help

[cwr]

i have 2 female betta's in a 10 gallon tank with many other fish and like a few weeks agoe we bought some fish from wallmart and now the tank is infested with ich i think that how u spell it and the ich wont go away and both of my female betta's are looking verry poorly in health any ideas on what to do?

 

[cutecotton]

i acutally have the same problem in my 25G righ tnow, here's the typical procedure i'd follow through with ich:

a) do a 20% water change first, syphon up all the crap stuck in yoru gravel
B) put back with fresh dechlorinated water
c) add the proper amount of aqarium salt (be careful if you have any scaleses fish like bottom feeders and stuff)
d) turn up the temperature to 80-82F
e) add in some ick medicine

Keep doing that everyday for 5 days and the ich will probably be gone. If you see it getting worse you might want to try and isolate the female bettas as they can be kept in litlte coantiners (just like males) becase they breathe on the surface.

The higher temperature will cuase the ick to speed up their cycle faster, and hopefully teh salt and medicine will be enough to kill them. I guess i would be a little careful with changing the water everyday becuase some fish are more sensitive to water hcanges than others. You dont' want to further stres shtem out becuase that'll give the ick a chance to strike again.

good luck, i'm still hoping my tank will pull through
p.s. do you mind me asking what fish you have in your 10G?

 

[cwr]

i had like 2 female betta's and we had 4 black mollies like 4 neons i think and like 10 sun fish i think i really dont know it was my moms tank but now we only have the 2 betta's and 2 black mollies

 

[Tempestuousfury]

You had too many fish.

For a ten gallon tank, even three mollies is cutting it too close to overpopulating the tank. On top of that you had tetras and bettas. The stress added to the ich.

However, the real culprits were the bettas. I'd suggest never buying fish from Walmart unless you quarantine them. Their stock is always bad so it's always good to take precautions.

 

[cutecotton]

i agree, when dealing with female bettas, i'ts best to buy them in groups of 3 or 4, that way the pecking order can be sorted out and the aggression can be distributed more evenly. Do you find that one of the two betta seems to be weaker? if you only have two, the stronger female would most likely bully the weaker one, giving her stress, and in turn making her develop ich.

 

[cwr]

Well my two betta's are now cut down to 1 betta

 

[cutecotton]

uh oh sorry to hear