Hmmm Advice After Losing 26 Fish To Ich

[piper]

Hello all, well I have had a serious bought of ich in my 70Gal tank and it looks like out of my 26 fish I’m only going to be left with two (One Dwarf Gourmai and an African Butterfly Fish), although it wouldn't surprise me to go home tonight to find them dead as well. Could you advise me on restocking in these two scenarios?

1) Assuming (I hope) my last two fish survive how long after finishing medication should I wait before adding new fish?

2) If they do all die should I remove all water from the tank so that all the bacteria dies off, or can the nasty ich only exist when there are fish in the tank. If so how long should I leave the tank empty?

Thanks for your help, I’m really thinking about investing into a quarantine tank now, I cant go through this process again.

Tested water last night was:
Ammonia (NH3) = 0
Nitrite (N02-) = 0
Nitrate (NO3-) = les than 5
PH = 7.0

 

[karlp]

Hi Piper

I'm not sure why you've lost so many fish to Ich. it's common to lose one or two, but if you catch it early enough it's quite easily treatable. Do you have any idea why it's been so bad ? Has the tank only just finished cycling ?

I think the simple answer is that patience is the answer here. If you still have two fish left after the Ich, then it's not possible to strip down the tank and throw away everything because you'll make the poor fish suffer a new cycle. It may also be completely unnecessary.

I would recomend doing two or three good sized water changes during the next week, so that by the end of the week, you've effectively changed all the water. make sure to get the gravel cleaner well into the gravel to hoover up any cysts.

Then, set the temperature to 26C and don't add any fish for two weeks. If your last remaining fish doesn't have any whitespot at the end of two weeks, then it's reasonable to assume it's gone and add more fish.

Be aware that with only 2 fish in the tank, your tank's ability to cycle waste will be very low because much of the nitrifying bacteria will have died off, so only add a few fish each week when you restock and at the first sign of ich, don't add any more until the Ich is sorted.

Hope that helps

 

[smmetz]

I think I read in another thread that ich can only last about 14-16 days without any fish to infect. Looks like the rest of the questions were already answered by Fishy Mad

 

[piper]

Thanks both that helps me,

The reason I lost so many fish was because I went away on holiday and came back to find most of the tank infected. The tank has been set up for 2 months now. And unless my tetra complete master test kit is lying to me the water stats are good.

I can only assume one of my newer fish bought the infection in and by the time I could treat it, it was too late for most of them.

Although I have made a spray bar out of electrical PVC conduit, is it possible for PVC to harm my fish ?

 

[Trance2006]

I personally have put Salt in mine. I put a little more than whats recommended and heat the heater up to 82 F. I do this at the first signs of Ich. But if it is severe which means I didn't notice it I put in some meds and take out the box in my fluvals. I've only had ich once,, and was fixed within 24 hours.

 

[beechey]

whats ich??

how do you know if you have ich?