We have had our tank up for about 2 months now and not a day has gone by without ich despite treatment after treatment....we have used all the remedies available at Super Pet. Does anyone have any thoughts on this. We have done everything, increased water temp, salt, etc. Our water was tested and its fine. Continue to lose fish! Water is also very cloudy most of the time...charcoal is out....
Persistant ich!
- Thread starter denikarn
- Start date
what kinds of medicine did you try? Did you keep giving the treatments for the whole duration of the time? Is there something that can be stressing your fish out all the time, thereby weakening their immune system? And, you probably are, but are you 100% positive that it is ich? Rather than velvet or something?
According to directions with all the different medications..I am not sure what all the meds were..Malachite Green, Methyline Blue, Quick cure...whatever Eric got at the pet stores. It looks like salt on the fish, then it falls off...only to eventually return again. We had fish several years ago and never had problems like we have now. Also something else happening as our largest Angel lost his tail fin and died yesterday. It had ich a few days ago...looked much improved, no more spots and then the next day tail fin was very chopped off and it died. We have angels, tetra's..black neon and blueberry,one Gourami, Pleocostamus,3 swords, and one Parrot fish in a 72 gallon tank
sounds like ich to me...
i could type all about it, but colesea did in another thread so i'll just copy/paste it here:
Ich has three stages in its life cycle. Stage one is a polyp that lives on the gravel, glass, ornaments, and everything else in your tank. This stage is impervious to medications, which is why ich infections become reoccuring in many tanks that are not completely bleached out. This form of the parasite can sometimes stay in hibernation regardless of tank environmental conditions, hatching out when conditions become right again.
Stage two is a free-swimming stages that hatches out of the polyp and swims around looking for a host, aka, the fish. This is the only stage of the life cycle that is affected by medications, which is why most medications require at least a two week treatment period. Frequent water changes during ich treatment also help to remove the free-swimming stage from the water and prevent attachment to fish host.
The third stage is the actually cyst on the fish, which we see as the little white spots. This stage is also impervious to medications, although it can sometimes be combated by changes in osmotic pressure, aka the addition of salt to the environment which will suck water out of the cyst (as well as out of your fish) and cause the cyst to implode, rendering it dead. Once the cysts develop, they fall off the fish and into the sesile stage on your gravel, glass, ornaments, etc. to restart the cycle.
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okay, well all three of those medicines you mentioned should have worked. Also, I'm not good at plecos/catfish/bottom feeders at all, but I do know some medicines can be harmful to them, so before you use another medicine, check it out.
I just a few days ago got over a case of ich after weeks of nothing helping. I used Coppersafe, which can hurt live plants and scaleless fish, but it worked great. I tried three or four different things before and nothing seemed to help. But Coppersafe did.
It stays in the tank for a month to eradicate the parasite thoroughly, which is important because you do not want to discontinue the treatment before it is really gone. Sometimes people mistake the stage of when the ich falls off for it being gone and stop treatment. Just keep trying and keep some salt in there and raise the temp to 82 ish or higher, if you're fish can stand it.
good luck.
i could type all about it, but colesea did in another thread so i'll just copy/paste it here:
Ich has three stages in its life cycle. Stage one is a polyp that lives on the gravel, glass, ornaments, and everything else in your tank. This stage is impervious to medications, which is why ich infections become reoccuring in many tanks that are not completely bleached out. This form of the parasite can sometimes stay in hibernation regardless of tank environmental conditions, hatching out when conditions become right again.
Stage two is a free-swimming stages that hatches out of the polyp and swims around looking for a host, aka, the fish. This is the only stage of the life cycle that is affected by medications, which is why most medications require at least a two week treatment period. Frequent water changes during ich treatment also help to remove the free-swimming stage from the water and prevent attachment to fish host.
The third stage is the actually cyst on the fish, which we see as the little white spots. This stage is also impervious to medications, although it can sometimes be combated by changes in osmotic pressure, aka the addition of salt to the environment which will suck water out of the cyst (as well as out of your fish) and cause the cyst to implode, rendering it dead. Once the cysts develop, they fall off the fish and into the sesile stage on your gravel, glass, ornaments, etc. to restart the cycle.
***
okay, well all three of those medicines you mentioned should have worked. Also, I'm not good at plecos/catfish/bottom feeders at all, but I do know some medicines can be harmful to them, so before you use another medicine, check it out.
I just a few days ago got over a case of ich after weeks of nothing helping. I used Coppersafe, which can hurt live plants and scaleless fish, but it worked great. I tried three or four different things before and nothing seemed to help. But Coppersafe did.
It stays in the tank for a month to eradicate the parasite thoroughly, which is important because you do not want to discontinue the treatment before it is really gone. Sometimes people mistake the stage of when the ich falls off for it being gone and stop treatment. Just keep trying and keep some salt in there and raise the temp to 82 ish or higher, if you're fish can stand it.
good luck.
I can relate to this totally because we suffered from this for at least 6 months. Why? Because we were not giving the treatment time enough to work through all the ick. I can tell you now is what I ended up doing was using one treatment for way longer than what the directions said. I believe I used it every day for about 2 months straight before I was sure that the ick was gone.
Now, I have 75 gallon tank, so I went through tons of the treatment before the ick cleared up. We also have a 30 gallon as well that when through the same treatment process.
What I can tell you we did too was as soon as we bought any new fish, we had a 10 gallon tank that the fish went into and are treated for ick. It was a bare bones tank, and the fish did about two weeks in it before we let the go into one of the other tanks. This was to prevent any new outbreaks of ick. We have stopped buying fish for now, so the 10 gallon is gone.
Now, I have 75 gallon tank, so I went through tons of the treatment before the ick cleared up. We also have a 30 gallon as well that when through the same treatment process.
What I can tell you we did too was as soon as we bought any new fish, we had a 10 gallon tank that the fish went into and are treated for ick. It was a bare bones tank, and the fish did about two weeks in it before we let the go into one of the other tanks. This was to prevent any new outbreaks of ick. We have stopped buying fish for now, so the 10 gallon is gone.
