Ick Advice please reply

[jfw]

I started a sorority recently, and I believe my girls are in the beginning stages of Ick. What do you guys think is the best treatment method?

I have read of raising the temperature of the tank to 86F, if the temp is raised incrementally is this stressful on the fish anyway just having the temperature so high?

Suggestions please, I want all your input before I commit to any treatment.

[callistra]

Is your fish exhibing signs of stress at 86? If so you can turn it down to 82. The high temps speed up the life cycle of the ich but you can do this without stressing out your fish. Fish respond to higher temps differently. Some will be okay with it and others will not. Watch for signs of stress as you very slowly raise the temp and at any time they are acting stressed turn it back down. The other thing that kills ich is adding medicinal aquarium salt at 1 tsp per gallon but you can't do that in a tank with live plants, which it looks like from your photo yours might be?

In this case you will need to move the fish for treatment into a hospital tank and treat the same way with high temps and aquarium salt. Otherwise you can treat in the tank with actual meds.

I don't know about treating outside the tank and then returning to the tank with ich.. if this tank would need to be broken down or a period with no fish (host) and high heat would be enough. I just don't have much experience with planted tank.

[jfw]

thanks, I was just worried because I have never had the temp in the tank so high. I haven't posted picks of this tank yet, though it is also heavily planted.
I have the temp rising slowly now, and I'm going to get some meds I guess. I read anything that is based on copper of Malachite green. ?
Still any advice is appreciated.

[Oldfishlady]

Spot on callistra.....however, we need some more information....what size is the tank, how long has it been setup, filter, species of live plants, additives used, how many females and any other livestock, appetite/type/amount of food-how much and how often are the water changes, how bad is the infestation and how many days-do all the fish have Ich......can you post a pic.....

As callistra posted-some plants can be sensitive to salt and too high temps-while high temp can speed the parasite life cycle and over 86F can hinder reproduction-sometimes the stress can be harder on the fish and make things worse-often with mild infestation all you need to do is decrease the stress, remove the fish with bad infestation and make deep vacuuming daily to manually remove the parasite.

Salt can be helpful and with some Ich that are not resistant it can even kill them-generally what you want to salt for is the secondary infection that is often caused by the wound left by the parasite when it detaches from the Betta-but clean water can often take care of that too as long as the Betta was healthy to start with a strong immune response.....

Bottom line-depending on the general health of the Bettas-you may or may not need either high heat or salt.....

Edit.....with heavy planted tanks-you don't want to add any medication-if they are heavily infested with Ich-remove them to a QT tank-without a host in the planted tank the parasites generally die in 3-4 days....

[jfw]

Thanks OFL.
My tank is 10 gallons
less than 2 months old.
It is very heavily planted. I started giving them some anti ick medication before I read your post.
Ive treated them for three days and symptoms are improving. With 50% water changes everyday
I caught it before they were heavily infested I believe. Since treatment some white spots have appeared on a couple tails, but I believe the parasite is just playing itself out.

So would you say with a semi mild infestation would I still need to tear everything down? I was planning on taking the plants out anyway and giving them a good scrub because I've been growing algae on the tops of some of them. Any tips for getting algae off of live plant leaves?
Thanks.
I'll get some picks this week and post them.

[Oldfishlady]

It is normal and expected to have some algae and it can even mean the system is healthy....however, since its a closed system we have to control it to a degree by manual removal and balance....

With planted tanks its a balance-you have to meet the plants needs in order for them to out compete the algae for both light and nutrients.....

Proper lights are the driving force.....what kind of lights do you have, age of bulbs, kelvin, watts and photoperiod....

Number and species of plants and how planted, type of substrate and how deep...

What kind of algae.....

For mild infestation of Ich-sometimes all you need to do is build on the fish immune response and limit stress and they will take care of it-along with manual removal of parasites with vacuum every day for 1 week....

[jfw]

I have 2 compact fluorescent bulbs each put out 2700k and are 13 watts.
I generally have the light on ten hours a day, up to twelve sometimes, I haven't bought a timer yet.
The sub strait is just rocks.
There are around 13 individual plants in the aquarium, 4 or 5 types. I will get a list together when I get the pictures done today or tomorrow. :)

also, its just green algae from what I can tell, some started blooming on the walls recently. On top of the plants I believe it is the same type, it just looks allot different on the green leaves.
There was this stringy stuff starting to grow, but last week I removed it and it doesn't seem to be coming back.

[Oldfishlady]

I would recommend changing the bulbs to daylight 6500k to get the correct color temp the plants can use better to out compete the algae.... 10 watts each-might be hard to find..10w for 10gal tank and you will have to get 20w and 2-20w bulbs over a 10gal is going cause some algae problems-but moving the lights up higher over the water can help some or use 1 tube over the center of the tank.

With planted tanks its a balance.....

[jfw]

thanks for all of your replies. I don't know why I put 2700 I meant 6500. guess I was part zombie this morning. I swapped hoods recently for completely unrelated reasons but it makes sense because that stringy algae quite afterward.

[Oldfishlady]

Good that you have the 6500k, however, with two tubes at 13w over a 10gal-gives you 26w and 2.6wpg-which may be part of the algae problem unless you are injecting CO2-what you can do is raise the lights to about 6inch above the water or use 1 tube....

To double check-these bulbs are under 12months old correct....old bulbs can be problematic too....