ICH in my community tank! Advise please!

[jaytech33]

Hi everyone,

I just noticed what looks like a bad outbreak of ich in my tank. My plecos and clowns have no spots(from what I can see), but my danios are covered, my pink gourami is covered, my blue and gold gouramis have a few spots.

Whats the best way to treat this variety of fish? I just spent an hour reading, but it's hard to figure out what to do with so many different typs of fish.

I'm going to do a gravel vac and 50% water change, then start raising the temp. Should I attempt any meds? go buy a UV Sterilizer?

It's a well established tank, most of the fish are over 2years old. water parameters are good, I keep the tank clean, and at 80 degrees.

Not sure what happened, but this is my first ich breakout!!!

I'll try and get some pics, but I'm sure it's ich.

[Mark in Vancouver]

Slowly increase the temperature up to 86F. Increase aeration if you can, as oxygen becomes depleted as the temperature increases. I haven't kept plecos, so I don't know what meds they can tolerate. If it was my tank, I'd race out and get some Ich-specific medication like Rid-Ich. Treat in half doses at first.

And keep an eye on your clowns. If it is Ich, it will shortly show up on them.

Hopefully, some others will weigh in on this.

Did you recently add anything at all to the tank?

[jaytech33]

I can't get great pictures but if you look at the fins you can see the white dots.

[Diana]

Yup Ich.

Plecos are among the tougher catfish. Whatever the Loaches can handle will be the deciding factor.

Do plenty of gravel vacs. As the Ich falls off the fish it falls to the bottom of the tank to reproduce. Every time you vacuum the tank you are removing Ich organisms. When you raise the temperature into the 80s, I would be doing daily or every other day vacuuming.
Re-dose whatever medicine you are using when you do a water change.

[Mark in Vancouver]

And make sure your tank-cleaning equipment is totally sterile before using it again, particularly if you have more than one tank. If you resort to the use of Ich medication, treat it with great respect. It may be full of formalin or worse. Wash any exposed skin very thoroughly.

Make sure to treat the tank as though it is still fully infected for at least several days after the last visible signs disappear... Ich will still be present, and a repeated treatment is not going to be good for your fish.

[jaytech33]

Mark,

How exactly do I sterilize my gravel vac? I do have another tank.

Thanks

[shari2]

Take it apart and boil it. Just make sure you have enough water in it to keep it from melting via contact with the pot.

Or

Soak in a bleach solution. 1 part bleach : 19 parts water.
Then rinse and soak again in heavily dechlorinated water.

You should also dip nets, tools, whatever you use in that tank, in the bleach solution.

[jaytech33]

Thank you all for the info. Well I think my "nice guy" attitude caused my ich.

I used my vac to clean a friends neglected tank 2 weeks ago, never thought to boil my equipment. Can ICH "live" out of water? I would say atleast 3-4 days went by between the time I cleaned his tank then mine.

Last night I bumped up the temp from around 81 to 84. This morning I bumped up the heaters to 87.

Anything I should be doing with the media in my canister filter? I read if you add meds to take out the carbon, but since I am not using meds do I do anything?

[Diana]

You do not really need to do anything special to te filter media, but it would be a good idea to clean it. This will make sure there are less hiding places for the Ich. If you use salt you do not need to remove the carbon, but if you use any Ich medicine remove the carbon.

I have heard that simply daily gravel vacs can remove enough Ich to cure the fish, but the case I heard of was:
Bare bottom tank
Ich caught early, the first few spots had just shown up.

[jaytech33]

well this just showed up yesterday. In the morning I did'nt see any spots on the fish. Last night a few of the danios were covered with them. Now that the temp is up to 87 I'm going to do a 50% water change and then daily vac's.

I really hope my loaches survive.

[newshound]

just buy a new gravel vac.

[tattooedgemini]

bleach the gravel vac, it's still good.. i usually treat ich with aquarium salt, darkness and temp increase.. also frequent water changes at least every couple days for min 2 weeks your fish will b back to normal in no time.. you should do some research on the lifecycle of ich to get a better idea of how the treatment works

[shari2]

Chances are the hose never really dries out in a week. It'd likely take quite a while. Sounds like you're right about how it got into your tank.

The up side is that if your fish weather this outbreak it's possible they will develop a certain level of immunity to ich.

[jaytech33]

well today 1 of the 5 clowns have ich Tank is around 87 degrees, increased the airflow to the air stone, and have the water level below the spray bar. I just did a super gravel vac and 50% water change.

Still deciding if I should try some "loach safe" meds, or just ride it out with water changes and gravel vacs....

[shari2]

In your case I'd try the salt and high temp method.

here's some decent, easy to read instructions.
http://www.aquariumboard.com/forums/articles/25.htm