Ich has arrived

[agamemnon]

I have had a tank or a couple of weeks and due to the circumstance of the acquisition I had no choice but to put all the fish in new water in the tank. The gravel and filters were established as were plants.

I have done water tests and there is no high ammonia or nitrites. The fish have been fine until today. I did a 20% water change (treated) at the weekend and cleaned the filter media but today some of my neons have white spots which look just like what I saw a tank of fish in the local crappy pet store have. I am sure it is ich.

I have neons, guppies, red torpedos, a plec, a cory and a weather loach.

I intend to do a small water change this evening and get some anti white spot stuff tomorrow. My water temp is around 75 with no external heat source (my lights kep the temp steady) so I have turned a third light on to raise the temp slightly. (I do have a heater but it isn't necessary to keep the temp)

Should I keep the lights on overnight? Should I do anything with the filters? (cannister and power) Should I do the water change? Should I stop feeding them?

When I add the medicine I will remove the carbon from the filters (my Aquaclear filter has a closed plastic attachment full of carbon. Is this how the carbon is bought for this filter? I cant get the compartment open so I assume it is bought this way?

Any help will be most welcome.

Thanks a lot

 

[tstenback]

Your doing everything fine. the light should be turned off but where it is a heat source i dont know what to tell you. The fish will get very stressed if you leave the light on so i guess it is best to shut it off as they have enough to deal with now. Is this the first water change you have done since getting the tank? Did you match the temp with the water in the tank? Also you should get a heater even if its just a low wattage one like a 25 so that you can control the min temp that the fish have to deal with. HTH

 

[agamemnon]

Thanks for the advice.

I did edit my post to say that I do have a heater but dont use it. The water temp does not drop overnight when I turn the lights off so I have not used it then either. I did use it to heat up the cold water that I used for the water change, and yes this was the first one I have done.

Should I leave the temp as it has been since I got the tank or raise it with the heater? With the lights being pretty strong I dont want to overheat of course.