Best Course of Action

[jbennett61]

Hello All,

I have a 72 gallon bow front freshwater tank, populated with a small population of African Cichlids. The water chemistry tests as of this morning were all o.k.

I added a new fish last weekend and when he went into the tank there were no visible signs of Ich on him or the other fish. I'll also admit that I'm a little lax when I add fish, I don't do it all that often and my tank has a UV system on it, so I remove the fish from the water he came in and skipped the quarantine tank. I have had the tank for over 7 years now and until now have never had a problem.

What I didn't realize is that the bulb on the UV unit burned out sometime in the last two weeks. I change the bulbs every 6 to 8 months and this bulb went out way ahead of schedule so I wasn't even looking for this one to not be working.

So as a consequence I have a mild case of Ich, the new fish and a couple of tank mates. No one seems distressed from it yet and I'd like to nip it in the bud if possible. I've bumped the water temp up to 80, have the water being over aeriated (sp?), and the UV up and running again as well. Is there anything else you all would suggest be done?

Thanks in advance.

Thanks.

 

[Toadfish]

A couple drops of methyl blue won't hurt (provided you have no scaleless fish ie loaches). I would even suggest raising the temp to 84 and do water changes every other day.