UPDATED Need Help with Fish Ick First Time!

[Hamsnacks]

So I will definitely never buy fish from an unknown seller going forward and will never let someone who doesn't know fish take care of my tank. Lesson Learned!

I was away for a week and recently added 2 Ropefish, came back today to find one of my Harlequin Rasbora with White Spots (Fish Ick) very noticeable, another one with 1 spot, and a Boeseman Rainbowfish with some on its tail.
I have roughly around 70 fish in the 120Gal Tank. Mostly all tetras.

I believe the Ropefish ate a few of my Cardinals, and my ammonia was at 0.25, everything else was good. So the fish were definitely stressed.

I have never dealt with a disease in my tank, how should I approach this?
Should I just do a 50% water change and vacuum everything and hope for the best or should I take out the individual fish that may have it and try to cure them?
From my own search, I think the whole tank needs to be treated to be safe, this was my basic plan:

A temperature of 80 degrees, use Tetra Aquarium Ick Guard tablets, a pack of 8 is good for 80 gallons, I was thinking of just using that amount so it's not too hard on the Cardinals and Snails. Leave that for 24 hours and do 25% water changes for 3 days straight and go from there. If there are no more spots, continue to do water changes for a week, while vacuuming. If there is, maybe try a stronger dose.
I have a Fluval FX6, do I need to remove all the sponges in there that are black (carbon) what about the other media?

Very sorry for the long post, just didn't want to miss anything. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[Colin_T]

If you ever go on holiday for a week or so, don't bother getting people to look after the fish. Just feed them before you go and leave it at that. Fish can go for weeks without food and more fish die from well intentioned carers overfeeding, than starvation.

If you are planning a holiday, do not get new fish before you go. And if you ever get new fish, put them in a quarantine tank for a month before adding them to the main tank. this keeps any new diseases out of the main display tank.

Now that I have told you off, lets get onto business

--------------------------
Whitespot (Ichthyophthirius) is a protozoan parasite that kills fish if left untreated. There are 2 main treatments, chemical based medications that contain Malachite Green or Copper Sulphate, and heat.

Any commercially available white spot medication will work but you have to be careful if you have scaleless fishes (catfish, loaches) in the tank. If you do have scaleless fish in the tank then check the directions on the medication and use at the recommended dose rate for catfish and loaches. If there are no instructions for scaleless fish then use the medication at half strength.

The other way to treat the disease is to raise the water temperature to 30C (86F) and keep it there for 2 weeks. The parasites cannot survive at that temperature and die off. If you use heat treatment you do not have to use chemical based medications and it is a safer alternative.
There is more info about whitespot at the following link. The first post on page 1 and the last post on page 2 are worth reading.
http://www.fishforums.net/threads/what-is-ich.7092/page-2

--------------------------
If you use chemicals you will need to know exactly how much water is in the tank. To work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.

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

There is a calculator/ converter in the "How To Tips" at the top of this page that will let you convert litres to gallons if you need it.

Remove carbon from the filter before treating or it will absorb the medication and stop it working.

Wipe the inside of the glass down, do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean. And clean the filter before treating with medication or heat.

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

 

[Hamsnacks]

Trust me lesson learned, I will never make that mistake again. Did not want to come back to this.

In your opinion, would you go for the heat treatment? I did not want to use that method because I have cardinals, odessa barbs, corys and other similar fish, and online they say 80 degrees is the highest temp for them. But do you think they'll survive with the added heat? If so, I would rather go with this method.
I read what you said to read on the other posts, should I add salt, I heard salt can harm some tetras?

How would the increased heat affect plants? Will they melt Vals, ferns...?
Would the chemical method hurt plants?

Thanks for everything Colin, like usual incredible knowledge!

 

[Hamsnacks]

Sorry, maybe it's the plants that are not salt tolerated! Not the tetras.
Also, I think I will be doing the Heat method, I plan on Keeping my CO2 running the way it is, just to keep the plants doing their work and just add a bubbler for more water disturbance.

 

[Colin_T]

There is no need to add salt when using heat treatment. The theory is that the parasite doesn't tolerate salt and if you get the salt level high enough, that is true. But the salt levels required to kill the parasite will kill plants and stress most fish so I don't bother using it when using heat.

The heat will not affect the plants or cardinal tetras. The barbs and cories might be stressed and you should monitor them. They should tolerate the heat but if they roll on their sides or act stressed, then move the cories into another tank with cooler water and treat them with medication. Corydoras and barbs are normally fine tho so see how they go. Most people don't have a problem.

If you have CO2 on the tank, turn it off when using heat treatment otherwise the fish can suffocate. Don't add fertilisers during the heat treatment either. You want the oxygen levels to be as high as possible and running carbon dioxide and fertilisers will reduce the oxygen levels and the fish will be more stressed. 30C is close to the maximum temperature most fish can tolerate, so the more oxygen in the water, the better they do.

When you do raise the temperature, increase it a couple (2-3) of degrees each day until you get to 30C.
eg: if the water is 24C now then increase it to 27 today and 30 tomorrow.
eg: if the water is 26C now then increase it to 28 today and 30 tomorrow.

Do a big water change each day while the temperature is being increased to reduce the number of parasites in the water.

--------------------------
The medications used at the recommended dose will not affect plants.

--------------------------
I prefer the heat treatment because it is better for the fish. You will probably see more whitespots appear on the fish over the next few days, but once the temperature is at 30C, the spots will gradually disappear.

 

[Hamsnacks]

So its been a total of 7 days so far at a steady 31/32 Degrees (kept hearing from local hobbyist that the new tick are becoming heat resistant, so I figured I'd try to go a bit higher if the fish show no signs of stress. But just like you said Colin, more spots initially appeared but as soon as the temperature hit 30-31 they started to disappear, at this point, I can not see a single spot on any fish.

All the fish seem to be doing fine, the Corys have slowed down in their activity I'm assuming due to the heat but no deaths or anyone struggling. Plenty of increased aeration.

I did a 65 percent water change before the heat went up, and I have been doing vacuums daily of the substrate and whatever water comes out I haven't been replacing with new water. I've been replacing the water I've taken out after about 3 days, so about a 30 percent water change every 3 days.

At this point, do you think another 7 days will be good enough to say its safe, or do I do an additional 14 days in these conditions to be sure?

Thanks

 

[NickAu]

So its been a total of 7 days so far at a steady 31/32

7 days should be enough.

At this temp the ICH life cycle is only 12 to 24 hours, When the parasite leaves the host in search of a new host, it will be killed by the water's temperature.

 

[Colin_T]

14 days total is fine. The parasites are normally gone after 4-5 days but I keep the water warm for 2 weeks to make sure none are left alive. You do not have to keep the temperature warm for more than 14 days.

After the 2 weeks you should slowly lower the temperature by a couple of degrees each day. Don't drop the temperature 5 or 6 degrees per day because it can stress the fish, just drop it 2 or 3C degrees per day.

 

[Hamsnacks]

Thank you both for the information! Hopefully won't have to deal with this ever again, as much as I hated getting it, its been a very good eye-opener and shows you the importance of precautions when introducing a new fish.
And these ticks are incredible little things, very cool how they work and survive.

Thanks!