Ich Just Keeps Getting Worse

[trianglekitty]

I have a five gallon tank with a dwarf gourmai and two guppies. Both guppies have a heavy ich infestion- as this point the goarami seems unaffected. I caught it early, when it was just one or two spots, and raised the temp on the tank to 82 degrees and started treatment with API Super Ich Cure (3.6 Malachite Green and 60mg Nitrofurazone). The dosing packets are for a ten gallon, so I've been dividing them in half.

The directions on the packet say dose the tank, then repeat dose after 48 hours. I've done this, and I did remove the carbon from my filter. My fish are much worse now- densely covered in small white spots and showing stress behavior. I need to know what I'm doing wrong- I really don't want to lose these guys. Should I keep treating until they show improvement, or will that much medication hurt them? Should I use a full dose instead of a half dose?

These are my first sick fish, so any advice would be wonderful

 

[moochy13]

i recently blitzed through ich with myxazin treatment. its a once a day for 5 days treatment. if i was you and had been using a treatment and my fish were getting worse, i'd be trying a different med.

 

[trianglekitty]

i recently blitzed through ich with myxazin treatment. its a once a day for 5 days treatment. if i was you and had been using a treatment and my fish were getting worse, i'd be trying a different med.

If I switch meds, do I need to do a full water change first?

 

[karin]

Wait. One treatment may not be enough. There are resistant strains of ICH out there. I would do a total of 4 or 5 treatments and every 48 hours between treatment do a huge water change. Sometimes ICH can be difficult to treat but stick with it. I did 4 treatments and left the last one in there for 3-4 days. Make certain to increase aeration as higher temperatures can deplete the oxygen in the water.

 

[trianglekitty]

Wait. One treatment may not be enough. There are resistant strains of ICH out there. I would do a total of 4 or 5 treatments and every 48 hours between treatment do a huge water change. Sometimes ICH can be difficult to treat but stick with it. I did 4 treatments and left the last one in there for 3-4 days. Make certain to increase aeration as higher temperatures can deplete the oxygen in the water.

I did three treatments, with water changes in between, but the fish were still bad off. I did a big water change to get rid of the meds, then raised the temp and added three teaspoons of salt. That cleared almost all of the ich within 48 hours, but my gourami was acting stressed (barely moving, wouldn't eat), so I did another water change to clear out the salt.

So now the gourami is back to normal, but I still see a few spots on the guppies. I'm going to try adding a little less salt and keeping the temp high. I lowered the water level so the filter makes a bigger impact to help with aeration.

The salt treatment definately worked better than the meds, but I'm afraid I'm adding too much or too little.

 

[markandhisfish]

stringest ich meds ive used/seen is king british ws3 full strength white spot terminator. it literally kicks the crap outa ich . cleaned up my sevs in 2 days. be carefull how you use it tho as its really potent stuff.

 

[lalo99]

You need to treat for ich for at least a week if not two. You will not kill ich in a few days. Ich can only be killed in its free swimming stage. If its on the fish, the meds wont affect it. The fish's body slime protects the parasite. When the parasite comes off the fish and burst open to release more parasites, is when its vunerable to medication. It takes a few days at least, for the ich to go through its life cycle. This is why you need to treat for so long. Some salt in the water and raised temps usually do the job. A good ich med will also help. The raised temp speeds the life cycle of the parasite. You should treat for a few days after all teh fish lose any white spots.