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Help with controlling crazy Ich problem

7K views 52 replies 9 participants last post by  Tolak 
#1 ·
Hello, I have an Ich outbreak in my 5 gallon tank and I have been trying a bunch of treatments for a long time, and its stronger than ever it seems. This tank is having many problems, and its most likely my fault as I am new to all of this.

First, my favorite guppy had tail rot, to treat it as simply as I could I kept the water conditions as well as I could, low ammonia for an uncycled tank not over feeding and approx. 10% water changes ~every 3 days. Only got worse, scared of using heavy duty medicine, I got melafix, used it as directed for the 7 days, his tail kept falling apart.

Then I used API fungus powder, reluctantly, and just got done with the full treatment yesterday when I did a 25% change and gravel vacuum as directed. Fin rot is gone, yay.

But unfortunately as I am new to this, I didn't set up a quarantine tank (I had no other fish in the new tank) when I got the new guppies, I got 3 male guppies and 1 corey catfish all at the same same time, and they all had ich from the store(I didnt notice it). This was happening with the fin rot as well. This is a little messy to read, so I will try to clear it up a little, new tank established, no fish, let rest with a filter and plants for 2 days, went and get all the fish to put in, fin rot happened and seemed more deadly, but ich was present at start.

I bumped up the temp to 87/88 F, added some salt, and it is terrible. Its been like this for about 8 days. The ich is on their bodies and fins and its taking over. I know the heat treatment only works while the ich is swimming, but why are they getting worse? Do I just need to be patient, or get some ich treatment? I also have a nerite snail, just to throw that in there. But please help with some advice, Im doing my best here and really only care about help and not scolding for things Ive done wrong.

Thank you
 
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#33 ·
With all due respect, sylver ... The heat method is absolutely an effective method ... With the exception of this extreme ich that I believe is compounded with another new protozoan parasite we are discussing on this thread.

I was so stupid as to take a piece of wood from the QT tank before the ich part was really obvious .. Put it in my 75. 3 Bala sharks got ich but didn't get this other thing. They responded very quickly to heating to 88-89f . Last night they looked nearly ich free. NOTHING BUT HEAT. All I've ever done was heat and heat alone and ONLY time it failed was with the angelicus that are on the experimental method - treating something I believe is ich + a mystery parasite .


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#34 ·
Loaches are now spot free, so that would indicate that this mystery disease is a protozoan pararisite.
 
#35 ·
Oh I didn't mean to sound confrontational about it! =( Sorry. I also know it is effective, but it also makes risk if this is a strain that isn't broken by it, or at least not broken by it quick enough. It was just so frustrating! Lost my sweet babies when I turned up the heat. >< Many of them anyways, the rest seem to be ich free now.
I understand this users issue with it not going away. x.x I hate it when things decide to be difficult when your little buddies are ailing. I ended up resorting to salt in a tank I did not want salt in since I had not used it in there for several months because I don't know how to tell if any is left. The tanks ok for that...well, I didn't want to spread the ich for one, and the other is I have fish in those already being QT'd that don't have ich. lol
 
#36 ·
Update:
Well within the day I lost all 3 guppies, 1 before dosing, 2 after. 2 of them were very badly infected with ich so it was almost expected, but the last had maybe one spot on him. Im not sure why he died, other than from the super ich cure, but if that were the case, my cory would be dead too because they are more sensitive to the medication. I dont know if I should continue the treatment because all that is in the tank is a cory and a snail, and the cory has no ich on it.
I dont know, someone tell me what to do :\
 
#37 · (Edited)
A massive water change of 80-90% will remove most Of the salt in a tank. What's left will be minimal and will slowly be reduced further with normal water changes.



While that is generally true, about the corys being more sensitive, that assumes that both fish are in good health to begin with. A cory in otherwise good health will be less "sensitive" than a guppy that has internal failures going on, you know?

there's no right way to go from here. You can continue the treatment or you can abandon it and observe. You definitely don't have normal ich, if it's even all ich to begin with. Agents pleco that was in the same tank as the loaches is now in a quarantine tank, untreated. The fish has not shown spots and is under observation.
 
#38 ·
Yeah, I guess I didnt think about their original conditions, the cory has had no ich the entire time, just mainly stressed from the salt and water changes. The other guppy had some ich spots, so I guess he was just weaker that the cory, poor guy.
Im thinking I might abandon and observe, with large water changes daily and keep the heat up, Im so sad that I lost all my little babies on 1 day.
 
#39 ·
Something else - medicating with elevated heat is a big mistake in my opinion. I know people do it without problems, but that most certainly could have contributed to the fishs deaths. The heat is stressful, salt is stressful, being infected with parasites is stressful, and meds are stressful. I don't like to combine treatments because I think combining stressors like that can prove to be too much for some fish to handle. Could be what had happened here.
 
#40 ·
Yeah I was thinking that too. But the temperature they are kept at is the temperature they are always kept at, so I dont think that was a stresser but I was planning on lowering the temp today, but i dont really have the need to now. And the salt was basically gone I think with 3+ over 50% water changes. But what happened happened and I hope people with this same strain have better luck than I did.
 
#43 ·
i think its clear that "ich" that doesnt respond to heat or normal doses of ich medicine is not ich. Maybe ich compounded by another disease like jaysee said. It doesnt take more than 2-3 days of treatment to see noticable improvment with ich...i've treated it many times and the fish start to clear immediately every time. This is somthing else NOT ICH. i dont know what it is and havent been able to research anything that seems to apply. Im guessing dinoflagellates . Early stages of dinoflagellate infection often look like ich, but then the spots usualy grow into patches or plaques. Velvet is a dinoflagellate disease, i dont think that this is velvet, but another mystery dino. The lifecycle of dinoflagellates is longer than ich, heat treatments are not effective against dinoflagellates, and treatment with copper was effective for me. The combination of those three clues leads me to believe that this is a dinoflagellate infection.
 
#44 ·
Interesting, I havent herd of that disease before, but im also new to this haha.

Also, I know when reading threads its frustrating to try and imagine what someone is describing, so I will add some pictures of the 2 guppies that had it. Maybe that will help with diagnosis in the future for someone, or clear up that it was just a mean ich problem.
 
#45 ·
Freshwater aquarium Feeder fish Organism Aquarium decor Fish


Plant


Freshwater aquarium Aquarium decor Organism Soil Fish


The blue one if Grover, the red Ragnar.
It is easier to see the ich, or whatever, on grovers gills and tail and well entire body.
On Ragnar you can see it on his gills and a little on the back side of his body.
There were both taken about 2 days before they died, and they were covered even more after these pictures.
 
#46 ·
That reminds me of the guppies I had a while back who came in with a mix of ich and velvet. I could be mistaken, but it looks like you have Velvet going on in there. Often it presents itself as a rusty color, but sometimes it's just a nasty white film over the body, sometimes causing nasty damage to the scales to make them look...flaky.

Like I said, I could be wrong, but look into it.
 
#49 ·
That reminds me of the guppies I had a while back who came in with a mix of ich and velvet.
Ive looked at pictures of velvet, but I think the pictures are a little blurry that I took, it wasn't in sheets per say, just dense globs in spots.

Where did you get the fish? What your fish have looks a lot like what my fish had but much more severe for you. So sad to see fish die. I researched velet online to see if my fish had it and photos and description did not quite match . Velvet is a dinoflagellate disease, but there are many... species of dinflagellates that are grouped together as " velvet". I think we have an uncommon species so its harder to diagnose. Started treating as ich but then no improvement. Looks like unusual form of velvet.
I got my fish at my local Petsmart because there are no other freshwater stores for miles. And thats interesting. But isn't the 'best' way to cure velvet to keep water conditions prime? I could be mistaken for another disease, but I thought that was for velvet.

Whatever this is its protozoan … Those pics seem like what my new angelicus would have been had I let it advance more . For this "super ich" I'd stand by any true anti protozoan meds. I RARELY resort to medications but this thing apparently calls for it
I agree, its obvious that the typical treatments don't work, but it seems that by the time you find out that it's not regular ich, its too late to get the medication for what it actually is.

Im wondering how common this new protozoan is and where it is coming from, Agent13 where did you buy your angelicus from? And how long before the spots developed?

Another thing I curious about is why 2 of my guppies got it so bad, but my cory and the lat guppy seemed to have regular ich, with in a week of hear/salt, the few spots on those two fell off and since the last guppy died i cant say for sure, but the spots have made no reappearance on the catfish. Anyways, we need some fish expert to come in and diagnose this so everyone can be sure haha.
 
#47 ·
Where did you get the fish? What your fish have looks a lot like what my fish had but much more severe for you. So sad to see fish die. I researched velet online to see if my fish had it and photos and description did not quite match . Velvet is a dinoflagellate disease, but there are many... species of dinflagellates that are grouped together as " velvet". I think we have an uncommon species so its harder to diagnose. Started treating as ich but then no improvement. Looks like unusual form of velvet.
 
#50 ·
I bought from blue grass aquatics. I've bought a lot from there with no problems before .
They were here for a few days maybe before showing signs . Looked like regular ich at first. Interestingly ... Like an idiot I decided to move a piece of driftwood either right before it maybe right after the first spots into another tank of mine . The loaches weren't responding to heat after 4 days and then a couple spots were on my balas in the tank I moved the wood to. I started heat on them and it was effective in the balas . The loaches in QT were getting worse not better though. I think it's something that comes along after ich has weakened the fish. Perhaps a close relative of the typical ich .. Idk


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#52 ·
Yes, they are meds I keep on hand for parasitic issues for my reptiles. I have a serious dr kit type box of supplies in my reptile supply closet haha.
I too wondered if it could be effective on an external parasite . However the way I administered it they not only ate it ... They got coated a bit each feeding in the meds. (I'll add, after the first dose... They weren't too keen of the blood worms anymore lol) . They are still in QT and are 100% better. The meds did work.. By the time I resorted to the med I had decided either this med would work or they would die.. They were really looking very bad .
Are you sure it's hard to overdose, Tolak ? It's administered by weight very specifically for reptiles and can harm them if too high a dose for too small a weight .


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#53 ·
Metro is one of the few meds I keep on hand, good for slow to eat angels. I eyeball sprinkling it on frozen, never had an OD issue. Most places advise 20mg/gallon in the water, I bring it up to 40-50mg/gallon with no problem. Fenbendazole is a related med, I'll drag out some books later, need to make a fish run to the north side in a few. If I start looking at medication books I'll loose track of time in a big way!
 
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