Ich That Just Wont Go Away.

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MissKaylakay93

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I have a 36 gallon with livebearers and other community fish, and ich that we just can't kick. Here's the run down:
 
We have 2 Swordtails, 3 Guppies, 4 Platies, 1 Dwarf Platy, 1 Molly, 4 Australian Rainbows, 1 Algea Eater, and 7 Neon Tetras. The tank has been up and running for four months with no fishy deaths. I don't have any current water test results, but I do know that everything has always looked pretty good expect for our Ph which is a low 8 (our cities water is notoriously high.) The tank has only been up and running since December.
 
We have been treating for ich since early January, and have recently seen it get much worse - most of the fish don't have any signs of it, it is only visible on one platy and a rainbow (who has also lost a lot of his color within the last few weeks.)
 
We have treated the ich as so: we bumped the temperature up to 80 degrees, and began adding salt. We began with one tablespoon per five gallons, but as the ich has gotten worse, we've added more and more salt, and its at about 2.5 tablespoons per five gallons right now. We do one or two 30% water changes weekly, always with a gravel vacuum.
 
What can I do to kick this stuff? Are there any medications which will be safe for all of the fish in the tank? I've heard that increasing the temperature to above 86 will get rid of it, but our current heater tops out at 84 and we don't have the cash for a new one right now.
 
Do you have any ability to quarantine some of your fish that are more sensitive to medications (such as your neons, I've never had rainbows or an algae eater so I don't know what they need)? If you can separate them you can set about treating them according to their tolerances.

You shouldn't mix the salt and meds far as I am aware... so if you want to move on to trying meds you will need to work on reducing the salt. One medication I use for ich is Interpet White Spot. You can use full doses in a tank with your swords, guppies, platy and molly... neons are better with a half dose (and again not sure what the needs of the rainbow fish or algae eater would be).
 
We do one or two 30% water changes weekly, always with a gravel vacuum.
 
When fighting ich, you'd want to be doing 50% with gravel vac daily for the course of the treatment. There's info that some ich strains are resistant to high temperatures too. You maybe lucky enough to have one of those.
I am not sure what type of medication is most effective, sorry.
 
I'd try to do at the least 30% daily, 50% would be ideal though. Ich has three different phases. It goes on the fish, where it's hard to kill. Then it's either in the water or on the substrate. That's why you need to vacuum a ton and do water changes to try and remove the ich.
 
If you have had ich for as long as you post, I think you should have had a few deaths by now?
 
Also, the life cycle of ich is such that it should be on pretty much all the fish if the ich is not being elimintated over as long as you have had it. I have always found this description from the FINS site very good:
Symptoms: Fish look like they have little white salt grains on them and may scratch against objects in the tank.

 
White spot disease (Ichthyopthirius multifiliis) is caused by a protozoan with a life cycle that includes a free-living stage. Ich grows on a fish --> it falls off and attaches to gravel or tank glass --> it reproduces to MANY parasites --> these swarmers then attach to other fish. If the swarmers do not find a fish host, they die in about 3 days (depending on the water temperature).
 
Therefore, to treat it, medicine must be added to the display tank to kill free-living parasites. If fish are removed to quarantine, parasites living in the tank will escape the treatment -- unless ALL fish are removed for about a week in freshwater or three weeks in saltwater systems. In a reef tank, where invertebrates are sensitive to ich medications, removing the fish is the only option. Some people think that ich is probably dormant in most tanks. It is most often triggered by temperature fluctuations.
 
Remedy: For most fish, use a medication with formalin and malachite green. These are the active ingredients in many ich medications at fish shops. Some products are Kordon's Rid Ich and Aquarium Products' Quick Cure. Just read the label and you may find others. Check for temperature fluctuations in the tank and fix them to avoid recurrences. Note that tetras can be a little sensitive to malachite green, so use it at half the dose.
 
Use these products as directed (usually a daily dose) until all of the fish are spot-free. Then dose every three days for a total of four more doses. This will kill any free-swimming parasites as they hatch out of cysts.
 
Another remedy is to raise the tank temperature to about 90 deg F and add 1 tsp/gallon salt to the water. Not all fish tolerate this.
 
Finally, one can treat ich with a ``transfer method.'' Fish are moved daily into a different tank with clean, conditioned, warmed water. Parasites that came off of the fish are left behind in the tank. After moving the fish daily for a week, the fish (presumably cured) can be put back into the main tank. The disadvantage of this method is that it stresses both fish and fishkeeper.
http://fins.actwin.com/aquariafaq.html
 
Note- there are 3 Tsp in one Tblsp

 
 

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