Update On Fish W/ick

[sugarcookie]

Well I came home from work today and sadley my (3) bleeding hearts with the ick had died, two was stuck against the net from the filter intake pole, but I can't find the other one. I have (1) ghost shrimp, would you think he/she would have ate it? When I notice the two stuck to the net I saw the shrimp on the (2) dead fish, will it hurt the shrimp if it was eating the fish?

Now since I have done SO.....many treatments (salt & medicine) trying to get rid of the ick, what should I do about cleaning my tank & all the decorations, also since I did the medicine I had to take the cab. filters out of the tank (I kept the filter in a zip lock bag with clean treated water), so should I use the old one's that I took out that had the ick & salt treatment on them or should I put new one's in. My BIG mistake I guess I didn't wait on the tank to get cycled before adding my fish, so I guess it really was never cycled because then I did W/C's & testing the Amm. was always between 0.25 & 0.50 & everything else was zero. Anyway..........

Can someone help, I don't want to lose anymore fish because the tank is so dirty with salt, medicine, ick & whatever else.

Thanks,
Sugarcookie

 

[rdd1952]

Sorry you had the problems. I'm no expert on diseases but I think you will need to continue treating the tank for a couple weeks after the last sign of ich to make sure all is gone (or at least the full period stated on the instructions for the medication). Just because you don't see signs of ich, doesn't mean that the ich is gone. As far as the shrimp is concerned, I feel pretty sure that they ate the fish you couldn't find and no it shouldn't hurt them. When you do get ready to add the carbon back to remove the meds, you will have to use new carbon. What you removed before starting the treatment will already be saturated or at least partially saturated and not do much good.

 

[Chrispixx]

Just as rdd said keep treating the tank. Theres no need to break it down, clean everything and start all over unless you really want to. just change water, gravel vac and keep medicating. your going to need an ammonia source to feed the bacteria so it will stay alive, i'm not sure one shrimp is enough.

 

[sugarcookie]

Just as rdd said keep treating the tank. Theres no need to break it down, clean everything and start all over unless you really want to. just change water, gravel vac and keep medicating. your going to need an ammonia source to feed the bacteria so it will stay alive, i'm not sure one shrimp is enough.

I don't understand where you mention that I needed an ammonia source (sorry I'm a newbie) is it something I need to buy, if so.....can you tell me something to get.

Sorry,
Sugarcookie

Sorry you had the problems. I'm no expert on diseases but I think you will need to continue treating the tank for a couple weeks after the last sign of ich to make sure all is gone (or at least the full period stated on the instructions for the medication). Just because you don't see signs of ich, doesn't mean that the ich is gone. As far as the shrimp is concerned, I feel pretty sure that they ate the fish you couldn't find and no it shouldn't hurt them. When you do get ready to add the carbon back to remove the meds, you will have to use new carbon. What you removed before starting the treatment will already be saturated or at least partially saturated and not do much good.

What kind of treatment would you suggest, I have been doing the salt treatment then I started using treatment using medicine.

Thanks for your help,
Sugarcookie

 

[rdd1952]

To completely get rid of the ich, you will need to use a medication and go through the full treatment period so that all is killed. You also need to turn the temperature up (slowly) as ich can't handle high temps.

As for the ammonia source, he was speaking of using some type ammonia, whether it be bottled, fish flakes or something else that would decay and produce ammonia, so that the bacteria in your filter would be fed and not die off. Whether you can do that or not depends on whether you have anything left in the tank or not. Obviously, if there are fish or inverts in there, you do not want to add ammonia.