Ich in planted tank (with scaleless fish no less)

[Ivana]

I think i'm in trouble here.
One fish. One stupid little guppy has ich.
I have plants, and kuhlis, and corys, AND inverts. I'd like to not kill them.
I've heard salt, but the corys can't take salt, can they?
The medications i've seen said NOT to use in a planted tank, or one with inverts.
Am I screwed? I've raised the temp so far, and only to 78. I'm raising it a degree or two twice a day.
Hep me!

[jeffs99dime]

do you have a qt tank?

[kimmers318]

Here is what has worked for me both times I have had ICK, and the one time hubby had it.....no recurrences. Raise the temp and start with a large water change to help get as many of the gravel living goomers out as you can. I went to around 82. Dose the entire tank with stresscoat...read the bottle, it will give you dosages for dechlorination and for treating damaged skin/fins. We use the convenient pump so it is 1 squirt per gallon. Continue to dose with stress coat and do water changes as often as you need to. In my cases, I didn't see any more spots after day 3, using stresscoat on days 1, 2 and 3. Continue water changes frequently, and keep temp up for a couple of weeks. Our first case of ICK was because we tried white skirts in my daughter's 5 gallon...way too small for them, they stressed, and I noticed the spots immediately. They are now in my 65 gal and I haven't ever seen ICK in that tank. The second was on a clown loach I purchased knowing he had ICK, but I wanted him for his unusual markings. Unfortunately that loach didn't make it, but it wasn't due to the ICK, I have had alot of bad luck with clowns and the "skinny disease" which all but 1 has succumbed to so far. Other fish have been popped in and out of that tank without seeing any ICK anywhere again. Hubby's oscars....same thing....they sustained some damage from a fight with what he thought was a convict when he purchased it young, and turned out to be a texas cichlid....and a rather nasty one at that....after being harassed too much, they ended up with ICK, and although he started with meds...when I saw it wasn't helping much, and the poor guys started to look worse, I started going in and squirting them with stresscoat every day. This is a solution I came up with after reading alot about ICK, and another article about only using stresscoat to treat different issues. It is kind of a combination of the 2 and has worked for me. For some reason, when I put salt in my aquariums, my fish spaz...haven't had any luck with it. I try to stay away from chemicals, so I didn't stock my house with all kinds of chemicals and meds just in case. When I first saw the ICK the first time I panicked...did the water change and dosed the stresscoat. Figured I would look into meds for it the next day (can't remember why I didn't run right to the store), the fish were looking better the next day so I figured, what the heck, maybe I caught it early enough. Catching it early also seems to be a plus in getting it under control, and as long as your fish are generally healthy, they should be able to fight it off by themselves with a little help from you.

[Ivana]

My little black guppy died. The females are looking ragged. I added stresscoat, but didn't get to do a water change today. I also had to lower the temp a bit. All the fish are dragging along, and I haven't seen my kuhlis for three days. I'm about to cry. They used to all come out in the evenings and play, but i've only seen the tail of one tonight. I'm on the verge of moving rocks to find them. I don't think I could take it if they all died. They're my favorites.

[kimmers318]

One thing I should have mentioned is with increased temps you need to increase aeration....something about warmer water not holding oxygen as well. I don't pretend to understand it, I just do it and it seems to work.
Sorry to hear your guppy died, any idea why you may have ended up with ICK? Some believe it is always in the tank waiting for the chance to get ahold of a stressed/susceptible fish....others don't feel that way, but it does seem to occur regularly when something happens to stress a fish out.

[Ivana]

I think it rode in on one of the guppies. If I find a dead kuhli, it's game on. I'll take every damned plant out and medicate.
I'm very sad.

[Ivana]

Body count so far:
1 clown plec
1 black guppy
5 or so kuhlis that are MIA. Might be hiding.
I gave in and got some nox ich, put a little salt in the tank, and am hoping for the best. One of the female guppies is swimming on her side for the fourth day in a row, and her gills are all red. The ammonia is back to 0 though, so it's either something else besides ich, or she got burnt when the ammonia went up. The other female guppy is COVERED in ich though. Completely covered. Poor kid. I hope she soldiers through. After this scare, i'm looking for my kuhlis.

[newt0524]

hey

it may be beneficial to invest in a 5 gallon pail or at least a large bowl. you can usually get a mop bucket from the dollar store that will hold those fish just fine with water changes and the plants.

sorry to say, but you may have to sacrifice the plants. by now im sure the ich parasites are all in them. also, it probably won't do much good to move any of the fish to quarentine as they all probably have the ich.

my best advice is to cranck the temperature (the fish may be groggy but they should survive) and treat the tank. the high temp will help you to treat the tank quicker as the bacteria will incubate quicker.

in the future, use the pail to keep new fuish in for a few days before adding them to the tank. it may be more work but it can help detect what happened to your tank before it happens.


sorry about the loss and i hope this helps
newt

[Ivana]

Just to revisit this, I treated with NoxIch for 10 days, upped the temp to 80, and no more dead fish. The Ich is gone, and all the Kuhlis survived. They just didn't come out of hiding forever.

[AuroraAustralis]

If you have another Ich outbreak try the garlic treatment along with no lights, increased temp & aeration. Garlic powder (not garlic salt) added at 1/2 - 3/4 teaspoon to 50 gal. I haven't tried it myself but only because I haven't had Ich in any of my tanks in nearly 2 years so haven't had the need to try it out since hearing about it. I do know that some aquarists who are far more knowledgable than myself swear by it. It is safe for plants, scale-less fish and even corals so your inverts would be fine too & it won't mess with your filter bacteria either ;o)