# HELP I've got Ick in my acqarium



## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Hi Guys

Looks like I've got some Ick in my tank due to the worm weather. I noticed lately that temperature in my 29Gl tank went up by 2 degrees due to the worm weather. Last night I noticed the little white spots on my rummy nose tetras and now on my cherry barbs. My guppies and neons are not affected at the moment. What is the best way to treat it ? I just bought Tetra Ick Guard and wondering if anybody used it ? I have 29Gl planted tank with 25.5 degree temperature during the day and 23.5 during the night when it is no sun. I have guppies, neons, rummy nose tetras and corries in the tank I also have assassin snails and amano shrimps. And I'm wondering what is the fastest, most effective way to treat Ick in my tank ?


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

I would not use medication of any kind, as you have invertebrates inside your aquarium.

The only safe method would be to increase the temperature (slowly); salt can also be beneficial.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Darkblade48 said:


> I would not use medication of any kind, as you have invertebrates inside your aquarium.
> 
> The only safe method would be to increase the temperature (slowly); salt can also be beneficial.


Thank you for your reply. A Few questions.
1. Tera Ick guard does not indicate that it could be harmful invertebrates vs Tetra Parasite Guard where it said openly. Still don't recommend to use ?
2. How high and how slowly should I increase the temperature ? Hi heater is in Celsius and I just increased by 1 degree to 23 C. It can go up to 30 C. How fast and how high ?
3. I'm not sure I can use aquarium salt as I have Amazon sword plant in my tank and I've red that salt will kill it and it's my primary plant in the tank. Any advice there ?

Thanks again


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

You certainly didn't get ich from the warm weather. Either you've added new fish recently, or you've always had ich in your tank but you just haven't noticed. Perhaps this explains the guppy deaths that you've had?

I recommend upping the water temperature to 30C and adding 1 tablespoon of salt per gallon of water. Keep it like this for 10 days straight, and your ich problem should be gone.


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

ppaskova said:


> Thank you for your reply. A Few questions.
> 1. Tera Ick guard does not indicate that it could be harmful invertebrates vs Tetra Parasite Guard where it said openly. Still don't recommend to use ?


I still would not recommend the use of medication.



ppaskova said:


> 2. How high and how slowly should I increase the temperature ? Hi heater is in Celsius and I just increased by 1 degree to 23 C. It can go up to 30 C. How fast and how high ?


As mentioned, 30C is a good point. Note that you will likely need to have aeration as less oxygen can be held by the water at this temperature.

As for raising the temperature, doing it gradually is key. 1C every few hours should be fine.



ppaskova said:


> 3. I'm not sure I can use aquarium salt as I have Amazon sword plant in my tank and I've red that salt will kill it and it's my primary plant in the tank. Any advice there ?
> 
> Thanks again


You can just use high temperature.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

solarz said:


> You certainly didn't get ich from the warm weather. Either you've added new fish recently, or you've always had ich in your tank but you just haven't noticed. Perhaps this explains the guppy deaths that you've had?
> 
> I recommend upping the water temperature to 30C and adding 1 tablespoon of salt per gallon of water. Keep it like this for 10 days straight, and your ich problem should be gone.


Well I don't think my guppies issue was related as I did not see any ick on them when they wore dead. I can not use your method as salt ill kill all my life plants. I went with the Tetra treatment. Although the box did not say anything about shrimps or snails the website recommended to remove them. I did find and removed some snails but I could not catch any of my amano shrimps as they wore hiding. They usually stronger than regular shrimps as they survived my parasite treatment before. Let's hope I don't lose that mny. But in any case replacing amanos or all my plants will cost me about the same. Let's hope that the treatment will work.


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## missindifferent (Jun 25, 2010)

Salt treatment is the best method, and for a short period there should not be any noticeable effect on the plants. Medication is probably worse for them…

In any case, since you have cories you should only half dose the salt anyway if you went that route.

Good luck with the medication


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

ppaskova said:


> Well I don't think my guppies issue was related as I did not see any ick on them when they wore dead. I can not use your method as salt ill kill all my life plants.


Plants are more resistant to salt than you think. I didn't want to use salt at first when I was treating ich, being also concerned about my shrimps and plants, but that led to an outbreak of columnaris, which loves high temperatures. Adding salt cured the columnaris, and it did not have any noticeable effect on my shrimps and plants.


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## Mr. Scruples (Apr 20, 2012)

Let's hope the medication does the trick for you without causing any other problems.

I had an outbreak of Ich recently and came across this article which proved to be an excellent resource in understanding the life cycle of the parasite and how best to treat it under various circumstances. It's from cichlid-centric forum, but the information about Ich can be applied no matter what:

Understanding and Treating Ich or White Spot

Definitely recommended reading


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Darkblade48 said:


> I still would not recommend the use of medication.
> 
> As mentioned, 30C is a good point. Note that you will likely need to have aeration as less oxygen can be held by the water at this temperature.
> 
> ...


Thank you Anthony for your answers. I have two filters in my 30gl tank AC30 and AC50. I hope it should give enough oxigen to the fish.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Mr. Scruples said:


> Let's hope the medication does the trick for you without causing any other problems.
> 
> I had an outbreak of Ich recently and came across this article which proved to be an excellent resource in understanding the life cycle of the parasite and how best to treat it under various circumstances. It's from cichlid-centric forum, but the information about Ich can be applied no matter what:
> 
> ...


Thank you very much for an arcticle. very interesting.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

As an update. The first round of medication did not remove Ick completely but fish swimming more haply and it much less Ick left on them and most of them clean and most of my amino shrimps survived as well. The rummy nose tetras still have some Ick left. I did see few fry in the tank when I put medication and one CRS. I'm not sure if they survived. I'm going to do 25% water changes tonight and doze again. And on Tuesday I’ll do the natural method by rising the temperature.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

BTW. When I raise the temperature do I need to add an air pump ? I have currently AC30 and AC50 filters in my 30Gl tank


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

ppaskova said:


> As an update. The first round of medication did not remove Ick completely but fish swimming more haply and it much less Ick left on them and most of them clean and most of my amino shrimps survived as well. The rummy nose tetras still have some Ick left. I did see few fry in the tank when I put medication and one CRS. I'm not sure if they survived. I'm going to do 25% water changes tonight and doze again. And on Tuesday I'll do the natural method by rising the temperature.


Note that the Ich that you can see on the fish is only one stage in the life cycle of the parasite. Once they burst and convert to the free swimming/floating stage, you will not be able to see them. This is really the only time that they will be susceptible to temperature/medication.

As for your shrimp, it is hard to say whether or not they will survive the medication. I mentioned previously that there really wasn't any need to use it, but since you did, it will be hard to guarantee anything.



ppaskova said:


> BTW. When I raise the temperature do I need to add an air pump ? I have currently AC30 and AC50 filters in my 30Gl tank


If you have an air pump, use it. If not, then just lower the volume of your aquarium water slightly so that the filters' return splashes the water a bit more.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Looks like most of the fish survived in my tank as so far I lost 1 neon 1 snail and may be 1 CRS. And the fish looks clean. I'll be increasing the temperature today. The only strange thing is that I noticed that some of my neons and corry has nipped tales and top fin. Can it be due to the Ick ?


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

ppaskova said:


> The only strange thing is that I noticed that some of my neons and corry has nipped tales and top fin. Can it be due to the Ick ?


No, that is probably just due to them nipping each other.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Darkblade48 said:


> No, that is probably just due to them nipping each other.


OK. I installed the air pump and increased the temperature to 28C. What I don't understand, who could nip my fish? I have in my tank guppies, cherry barbs, neons, rummy nose tetras and corries and a pleco. I had same fish in my smaller 10Gl tank and never had such issues. In this tank I have same fish but in the larger numbers and my neons and corries have nipted tales and fins. And this is how I lost one of the neons. His tale was completely torned. I don't understand where aggression coming from ?


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

To the best of my knowledge, Barbs are quite likely to go after other fish and nip their tails and fins. I lost a Betta in a community tank to Barb aggression. They literally ate him down to his body in matter of a week. I was much younger then and didn't know any better, or I'd never have put him in that tank. Barbs also nibbled at my pair of Angelfish, but they were vastly larger than the Barbs, and well able to fight back, so suffered only minimal damage to the tips of their longest fins. 

Barbs also nibbled a few other fish on occasion, but none of them to the point of causing death. 

This was a 30 G tank, and at varying times it had up to six each of the following; neons, platies, swords, mollies, guppies. Permanent residents were a full grown pair of mated Angels, 1 kuhlie loach and 3 tiger barbs, along with numbers of snails. I used to drop my young turtles in the tank every few days and they'd eat the snails with great relish.

While I didn't have all those fish at the same time, I had all those kinds of fish, along the 3 tiger barbs and most of them got nibbled from time to time. Being young at the time, I didn't even realize what was causing the problem until I happened to catch them at it, during the short, sad life of the aforementioned Betta. Had I known more than, I'd have removed the Betta before he was beyond help, poor thing. 

So I'd look at your Barbs, they are very likely culprits for any fin nibbling.


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## ppaskova (Apr 27, 2010)

Well your problem is different then my. You had 3 tiger barbs. And tiger barbs considered semi-aggressive fish and specialty if in group less than 6. I have cherry barbs which considered very piece-full fish. I always had them in my tanks with guppies, neons and other tetras and never had issues.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Well, I live and I learn.. at least I hope I learn . I thought all barbs were pushy critters, and as I said, when I had mine, I knew very little. High school, which was more decades ago than I care to mention and the internet wasn't even a dream yet. Finding information on fishes was not so easy, there wasn't that much around. One learned more or less by experience.. the failures often being most instructive, I found. Hope you find out what is nibbling your fish.


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