Ich outbreak?

[underdebate]

So I have this suspicion my sorority might've caught ich, but I'm hoping that's not the case. I've been noticing a few little white dots on some of the ladies, and it's making me paranoid-- however, they're all completely energetic, hungry as ever, and none of them seem to be darting around to rub against things. The tank temperature has remained consistently between 84-86F as well. All of the girls were quarantined before they were added to the tank and were monitored closely for any signs of illness; they were introduced to the tank about 10 days ago.

If it IS ich, I'd be willing to run a salt treatment, but the tank is a planted 15 gallon and having to do 100% water changes seems almost impossible-- not to mention it's still currently in the process of cycling and I'm terrified of messing the cycle up.

Ideas? Anyone have experience with this sort of situation?

Housing
What size is your tank? ~15 gallons, give or take
What temperature is your tank? 85F
Does your tank have a filter? yes
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration? no
Is your tank heated? yes
What tank mates does your betta fish live with? sorority tank, currently houses 9 girls

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? Atison Betta Pro
How often do you feed your betta fish? Each girl gets approximately 3-4 pellets (they're very small) twice daily.

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? 2 changes per week while the tank cycles.
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? Approximately 30%
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? Seachem Prime

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? white dots on several of the girls
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? So far nothing about their behaviour has changed at all.
When did you start noticing the symptoms? Last night.
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? n/a
Does your fish have any history of being ill? n/a
How old is your fish (approximately)? All are between 6-8 months.

[Pogthefish]

I would probably feed that muc once daily instead of twice, dont make me go into my lecture on bettas and food >_< their stomach s the size of their eye and only needs to be filled once a day. Bettas can go weks without eating and they don't need as much food as us because they are cold-blooded, mmkay? There, happy? I really don;t want to type it all. If u have questions let me know ^_^

I think the tank should be more like 78 degrees, I have found 78 seems to be the sweet spot for health for my fish :D You can leave the tank warm while treating the possible ich though.

[underdebate]

Thank you for your opinion; I'll take that into consideration while waiting on advice concerning what I'm having the problem with.

[Pogthefish]

OH RITE! I have adhd, sorry. Well the best way to treat is antifungal, but I would do aq salt now. Just be able to do a 100% change later. Idk. I can't tell unless I have a pic.

[teeneythebetta]

Can you post pics? It does seem odd that they arent behaving weirdly.. im not familiar with ick but maybe it is the beginning stage?

Ick
•Symptoms: Betta has white dots (looks like he was sprinkled with salt) all over his body and head, even eyes. Lethargic, No appetite, Clamped Fins, Might dart and scratching against decor
•Treatment: You can treat Ick either conservatively or with medication. Ick is a parasite. Because ick is contagious, it is preferable to treat the whole tank when one fish is found to have it. Ick is temperature sensitive: Leave your betta in the community tank and raise temperature to 85 F. Then you can choose to treat with salt or medication. Conservative: Add 1 tsp/gal Aquarium Salt 3 times, 12 hours apart so that you end up with 3 times the normal concentration. Perform daily 100% water changes to remove fallen parasites before they can reproduce. Replace the water with the right amount of salt. Do not continue this treatment for more than 14 days. If it fails or you do not want to use salt, treat with Jungle’s Parasite Clear, API Super Ick Cure, or Kordon Rid Ich Plus. If your betta lives in a jar/bowl, then it can be difficult to heat the water. There are heaters for smaller containers, but you can also float the quarantine container in a larger heated tank during treatment. Do a full water change every day and add an appropriate amount of medication to the water.
•Alternative Treatment: Personally, I have not found Ick medications very effective. I prefer to use PP to treat all external parasites. In the past, I have used 3 or 4 different ick medications unsuccessfully, and every time I resort to PP which works like a charm. Do lots of research before using PP as it is a more dangerous chemical than most

[Silverfang]

This was the start of a mild outbreak on my boy. http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/r...g?t=1336559823

Does it look like that? I have heard of ich being treated with just heat before. When I treated my boy I used just salt since I did not have a means of raising the temp in his quarantine. Make sure you do good cleanings of the substrate (I realize this is usually is usually counter-indicated with planted tanks), you need to get the fallen parasites out.

I'm not really sure how to clean the substrate without disturbing the roots too much, perhaps you could ask in the habitats section of the forum?

[underdebate]

So after examination yesterday, I determined I was pretty sure my girls did have ich-- later in the day, they started darting against the plants and the white dots became more noticeable. I was swamped for time so I raised the water temperature by about two degrees told myself I'd start some sort of treatment whenever I had time the next day.

Fast forward to today; I accidentally fall asleep on the couch between my volunteer shift and my work shift, so now it's 10:30 at night and I'm re-examining the tank again. Almost every single one of the ich dots has disappeared, and the girls are acting exponentially more normal.

I'm still going to run a salt treatment, but maybe not as intensively-- I'll have to do a full change anyway to get the spores out, and fortunately most of my plants are the non-rooting type, so I shouldn't have too much trouble.

This is all very weird. I'll post here again with updates if anything changes.