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I woke up this morning, turned on the lights on my 55g and I see that all my black neons have ICH!!! It doesn't look too bad... yet

In everyone's experience, what's the best treatment to get rid of it? Keep in mind that I have a few live plants in the tank, and the stock list is in my profile if you need that. Thanks in advance.

]<]Dani<]<

I think for ich the home remedy is as good as any store bought one. Turn up the temp to about 82F and slowly increase your salt to about 1 Tbsp for every 5 gallons. Make sure to pay attention to any scaleless fish that you have. Then make sure you have plenty of aeration. I rarely get ich but when I do on occasion this treatment regime seems to work really well for me.

Hope this helps.

i completely agree. im just a novice but when i had an ich outbreak turning the temp up to 82 or so got rid of it. just try to keep temperature stable, dont let it dip too much. on a side note, my ich outbreak also forced me to go out and get a much better heater than the one i had, one where you can pinpoint control the temp. the others are just a waste of money, so i'd suggest getting one. controlling temp fluctuations are always a good thing

garyroland has a lot of good advice about curing fish the "natural" way, i.e. without dyes and medications.


i should also note that i did use ich meds, but after turning up the temp. they're not pretty though and they cant be too good for the fish, so i stayed away from them as much as possible.

[span class="edited"][Edited by 2004-08-31 08:59][/span]

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Back in the saddle!

Salt's not good for live plants. Since there are live one's in the tank I'd highly reccomend against it. Additionally I'd not add it due to some of the bottom feeders you've got

I've had to treat for ich three times, in three different tanks. Each time I used maracide with great success. Treat according to the directions, do not stop treatment just because the ich drops off. You can increase heat slowly after you've added medication. Increasing temp will not kill the ich (unless you're willing to go abouve 95F which isn't the best for most fish ) instead it will speed up the life cycle causing them to fall off the fish and be suceptible to ich meds sooner.

Second rounds of treatment are sometimes needed, I only had to do a second round once. Increase surface agitation during treatment, and run carbon for a few days afterwards to remove remaining meds from the tank.
HTH a bit .

^_^


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[span class="edited"][Edited by Babelfish 2004-08-31 08:58][/span]

I've had good luck with Aquarisol the 2 times I had to use it. Here are the directions that were given to me (also is not supposed to harm biofilter)
* Day 1, 1 drop per gallon of Aquarisol
* Day 2, do nothing
* Day 3, add 1 drop per gallon of Aquarisol
* Day 4, do nothing
* Day 5, add 1 drop per gallon of Aquarisol
* Days 6-10 do nothing
* Day 10 do a water change of 33-50%

Steph

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I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.
~ Mae West

There are many remedies for ich...

Salt is not one of them.

Take a trip to your friendly fish store and pick up some Rid Ich Plus, a rather mild med which will not bother scaleless fish if you have any.

The temp to treat ich is 86 degrees, not 82, which scares the hell out of the parasite and leaves the fish in a panic.

The med then has a chance to do its thing.

--garyroland.

We bought a 10g tank, a heater and we put the filter from one of my betta tanks in it. Then we treated the fish in the hospital tank with Mardel Copper Safe and set the temp to 86 degrees, gradually so as not to shock them. Hopefully this will do the trick. Thanks to everyone

]<]Dani<]<

[span class="edited"][Edited by gartenzwerfe 2004-08-31 17:48][/span]

Errr...well, seeing as the ich is in the tank, not just on the fish, you are supposed to treat the fish in the tank. Otherwise you're likely to have the ich come back.

^_^

problem: plants, scaleless fish, and more tetras. We've turned the temp up in the main tank to help prevent more fish getting ich.

What Babs is saying is that the 55 gallon tank must be treated for ich with all fish in the tank...

You cannot move ich infested fish to a separate tank to treat. The fish remaining in the host tank will no doubt become infected also.

--garyroland.

i know, but in order to fully treat the initial host fish, we need to move them, THEN we can treat the main tank to prevent the other fish from getting it. I know the tank is infested with ich, so we are going to slighty treat it with something, if we can find SOMETHING that is safe with plants and the other fish.

SOOOOO..... what are they?

Sorry to hear about your neons, gartenzwerfe... I have the same problem - woke up to find my a couple of my bala sharks with ich - I'm pretty sure they got it from my 3 year old Pictus cat (who always hides in the back and I haven't seen for 3 days) - I found him yesterday completely infested with ich. Sadly - he died this morning . I ran to the pet store and they recommended a medication called Nox-Ich. Has anyone had any experience with it?

welcome to FP bayara. At my store, we USE Nox-ich and it works pretty well, but the problem is that it is not good for scaless fish and tetras. It also turns the water a NICE blue

Overall, it does work really good for most fish.

"Rid Ich Plus" is safely used for ich...

All fish are treated in the 55 gallon with the med I suggested that's safe for just about everything except the lowest form of life.

Separating fish with ich is just not done. It's a waste of time and stressful on the sick fish.

--garyroland.

I had an Ich problem earlier and used NOX-ICH. You just should 1/2 the dose with scaleless,tetras and bottom fish. It worked great for me. My plecos and catfish acted so much better with it but I would not trust it with snails! My plants did fine with this product. Just my advice also.... I would not separate the fish to treat for ich. Raise the temp also as long as safe for fish.
I also treated twice as long as recommended to make sure I got all the parasites. I am now ICH FREE!!!! GOOD LUCK!


[span class="edited"][Edited by 2004-09-01 11:09][/span]

[span class="edited"][Edited by 2004-09-01 11:10][/span]

Well, we have good news and bad news. Her black neons have come out alive and victorious!!! With only one death out of ten, i think that this is a really good ending to the problem.

However, in a wierd twist of events, one of her bettas has come down with ich!!! He is now in the hospitol tank getting treated. I do not know if he is getting better or worse, but I am hoping he will do as well as 9 out of the 10 tetras did.