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Ick is nasty and it can spread and kill quickly unfortunately. I've had a couple bouts with it myself. My usual cure is a little pimafix and melafix, about half the required dosage so it can heal the fish up from any possible bacterial infections where the ich pops out of them. But the best cure I have found for ich, out of all those ich-cure things from the store is: Heat and salt. You raise the heat up to about 84 degrees, you already have it at 82, yes? Add in salt. Add the salt before you turn the heat up more. Raising the heat causes ich to multiply faster. With nothing to kill it when it pops out of the fish, they just re-enter more fish in greater numbers. That's where the salt comes in. Aquarium salt wont hurt your fish if you have only livebearers in there, in fact most like it. You'll want to remove your plants if you have any though, the salt and heat will melt them right down. Star out with about half the required dosage of salt though, it'll still do it's job. After a day, add in another two tablespoons. Wait a day, do a 25% water change, and add in three more tablespoons of salt and keep your heat up. You may need to keep this up for about two weeks, unless you still see spots. After the first few days to a week, the spots should clear up a great deal if not completely, but you will want to continue treatment.
That treatment has always worked for me, the pima/melafix is just a precaution to help up their immune systems and kill off the possibilities of fungus or bacterial infections from your sick fish and any small, but dirty wounds they get from the ich.
As for feeding babies, I breed my livebearers quite often. They do well with baby brine shrimp, daphnia, crushed fish flakes which you will want them to have at least once per day for that calcium they need, as well as algae wafers for them to chew at and I like to add in the occasional cooked and skinned pea(About once per week). I also give them some of that frozen Emerald Entree, it's mostly vegetables which they absolutely love and are VERY good for them. You'll want to pick out the larger blood worms and shrimp. They can't really eat it anyways, but they will pick on it which is ok, so it's not a MUST. Ah yes, tubefix worms are good too. They're small and stringy and easier for fry over one week old to eat. Be sure to feed them a minimum of three times per day and clean out extra yuck and food from their net twice per day at least. I use a turkey baster for that, and put it in a clean pitcher just for the fish so there's no soap residue...and also in case I get a baby, they go into a pitcher that is easy to get them out of and back into the net with minimal risk of damage. ^_^
And yes, you can start feeding them the day they're born, but usually they're still full from the egg yolk and wont be interested. After half a day or so from birth they should be more interested in food. So yes, you can feed them right away, they just may not eat it if they're still full from their eggs, and occasionally it takes some time for them to get used to being fed. =) You just want to put a pinch of food in at a time, they don't need much and babies don't over-eat often, but there's still a risk, so keep watch on those little bellies. Naturally babies do get a belly until a certain age, but make sure they don't look like a gorged fish. xD
Last edited by Sylverclaws; 02-27-2013 at 02:50 PM..
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I haven't had much experience with ich or other diseases yet, but hopefully I can help you with your fry...
I also leave a few bigger bits too as I find they like to "attack" the bigger bits and chase them around the tank.. Whatever gets left over is hoovered by my cory cats.. I feed them 3 or 4 times a day and will cut this back as they get bigger.
