Ick in new tank?

fishnoob

Hello everyone!

I'm not off to a great start with my new tank :(

I noticed a few white dots on my Serpae Tetra last night. My tank is a week and a half old. I did a 10% water change this morning before leaving the house. I'm thinking about doing another 10% change when I get home (would that be ok?). I'm also trying to the get temp up around 80F.

Should I continue with water changes or treat the tank for ick? I bought a bottle of QuICK Cure.

Also, if I use the quick cure, I have to remove the cartridge from my filter correct? It's one of those "bio-bags" for a whisper filter.

TIA

Amphitrite

Hi fishnoob and welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear about your difficulties - it would be helpful if you could provide more detail.

Firstly, what size of tank do you have, and what do you have in it exactly?

Have you cycled the tank?

And can you provide water readings for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate?

Katherine :)

fishnoob

Sorry! It's a 10g. As for cycling, I guess not :(

I followed the directions that came with my starter kit. Set up the tank and had everything running, waited a few days and added the Serpae Tetra. It seemed to be doing good for a week so I added 3 small albino barbs with it. A couple days later I noticed the white spots on the tetra.

I tested ammonia yesterday and it was between 0ppm and .25ppm. PH was a little over 7 (I don't have the chart in front of me at the moment). I can check the nitrite and nitrate when I get home.

Like I said I did a 10% pwc this morning. I was thinking about doing another 10% when I get home. I'm just not sure how to handle the ick with a new tank. Should I even be doing pwc's with a new tank?

fish_4_all

Welcome to the forum!

It is ok to do water changes in a new tank, it will only remove some of the ammonia to protect the fish from high levels. To much water change will slow your cycle though so I wouldn't change more than 10% twice a week unless you need to control the ammonia. Anything close to .25ppm is very bad and water changes will be needed to control it.

With the ammonia, it could acutally be something else than ich but it doesn't rule it out. It sounds like the fish could have had ich from the LFS which happens a lot unfortunately.

Keep an eye on the ammonia and keep up with water changes, in the future, you can cycle without fish in about a month.

Here is an article I compiled from experience and some really good aquarium keepers about the fishless cycle for future references. http://www.fishforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=3738

fishnoob

Thanks fish_4_all!

Do you recommend I use the quick cure? I'm pretty sure it's ick and I don't want to wait to long. Right now only the one fish has the white spots.

I picked up a master kit test, so i'm going to do that in a few hours and get readings on everything.

fish_4_all

I am not the one to recommend medications for treatment. The only thing I have ever gotten to work is Coppersafe and I think it killed my bacteria at the same time.

fishnoob

Can someone translate my test results:

Ammonia - 0
Ph - between 7.0 and 7.2
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0


Also, the fish with the white spots only have two or three spots, that's all. Still not sure whether to treat for ick :(

fish_4_all

Ok, that tells me that it is not cycled yet, possibly. 0 nitrates means they are not being produced yet by the bacteria needed to handle them. It could mean that water changes are kepeing them down to an unreadeable level but I would keep testing my ammonia for the next couple weeks to make sure.

As for the "spots" are they all the same shape and size? Do they have a distinct shape to them or are they just an odd shaped "mass"?

A very detailed description of the spots will help to positively identify them and what they actually are. A picture would be even better but that is a difficult task in itself.

fishnoob

wow, these are hard to explain. I see about 4 spots total. They are round but differ in size. They are all seem to be behing the eyes (not very close, but close). The bigger ones are more white in color. I could have sworn I saw more last night.. but only see 4 at the moment.

Hope this helps!

Lupin

Welcome.

What is your temperature right now? I'd recommend raising it to 30 degrees Celsius. As for treatment, I haven't use Quick-Cure but I've been looking for product reviews about this. Not much positive results I can see other than claiming being toxic to scaleless fish which in your case is not but there are people who swear it is good enough to eliminate ich parasites.

Treatment must be done in 2 weeks at most to be sure that every parasite is eliminated otherwise they will only make a reappearance once the fish becomes stress again. Ich always hits the weak points of the fish and stress is often one of them.