Gone for a day, and came home to a disaster. Ich--help me out...?

[Lolita]

I stayed overnight with a friend last night, only to get a call that one of my guppies had died this morning. I came home just now to a disaster.

My tank tempurature had somehow risen from 79 F (a bit high, so I turned my heater down a bit to try to let it cool down...) to 81.8 F! I couldn't figure out how, because my heater was turned ALL the way down, but it was still on!

I pulled the heater out completely and added some cool water to the tank to try to even out the temperature slowly.

Then, I went about inspecting my fish as I do every night. I took a head count and looked at fins, etc.

One of them has ich...

I'm freaking out now because I got them all at the same time so I didn't bother with a quarentine tank yet, and I can't get medication or anything for them until tomorrow night after work!

What do I do? Should I let the tempurature rise back up again? Do I treat the whole tank even though I only see it on one fish in case they end up with it as well? What's the best way to treat them? I'd rather avoid meds and try to do it as naturally as possible, if that's possible...just so I'm not treating fish that aren't healthy. Is salt and high temps with very frequent water changes best?

I can't believe this is happening... what an awful start to a tank!

[Lolita]

I just read that I should not add salt because it's a planted aquarium, but that I should raise the temps to 85 degrees.

That sounds WAY too high. Will it hurt my fish, or is that the way to treat it?

[William]

Ich is rather easy to cure and can be cured in several ways. Also you dont need to worry about not having a qt tank as the disease seem to have infected your entire tank if I understand you correctly and then it is best to treat the main tank.

Read these articles for more info on how to cure the disease:
Ich: An Old Cure for an Old Disease ([Only Registered Users Can See Links.]) - Information on diagnosing and treating anchor worms.Natural methods to cure ich
Ich/ich on scaleless fish ([Only Registered Users Can See Links.]) - Information on treating ich on scaleless fish such as botias.
Ich: An in-depth Explanation ([Only Registered Users Can See Links.]) - A in-depth article on ich.

[William]

I just read that I should not add salt because it's a planted aquarium, but that I should raise the temps to 85 degrees.

That sounds WAY too high. Will it hurt my fish, or is that the way to treat it?

salt will likely not be a problem for the plant. You dont use that much, Do you keep any loaches or other scaleless fish. if so you should avoid salt, otherwise salt can be a good cheap option.

[Lolita]

Thank you William!

I was really worried about raising the temp. that high, but both articles seem to agree that it's fine for the fish.

I don't have any scaleless fish, but I think I'll avoid salt for now and just try the heat method...to be on the safe side. I tend to prefer treating illnesses in the most natural way possible, even for myself.

I'll turn the heater up and hope for the best. I just hope the fish can handle the heat... x_x This is so disheartening. The tank hasn't even had fish for more than a week..

[Lolita]

Okay, I turned my heater up to 84.

I feel bad for the fish. I finally got the tank cool enough that they were active again, and now I'm turning it back up, only higher!

I hope they all pull through. There's only one fish that has it, but I don't want to risk not "treating" the others in some form and havign them all get it.

I'll start doing 50% water changes daily tomorrow. I only have to do this for a week right?

[rangur1]

there are good ich meds available. as for your tank it is infected, all of it. as well as all of your fish. if your fish can handle it , the natural way is high temps [85f] and aquarium salt of about 3 table spoons per 5 gals water. keep this for at least 3 days AFTER all signs of ick have dissapeared. if you start tommorow, figure at least 7 days total.
or use ick meds as instructed.