Ich ran its course through the tank killing all the fish except a couple of tetras and my otto. I moved them to a seperate tank to try and save them so they are hanging on. Unfortunately the tank they are is UNCYCLED, but I am doing 75% water changes daily to try and keep them from getting too stressed until I can get them back in my regular tank. My question is....How long does it tank for my tank to be safe again. I have been adding a chemical to kill of the ich for the past three days and boosted the temp up to 85 degrees. I removed all the fake plants and the rocks and ornaments. I boiled the rocks and ornaments & threw away the plants. I have been doing partial water changes do help clean out the system as well as vacuming the gravel that I have on the bottom as well. My main concern is that my tank was cycled and always in the safe range because I stayed on top of the water changes. My fear is that without the fish in there the good bacteria will die off and I will have to start over, but more than that I certainly do not want to add the fish that did survive back in the water too soon. Please help, this has been a nightmare I a want to get it situated ASAP!! Thanks.
My tank had ich now trying to recover-HELP!
- Thread starter NEWfishBIGpond
- Start date
Morning 
Which Ich medication are you using?
I had a similar problem although I was lucky and all the fish recovered nicely.
For the recovery, I stayed with the instructions and did 50% water changes every other day before adding the next round of treatment. Once treatment was finished, I did another 50% change and added back the charcoal to remove the discoloration. Two more 50% water changes over the course of 6 days, and two more carbon inserts and the discoloration was gone. As an aside, I am mkaing the assumption that you removed any charcoal inserts prior to starting treatment? If you didn't, the charcoal essentially would have negated the treatment.
Now, here is the rub for you I think. The gravel you have on the bottom chould have enough bacteria to sustain the tank with just your three surviving fish, and you may have enough "food" to keep some of it alive. Your three extra days of treatment and the high temps have probably killed off any ich spores remaining. Test your parameters and see what is happening. Your tetras are probably the most hardy. Maybe put one back in and see what happens, or, go with the fishless cycling method.
You didn't say what size your main tank was but if only three fish survived and you have a tank over 40 gallons, you may be able to put all three back in for recycling.
Another thought is to place a spponge or some filter floss in the tank where your fish are currently residing. Even a week or so will allow some bacteria to populate the media which you can then transfer to your main tank. 4 weeks would be better but a week is better than not at all.
Which Ich medication are you using?
I had a similar problem although I was lucky and all the fish recovered nicely.
For the recovery, I stayed with the instructions and did 50% water changes every other day before adding the next round of treatment. Once treatment was finished, I did another 50% change and added back the charcoal to remove the discoloration. Two more 50% water changes over the course of 6 days, and two more carbon inserts and the discoloration was gone. As an aside, I am mkaing the assumption that you removed any charcoal inserts prior to starting treatment? If you didn't, the charcoal essentially would have negated the treatment.
Now, here is the rub for you I think. The gravel you have on the bottom chould have enough bacteria to sustain the tank with just your three surviving fish, and you may have enough "food" to keep some of it alive. Your three extra days of treatment and the high temps have probably killed off any ich spores remaining. Test your parameters and see what is happening. Your tetras are probably the most hardy. Maybe put one back in and see what happens, or, go with the fishless cycling method.
You didn't say what size your main tank was but if only three fish survived and you have a tank over 40 gallons, you may be able to put all three back in for recycling.
Another thought is to place a spponge or some filter floss in the tank where your fish are currently residing. Even a week or so will allow some bacteria to populate the media which you can then transfer to your main tank. 4 weeks would be better but a week is better than not at all.
Thanks for the reply & advice. It is a 30 gallon tank. I did remove the carbon part of the filter so I am hoping that it killed all the parasites. I am thinking about doing a 50% water change today, do another dose of the medicine today. Then tomorrow do another 25% change and 24 hours after the last medicine dose add the carbon filter back, then just do 25% water changes a couple times a week each week to get the rest of that junk out of tank.
Hopefully it works well......I can't believe out of all my fish it is just a rummynose/neon tetra left.....they are tougher then people give them credit for.
Hopefully it works well......I can't believe out of all my fish it is just a rummynose/neon tetra left.....they are tougher then people give them credit for.
Well, removing the fish from the tank was not a good idea. The fish themselves are carriers as in one stage of the lifecycle, ich lives on the fish. You should have just kept your cycled tank as it was and raised the water temperature to 85 to kill the parasite. Now you've got a much larger problem on your hands with an uncycled tank since you've boiled everything. The life cycle of ich is 14 days, so the tank temperature must be 85 for that long. My suggestion is that you put the fish back in their normal tank and raise the temp to make sure it is all killed. In the meantime, you'll also have to monitor your water changes, etc for the tank cycle. I have an article on my website under "My Fish is Sick" about ich, also information on cycling a tank safely with fish in it. Good luck!
Thanks for the reply, yeah...I did what I thought was best from reading online but maybe it wasn't. The gravel is still in the original tank and so is the filter media as well, except for the carbon because I used an itch cure chemical. I had too much gravel in there anyways so I cleaned out about half and took out the ornaments an boiled them. I am going to test the water tomorrow to see where I am at. The fish have been in the other tank only three days now. Is that long enough for the original tank to get out of whack?? The parasites ran its way through my tank so quick and killed off everything that I wanted to keep these guys alive so I could add them back. If they die off because ich is still alive and well in the tank then I would then I would have no fish to add back in a short amount of time and couldn't add any new fish, then I would definately throw my tank out of cycle...at least that was my thinking. I read that the high temperature excellerates the parasites life cycle and after maturity within a few days with out a host the parasites would die off. Tomorrow will be the fourth day, so I was hoping what I read was correct and after a couple of major water changes and with the gravel and filter still in there it would be cycled enough to support the fish and provide a good clean enviornment again. I will read you info on you site though. Thanks again!