Ich Or Not? (Appeared Overnight)

[gabriel.mihu]

Is this Ich or not?
 
My tank: 20g, 5-6 weeks old, established in about two weeks with material from my 36 g tank. Water is fine (was fine yesterday, today ammonia/nitrites around .25).
Water:
- temperature 76-78F
- pH 7.6
- ammonia/nitrites 0 (today about .25, after new batch of fish in tank last evening)
 
Fish: 1 guppy female (5 weeks), 5 Buenos Aires tetras (2->5 weeks, 3->2 weeks into the tank), 2 small spotted Cory Cats (yesterday), 4 giant Danios (yeasterday).
 
Now without all that fuss (overpopulated and things - just temporary tank for the Danios), is this ich or not?
 
How it started: I had 1 guppy, and 2 silver platys to start with. Got the tetras into the tank. 1 platy gave birth. Moved the platys to my 36g tank, they're doing fine. 2 tetras, 1 guppy and platy fry (in small perforated tank) remained. All platy fry got white spots when they were about 2 weeks old and died (about three weeks ago).
 
Since then (about 3-4 weeks) I added 3 more tetras (10 days ago) and the yesterday batch. I have not seen any other fish sick, not in the 20g tank, not in the 36g tank (where I moved the mollies). This morning, two of the tetras have the spots. View photos below with the sick and some of the healthy, in the same tank.
 
Yesterday I moved the small acrylic tank from the 20g to the 36g with 14 guppy fry, about 1 week old.
 
I would move the Danios in my big tank, but I don't want to move the Ich, too. I might have already infested the big tank, by moving the fry tank into it yesterday.
 
I don't know what to do, I restarted "fishing" about 4 months ago, and had a couple of fish with Ich, overnight after buying them from fish store, they died in about 2 days, and did not infect any other fish.
 
Will all my fish die?
 
 

 

[Meeresstille]

Looks like ich. Do you know of the heat and salt treatment? It is generally well tolerated, takes about 2 weeks to treat but afterwards you will be ich free! It will even kill medication resistant strains.  
 
You can also do half dose with the salt, just treat a week longer. Make sure you have good water aeration with the increased temperature. Warm water holds less oxygen. You can oxygenate the water adding an airstone/airbubbler or lowering the water level in the tank to get a bigger splash from the water falling back into the tank from the filter. 
 
If you have live plants you could remove them, some don't tolerate the salt. My experience has been that some plants may look a little sick afterwards but they have always bounced back for me.

 

[gabriel.mihu]

Thanks for the reply. I read countless solutions for Ich, every one of them tailored to user personality .
 
I have three sick fish in a 5g quarantine tank, filtered, "on back" filter, water level a bit low for aeration, as you suggested. unfortunately I started here the treatment with what I was recommended by the "specialist" from the pet store. I guess I will try treating the three fish this way. The real specialist wasn't there today.
 
The 1 week old guppy fry I moved yesterday from the sick tank are now into a 2g recipient, and will do water changes every day. I saw a couple of spots on them.
 
In the sick tank, I will apply the warm/salt water treatment starting tomorrow.
 
I really hope I did not contaminate my big tank (as I moved plants and fry from the sick tank). I'll keep an eye on it. If you have any suggestions in how to prevent sickness in the big tank, they're more than welcome.
 
Thanks again for the reply - confirming the ich. I'll follow your advice, as many people seem to like that solution.

 

[DoubleDutch]

It's Ich and the parasite will have travelled with plants and fry I am afraid. It will often will affect weak and stressed fish. Maybe the fish in your big tank are strong enough to resist but keep an eye on them for sure. Overhere (Holland) Ich is thought to be one of the best treatable diseases.
I'd choose for the med-way though rather than start the biological (to me longer) way, cause this is a serious infection. There are some fish that will have problems with high temps as wel I think and Corys are not salt-lovers !!!
 
Cheers Aad

 

[Meeresstille]

DoubleDutch is right, where ever you have transferred between tanks (from an infected tank) chances are it is in that tank now as well. With ich, quarantining won't help, you need to treat the whole tank. Or you can take out all fish from the tank and put them in a hospital tank, the main tank will become ich free in 14 days time without any treatment (raise temp though anyways to speed up life cycle), when the parasite can't find a host to latch onto and feed off, they won't survive. 
 
I've treated ich on cories (peppered cories) and they were doing fine with the heat/salt method. But because I was concerned about how well they would tolerate it, I kept a real close eye on them!
As far as I know, both the meds and the salt only affect the parasite in the free swimming stage. It is a good idea to do gravel vacs to pick up as many of the fallen cysts as you can, before they morph into the free swimmers. If you reduce as many free swimmers you could potentially have, the more you reduce the risk for re-infection. Especially in bottom dwelling fish species this can happen, since the time from hatching to finding a host is then reduced, and they could latch on before treatment could have an affect on them.

 

[DoubleDutch]

Agree with that though Peppered Corys are the first Corys having problems with high temps being coolwater Corys. Great it succeeded !!!

 

[Wildbetta]

I too vouch for the heat/salt method for ICH removal.  I have used it with peppered corys, hasbrous corys, BN plecos, and FW snails with no issues.  I bump heat to 86F and have added 1 tablespoon of salt per 5 gallons of tank water.  It can be touchy depending on any scaleless fish so care should be taken to watch them during the course of treatment to make sure they are not stressing too badly.   

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I am currently treating ich with the heat and salt method.  I believe it is a far less 'harsh' method for the fish and always effective against ich.  I am currently treating my tank with flame tetras.  And while some fish are not fond of higher temps, this is a temporary solution.  Heat is ALWAYS suggested with ich treatments, as it speeds up the life cycle of the parasite and helps to get it to the free swimming stage faster, which is the only place that medicines are effective to kill it.  It is invulnerable to our methods to eradicate it in its other forms.

 

[gabriel.mihu]

Started today the salt/heat method. Heated up to 82F, will continue tomorrow a bit higher. I used salt from the store, without iodine, but with anti...something agent in it. Anyways, it's supposed to be ok.
 
I moved back the tetras from the quarantine tank. In the quarantine tank they lost their colors (I guess stress), but back in the large tank with their mates, colors came back in a few hours.
 
I took two spotted corys out of the tank, into the quarantine tank, to protect them. Same thing with a plant. I have 1 guppy, 4 giant danios, 5 buenos aires tetras in the tank at this point + 1 lily (plant). I'll just have to wait and see how it goes.
 
Should I use any other treatment? Every advice I got (even from the pet store guy that I trust) says warm water/salt, that's it.

 

[Xzavier247]

All I used was the heat method without salt. Because I had scaleless fish at the time. I heated the tank up to 86F gradually and left it there for 2 weeks. Therefore speeding up the ich "cycle" process and killing them while they were free floating. It definitely worked and haven't seen ich since.... Do not put in any chemicals and try killing the ich off naturally .

 

[gabriel.mihu]

Ok... 10 day treatment; temperature 86-90F - I did my best to keep it constant; salt - 2 tablespoons/gallon - first day 1tbsp/gal + second day 1tbsp/gal.
 
Ich disappeared the second day, with an outburst on the fourth day on a couple of giant danios.
 
Late day 5 ich disappeared and did not appear again until the end of the treatment.
 
Kept everything running for 5 more days to be sure.
 
Today all fish are healthy.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

  Great news!