FishProfiles.com Message Forums

We have a twenty-gallon tank. We have had seven silver hatchets for about a month and a half, the tank is well established with a good pH (usually 6.4- max 7.2) ammonia, nitrite and such are almost none existant, they don't show up when tested, but, we awoke this morning to find 3 dead and/or dying hatchets, yesterday without ick, and, they were buzzing around the top of the tank. Unfortunetly, they had ick, which they didn't yesterday, or any other days. We did a 50% water change earlier on in the week, and, have two filters in the tank at the time (one of them, a new sponge). When I came home, they're were only two still alive, we turned up the tenk temp. We don't have ick cure, and it has spread to a few buenos aires tetras, and it might jump to a kribensis (ours are actually quite peaceful).

The most recent death was a sudden heppening from a healthy bolivian ram. The newest addition has been an already quarrentined bristle-nosed pleco. We are buying icck cure tonight, to treat our tetras and remaining hatchets.

I also had that problem. What might have caused it is stress from something. Some might be scared of attacking predators, with no place to hide. What i suggest you do is raise the temp. of the main tank, Quarantine any remaining ick fish, and add ick cure to the quarantine tank. You MUST do this as you wont get enough dosage for the whole tank if the sensitive tetra. I know i transferred ick to my tank by not quarantining fish, and using an ick infested net. If you net your fish, be sure to soak your net in netsoak, or high concentations of salt. You could add salt to the main tank, but most of your fish are highly sensitive to it and may get more stressed. If you have any more fish that cococt it, then you might as well cure the whole tank. Maybe the BN might have it in its water, and it gave it off...Otherwise, you are best off by quarantining the sickfish one by one (dont leave any sick fish in the main tank)until they get better. If you dont have enough fish tanks to quarantine them all, you can use 2 fish per tank, with a waterproof divider. Some food options for the quarantined fish are floating foods(bloodworms), as they will not fall and rot if the fish dont eat them, and most freeze dried foods are very tasty and filling, so you dont have to feed as often. Just do routine water changes and ick drops, and all will be well. Just make sure to do one thing, REMOVE THE CARBON SOURCE FROM YOUR TANK OR FILTER, AS THIS MAY ABSORB THE MEDICINES. A 50% Water Change is a lot though, and may even further stress the fish. In fact, that may be the reason that they got ick. Just change 20-30% of water every day or every other day.

Good luck, and welcome to FP. Be sure to vote!

><> ~=!Vote Today!=~ <><
-----> View My Dragons <-----

Your ph changes from 6.4-7.2? That's too big of change unless it's something like a seasonal change that happens over 6months. When you did the 50% water change did you match everything? Ph and temp exactly. Large water changes are fine so long as everything matches perfectly and you aren't waiting too long between water changes. If you go say 4weeks or more and then do a 50% change the water may not match closely enough. Even if it looks fine on the test kits you can't test everything. It's better to do changes around 25% if your uncertain.

Also you say you've had the hatchets only a month and half but the last addition was a pleco. Quarantine for a few days or even a week doesn't sound all that effective. I'd quarantine for 2-3weeks before being certain there aren't any illnesses present. If you did quarantine that long then it seems like you stocked the tank pretty quickly. It may have had a short ammonia spike that stressed everyone out and started this illness.

If you had fish die before symptoms of ich showed up then I would definitely say something happened to stress them out and the ich showed up as a result. Treating ich mostly comes down to removing stress especially the stress that started the problem. I've only used meds to treat ich once since every other time as soon as the fish were no longer stressed they started to recover on their own. Clean water and low stress is the main factor. Raising the temp is also debateable. It doesn't have much impact on the ich until you get it up into the mid to high 80s F and changing temperatures can increase stress. In fact a raise in temp is what caused my worst ich outbreak to happen in the first place. I wouldn't mess with the temp unless your already running a warm water tank and so can get it up to 84F or higher without changing it much from it's current setting. Otherwise I don't think it helps and may make things worse. When I did use meds to treat it Rid Ich+ was highly effective and I even had scaleless fish in the tank that came out fine. Water changes and gravel vacs also help alot. The parasite drops off the fish between life stages and so removing as much of it as possible can lower the levels enough for the fish to recover. Just make sure not to cause a mini cycle with too many gravel vacs.

Yes, the water was fine when we added it, and unfortunetly, the 2 hatchets died. We are treating our remaining fish, with ich cure that is safe for plecos. the pH very rarely spikes, and if it does, we are very quick to treat it. Note: the pH stays at 6.8, it's not that crazy

Coco Moo,

Ich is a parasite that moves through three life phases. It is susceptible to the ich med in only one of those phases. You can speed up the life cycle by increasing the temperature of your tank.

I recommend increasing the temperature to above 82F. At that temp, the life cycle is 3 to 5 days. Treat the main tank for at least two weeks. I recommend treating the main tank because the parasite has infested that tank in addition to your fish.

Do a 50% water change then follow the directions on the meds. My personal preference is a 50% water change before you redose the meds according to the directions.

Remember:
- Increase the water temperature,
- Water changes between doses
- Follow medication directions
- Two week treatment program

This is from Pandora's Aquarium:

Perhaps the most common disease of pet fish. Tends to attack stressed fish, especially with rapid temperature and pH fluctuations. Easily treatable with caution if caught in time, but may be recurrent if not treated for at least a week. Cysts live in gravel, has multiple life cycle stages, read my article for more treatment options. Water changes, raising temperature (to speed life cycle), darkening of tank, etc. all recommended. Guard for secondary infection of wounds by bacteria.Certain fish, such as gymnotoids (FW), hatchetfish (FW), batfish (SW) and tangs (SW) especially susceptible.

Nice follow-on article:
http://www.badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article2.html



__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright