard for them to breathe. It is therefore a good idea to increase aeration in the aquarium to keep the levels of oxygen really high. Adding more aeration is especially important if you increase the water temperature since cool water holds more oxygen than warmer water. Add roughly one teaspoon of salt per gallon of water. (You can adjust this amount depending on how salt tolerant you fish are.) Carry out a series of water changes and clean all the gravel. Changing around 50% of the water once a day is recommended. Continue the treatment for at least one week, since you can only kill the free-swimming Ich parasites. The speed of the life cycle is temperature dependant (it will for instance take three days at 80 degrees F) and continuing treatment for an entire week is recommended to be on the safe side. If this is not enough to combat the Ich outbreak, you need to visit your local fish store and pick up some anti-Ich medication. Unfortunately, the Ich parasites seem to become more and more resilient towards treatment each year. Lazy aquarists and pet shop keepers are often tempted to constantly use medications to fend off disease, instead of devoting themselves to frequent water changes etcetera, and this makes it easy for resistant strains of parasites and bacteria to develop. http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/disease/ich.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quetzalcoatl Posted April 17, 2012 Report Share Posted April 17, 2012 how big are your fish? little fish are more likely to die but big fish handle well the treatment and get better in about two weeks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mokos Posted April 17, 2012 Report Share Posted April 17, 2012 I agree smaller fish you have to be carefull with. I'll give you a couple tips that may help you out. I bought my meds at Walmart jungle Ich guard, its like $4.50 and one bottle treats 60 gal.It was cheaper for me to get it there than drive to Calgary and get some from lfs. Problem is it stains your silicone blue. I have notice tho that the color fades away and now I barely notice it. As for treatment I never raised my temp only because I had small fish and the medication takes oxygen from the water. I kept mine at 81. Be sure to have lots of aeration if you don't have access to more air pumps and stones lower your water level a little if you have a HOB filter. Or raise your spray bar from your canister and point it into the water so it makes lots of noise. Lol Now your going to want to add your medication and every 24 hours siphon your substrate like you would if you were cleaning it and add the Medication when your done. and repeat this till you see no more spots. Continue your treatment for about 3 days after the spots have cleared. And when your done do another big water change. This is probably not neccassary but I watch my fish alot and when I noticed that they went from lots of spots to hardly any that day I syphoned longer and did a much bigger water change that day. Just to get more of the parasite out of the tank. I only started Doing this because( pretty sure harold mentioned it to)The Ich lately has been spreading like wild fire and wiping out tanks much quicker and becoming immune to certain medications. Sorry If I rambled on,Hopefully you don't loose any or very few fish Good luck Jeff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesbarr Posted April 19, 2012 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2012 hey all. Thank you very much for coming to my aid. I bought the marine salt and added 1 tbsp per 5 gal. Did a W/C today. Things are looking up. not totally out of the woods but I dont hate loving my tank at this point :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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