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as most of you know... i recently had a big explosion of fishy sadness, including the deaths fo all my fish... So i dumped all the tank water, gave the gravel a good wash, im cleaning teh filter tommorow ( yay, fun -.-), and so far all i did was add a little food to start building up the ammonia. cycling is not ham's specialty, so i was wondering when it would be ok to put my betta in, there was a bad case of ich.. there is currently no fish for teh ich to live on, and i am adding ich medicine anyway, to be safe . So when should it be ok to add my betta in? Im GUESSing 3-4 days.. but i am a dumbo.. thnx in advance. HAM

i left out some info.. dummy me . 10 gallon, heavily planted, gravel/filter already have some good bacteria growing. thanks

Ham and I have been looking up things to do and I came across this site that seems to be really nice and informative: [url]http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/ich.php[/url] he's now raising the temp and adding some salt since it looks like the ich med he was using isn't great for his setup. Wish him luck!!!

The pottery that growls!

I would give the Ich a couple weeks to die off. I used QuICK cure... has formaline and malachite green. I dont know if it's suitable for plants or not. But, it finally got the Ich gone for me, just took forever, but I had fish and was also cycling at the same time.

I dunno how Bettas do with a cycling tank. We had a betta 1g bowl, never messed with water testing and all that so I have no clue. but, he never got Ich. It took my tank nearly two months to cycle, but I was also fighting the ICh for half that time.

My message to you is to be patient and get that Ich outta there before you add fish.

Good luck bro!

If you have no fish in the tank then you don't need to dose anything. All meds and salt may kill your plants and will not help with the cycle. The ich will die without a host but you always have a chance of ich with fish. No matter where you get them from and no matter how healthy they look when you get them nearly all lfs tanks have ich present. If the fish become stressed then they will get sick. Healthy fish in a healthy tank do not get ich even if it's introduced by other fish or contaminated water. Concentrating on keeping the water quality up and improving tank conditions are the best ways to cure and prevent illnesses like ich. You just can't eliminate the possiblity of ich but you can limit the odds of your fish getting sick with it.

On that note the best thing for your betta and the least likely chance you'll see ich is to wait until the tank fully cycles. That means adding small amounts of fish food daily for at least 3 and possibly 6weeks from now before you add any fish. Along with testing frequently until ammonia and nitrite read zero and nitrates appear.

Since you don't sound that patient(which is a very bad thing in this hobby) how planted exactly is heavily? Do you have co2? How many wpg and what type of plants? A heavily planted 10g will actually use all the ammonia produced by 1 betta and you will not have a cycle. Chances are your tank isn't quite that heavily planted but enough fast growing plants could limit the cycling time and allow you to add fish now without seeing much of an ammonia or nitrite spike. Of course you should still test frequently with a good liquid test kit and do water changes as needed to keep the fish healthy if ammonia or nitrite do show up.

Either way I would still wait 2weeks to make sure the bulk of the ich has died off while doing water changes to remove the meds and salt. Those things aren't helpful to fish health. In that time you could have your tank halfway cycled as well.

Well im guessing its "heavily" planted, it has 1 part anachris, 2 part anubias nano, 1 part moss ( a butt load O_O) and a bamboo. I'm gonna add maybe 2 or 2 parts of anachris when its close to being ready for mroe fishys. WPG i think is 1.5 not to great, but good enough for small plants. I raised the tank to 110 DEGREES O_O that will definealy kill all the ich.. as well as possibly my plants . Its been 110 degrees for maybe 12-14 hours, and im turning off teha heater not to lose my plants which i think i already have ..No Co2, im looking for small plants to put in it.. perferably a "grass" type of plant, any ideas? 0.o

thanks -HAMMY

Well i would say you basically boiled your tank at that level of temperature. Unfortunatly that may have done more harm than good. You will have killed any bacteria that you had by raising the temp that high. So basically you killed everything in the tank. Please take this advice seriously.

Remove the Bamboo as that is a not a true aquatic plant. It is supposed to be emersed in water and not submersed. Meaning that you just need the bottom of the bamboo to be in water for it to live. It will do alot better that way.

Cool your tank down. if you wish to kill the ICH then keep the temp at 82 degrees, that will speed up the process and then they will have no fish to attach themselves too and will die.

Do a water change and then add the fish food as you have been doing, just remember to start the clock over again as you will have to build up the ammonia bacteria to eat that, then the nitrite bacteria to eat the nitrites and then the Nitrate bacteria. Keeping the tank at 82 degrees will be fine for the bacteria and the plants.

Thanks for your input as always, Shane
http://thetanklog.blogspot.com/ - [ Thanks to ScottF ]
http://www.natureaquariumclubofutah.com/main.html

o poo! :[ And i will be out of my house for 2 weeks.. so anyway i wont be able to put fishys in there for that time. so im forced to cycle.... maybe thats a good thing..

You can buy plain shrimp for eating from a grocery store and leave it in the tank to breakdown. That creates ammonia and cycles the tank without you having to be there to add food everyday. Only problem is it tends to leave a nasty smell around the tank but it goes away as soon as you trash the shrimp so if your not around to smell it then it wouldn't really matter.

ewwwwww thats gross and today at the fish store.. i saw the most GORGEOS lyre tail dragin 3-finned with weird lil streamer sword tail! i want it soo much ;_; when my 20 is up ima buy him

Java ferns, moss, and anubias will probably do ok in your tank for some good hardy low light plants.

Rid ich plus never hurt my plants.