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I just gave my Tiger Barbs their third day of Ick meds (malachite green) , the second course of treatment. They are two remaining of an initial group o f4 I bought 1 day after setting up my 20 gal tank. I did a 25% WC after the first 3 day course of meds and tonite I gave them their 3rd day of this second course. I noticed some blue splotches on some of my gravel and one of my rocks had been stained blue so I took it out.

I won't be home tomorrow (saturday) nite to do another 25% WC in the evening. I am wondering, should I do another 25% WC before we head out and start another 3 day course? We won't be home until Saturday evening. I am assuming that as long as I see spots, I need to keep treating. The directions on the meds say that after a 3 day course to do a 25% WC. Is it ok to continue dosing until the spots are gone, with 25% WC after each third dose?

I am encouraged by the fact that they both ate tonite, whenI gave them bloodworms as a treat ins tead of their usual flakes. They seem to be acting pretty much like Tiger Barbs, even though I am down to two.

Thanks!

The spots may be dead whitespot parasites, they dont always drop off immediately, and sometimes the husks of them are left and the raised spots they leave can last a few weeks, it depends how well lodged in they got by the time they were treated, but im sure the repeat dose and another 25% change will be fine if you think the ich is persisting.

well, I just want to be sure and blast that Ick outta my tank so I can get on with cycling and get some mates for the two lonely TB's lol

Here's the link to my tank log if seeing the water chem will help... Any suggestions would be great. The pH is high, not sure if that's a function of cycling or what... It's been high since the beginning.

[link]http://www.fishprofiles.com/logbooks/tanks.aspx?uid=15467&tank=223 [/link]

Scott
Do you realize that it is prefered to treat the tank for at least one month this can be speeded up by increasing the tank temp. This speeds up their growth rate. Have you increased the temp and added extra water movement.

If the white spot came through your water (which it does where I live in the colder months)
To prevent this I store the prepared water in 15Lt water containers for one week. The reason for saying this is if it is in your water all you are is importing more WS every time you do a water change.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

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The tanks is already 84f if his log is correct, any more might risk the health of the fish, so while keith is correct in general about ich, it might not be needed in this particular case. 84f should already be in the temperature range for fast development for ich.

Yea Git I have trie dto keep the tank at the higher end of the temp spectrum while treating for the Ich. I am going to do one more 25% WC this morning and begin a third course of meds in hopes of knocking it out. Then it will be time for a few more Tiger Barbs to keep the two I have company.

Well shoot... the deaths continue... The tiger barb with the spots passed today, wife just called me at work. The one largest is left, never got spots...

Now the question, to fill the shoal or leave him be? I am inclined to get 5 more and continue cycling. Ive been treating for Ich (obviously that went well... NOT) with the approiate dosage/WC. I think I will cease the meds, toss a carbon in, do a 25% WC and grab me some more Barbs and keep cycling...

Also, per my test strips (my liquids just arrived at my office today!), the pH has been consistently at 8.4. That seems awfully high. Is there something I should be doing to lower that or is that part of the cycling deal?

Feedback is always welcome!

You can continue cycling with 1 or even with none. Why put more fish through the torture of a cycle? You can just add fish food if they all die and then you won't have to worry about anymore deaths. If you cycle with just that 1 fish you won't see much on your test kits but if you wait until you only see nitrates and then start restocking very very slowly you shouldn't have much of a secondary or mini cycle. That means you won't have to go through this again either. You can also pick out a better stock then tiger barbs since you seemed to want a community tank and tiger barbs don't lend themselves to a peaceful community setup very easily. They pick on most everything you could add.

Whatever you do don't start messing with the ph now. You don't need to unless you decide in the future to keep very sensitive fish. If you do decide to do that then it would be better to start a seperate thread since it's likely to get into long and/or complicated explanations about various ways to safely effect the hardness and ph of water. Digging through the water quality section of the forum would also give you lots of rather long posts on that exact same question.

I d agree with sham here, its cut your loss time. Dont get more fish until the cycle has passed the whitespot is over or the last fish dies.

Fishless cycling should the last tiger barb die will give a grace period for the whitespot to be treated aggressively, and the last vestiges of it will pass without the chance to infect another fish.

Fishless cycling is as easy as buying pure ammonia from a pharmacy and adding a couple of drops a day. You can do that rather than rely on fish to do it. No time in completing the cycle need be lost.

If you add more fish now they may all go through this and the problem could reoccur. Patience with these things is a virtue, and adding more fish the worst potential mistake you can make.

Well... too late... I got 5 more Barbs to fill out the shoal. Now my one lone TB will have tankmates to do the Tiger Barb thing with. I know y'all think it was a bad idea and I hope you're wrong lol. You guys probably think I am some sort of monster for cycling with fish. We'll just have to see what happens.

It is interesting to note that the ammonia readings with my liquid test are far below those from my test strips. Test strip ammonia: 3 ppm Liquid ammonia: .5 ppm Test Strip: pH 8.4 Liquid pH: 8.0 Still no sign of Nitrites and the Nitrates are 5 ppm with the liquid 10 with the strips.

I also grabbed some gravel from the new TB's tank at the LFS to help buld my bacteria colony.

I agree that you should have waited but whats done is done and I wish you the best.

I went thru ick back a ways and once I lost most fish and got the last of the ick out I waited for I think 5 weeks if not longer to start restocking and even now I only add a couple fish every week or so. So far so good.

Again, hope all goes well.

Well, thanks Zoo... I know I went against everyone's advice here... I lost a bit of patience... Thanks for the well wishes and if things go poorly, I will have learned my lesson and will know better.

Just a little epilogue... postlude, whatever you like....

I stopped by the LFS today, where I got my first batch of Tiger barbs and dang, if the tank the came isn't stil QT, not for sale. It really leads me to believe that I got the Ich from those TB's I initially bought from them.

The new guys are doing great since I got them on Monday and even the last one from the first batch seems to be doing well.

Water parameters as of last nite:

Temp 78F
pH 8
Amm .5ppm
Nitrite 0
Mitrate 5ppm