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Okay, I knew that ich would strike me sometime, but I wasn't expecting it to be in my prized 50gallon...(]:|)
so, the other day I bought a female blue ram from a trusted LFS. I saw that she had a few dots of ich on her, but I hoped that this would go away(she is such a nice girl). Well, a few days later now, it has gotten worse, covering most of her body. She's just a juvenile, but she's eating and exploring normally.
Ammonia: 0ppm
nitrite: 0ppm
nitrate:5ppm
temp:78-80F
pH: 7.0
The tanks been running for a few months and contains 8 harlequins, 2 blue rams(M/F), 1 angelfish, 1 BN, 1 african butterfly.
The only possible stressor would be my angelfish and my male blue ram. the angelfish pushes pretty much everyone around, and I've seen him chasing my little female around. He doesn't do anything though, and quickly becomes bored chasing her. My male ram is older and much more robust that the female, and he pursues her. I'm wondering if this is because he's sexually mature and she's not, or if since she's so young that he doesn't know she's a female and is just chasing her like he would to a rival male. But both of these fish don't do anything bad, and she overall doesn't seem that upset by it.
So, my question is, should I medicate the whole tank or just hope for the best? I have a heavily planted tank and I use flourish excel(if that would affect the medication). none of my other fish have any sign of ich, but I'd like to kill this before it gets out of hand! Thanks for all your help!

Yes you need to medicate the entire tank and ASAP

Ich is only killed by medications once it falls off the fish, which since the fish you bought showed signs of when you bought it and you added it to your main tank without treating or using q-tine you have now run the risk of infecting the entire tank.

[link=Here]http://www.aquatic-hobbyist.com/profiles/disease/freshwater/ich.html" style="COLOR: #EB4288[/link] is a profile on ich. Excel shouldnt effect the medications in any way, you will need to remove carbon from the filter if you're using any and be prepaired to use an airstone as needed. Be sure to follow directions exactly for your medication and do NOT stop treating just because it's "gone away"

^_^[hr width='40%']"Love's the Funeral Of Hearts, and an ode for cruelty,
When angels cry blood, on flowers of evil in bloom
and a plea for mercy,
where Love is a gun separating me from you" ~[/font]

What Babel said is good advice. If you continue to add fish that you know are sick to your tank, be prepared to treat the entre tank for whatever the disease may be. You should have maybe put it in a different tank that wasn't as important as the 55 to treat it, such as a small non planted tank. Also, I'm pretty sure if you want to spend the extra couple hundred bucks() UV sterilizers help rid ich from the water colum, so when it is cured from the fish it will probaly be gone from the aquarium...but ich is horrible and could come back anytime.

well, I moved my betta out of his 5g and put my little ram in there for some quarentine(I know, i'm sooooo stupiud to have put her in my tank, but hey, I was excited0 I've certaintly learned my lesson, but since nne of te ich has come off my ram yet to make mor, I'm hoping there won't be a problem. So I'll treat the betta tank, and hopefully everything will work out. Again, I've learned a very valuable lesson, and thank you for all your help.

Last edited by fairynr at 11-Oct-2005 11:27

You need to treat the WHOLE main tank whether the spots have fallen off or not. If one fish has ich, you have it in the tank. Rams are sensitive to medication so I would use something like Jungle Ich Guard II or Quick Cure, nothing that contains any copper.

Your betta should go back into the 5 gallon and the ram should go back into the community, you've contaminated the betta tank so you'll have to watch him very carefully for signs of ich. Because you moved the ram, you may very well need to treat BOTH tanks instead of just one.



Last edited by trystianity at 11-Oct-2005 13:01[/font]