# A Platy with Ich



## Jaynee (Oct 11, 2006)

Well, one morning over the weekend I discovered that one of my red wag platys had ich. All the other fish looked fine. Spot had about 15 white dots around her tail. According to some pictures I found online - "only" having 15 white dots means I caught it pretty quickly.

I got some Rid-Ich that same day and have been treating the water according to the directions. I would have done the salt/heater method but my heater only goes up to 82 degrees. Anyway, I'm happy to report that she's down to 2 white dots and none of the other fish have had any dots show up on them at all thus far. So I'm hopeful that the Rid-Ich will continue to do it's work over the next couple weeks and the ich will completely disappear.

The only negative that I can see is that Spot is now being very elusive and sticks to herself a lot. She hides out in one corner of the tank and swims away when any of the other fish come around. And then she goes right back to her corner when they are gone. I'm worried that despite the treatment that she may have issues. The gland around her anal fin looks swollen - but not black as though she were pregnant. It's white. It's not ich as far as I can tell - it's simply as though her anal gland is very swollen. I also noticed this morning that when I put food in the tank, she didn't even show any interest in eating. I just hope that as the ich continues to disappear that she'll get better. Poor thing. 

I don't have the money to buy a quarantine tank to remove her, but so far everyone else looks healthy and active in the tank.

Will keep folks updated.


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## SueM (Jan 23, 2004)

If you find Ick, you need to treat the whole tank, so a quarantine tank will be of no use anyway. Ick is a parasite that has a 3 stage life cycle and is aprox 30 days. 
The "spot" that we see on our fish is the adolescent stage. Well they get to this stage, if there is no host fish, they will die, so removing ALL fish from an infected tank for a minimum of 30 days, would in sense break the life cycle. 

http://www.aquatic-hobbyist.com/profiles/disease/freshwater/ich.html


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## Jaynee (Oct 11, 2006)

Yeah, I read all that when researching ich. I'm treating the tank as a whole unit, including all of the fish.

I just check my levels and here's what I have:

Water temp: 78 degrees, which is the temp I maintain at all times
GH: 40 ppm
KH: 30 ppm
pH: 6.8
Nitrites: .5 ppm
Nitrates: about 15-20 ppm

Ammonia has run higher than normal since I started the Ich treatment - it has been between .03 and .05 every day even after cleaning the rocks and doing the 25% water changes for the Ich treatment. Before I started the Ich treatment my ammonia levels pretty much stayed near .01-.02 for at least a week before going up and requiring a water change. 

Am I right to presume that I'm getting these levels because I removed the filter for the ich treatment? I'm concerned about the long-term effects of the higher-than-usual ammonia levels and the .5 nitrite calculation. 

An addendum to the status of the fish: all platys are doing well, except Spot. Normal activity. The corys are also acting completely normal and are happily swimming around the bottom of the tank. This afternoon Mami Gourami has started to hang out near the surface of the tank, and is not swimming as much as she normally does - normally she's the one that goes around the whole tank, over and over, all day and night.

Man I hope Spot and Mami Gourami make it. When should I put a filter back in place?


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## Jaynee (Oct 11, 2006)

An update. Happily, Mami Gourami is back on the move - apparently she had constipation. She had the longest string of poop come out of her body about 30 minutes ago. Seriously - it ran the length of a third of the tank! It looked like normal stuff - nothing odd looking about it. Just a LOT of it. She is now swimming about like she always does.

Also, this afternoon I did the next pre-ich treatment 25% water change, primarily syphoning from the rocks on the bottom to get out any uneaten food I may have missed during yesterday's pre-ich treatment water change. The ammonia level is now down to .01 for the first time in over four days.

Spot is still hiding out, but I was able to get her out into the light and confirmed that all the white dots are gone. I'll be continuing the ich treatment to make sure that all the little hatchlings are killed off. I also turned up the heat throughout the day since this morning and it hit 82 degrees just after dinnertime. As I said, that's the hottest I can go with the heater I have. Hopefully between that, the water changes and the ich treatment, she'll recover fully.

As I said, all other fish are acting as they normally do - corys are happily swimming around the tank, and the other platies are doing their thing. Now that Mami Gourami is back to normal I'm feeling a lot better about things.


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## Jaynee (Oct 11, 2006)

Grrrr...just when I thought I was out of the woods. 

Spot is back to normal and swimming around with her buddies again instead of being a loner. But now one of my sunburst platys has two spots on her tail. They are nearly invisible but I spotted them last night as I started the pre-ich treatment PWC. I hope this comes to an end soon...


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## Jaynee (Oct 11, 2006)

I'm sad to report that Spot passed away today. I'm very sad. Despite all signs of ich finally disappearing from the tank, apparently she just wasn't able to make a long-term recovery. Shortly after my last post she became a loner again, and pretty much just hid all day and night. She *looked* fine and was still moving occasionally - she'd swim away when I put my hand on the side of the tank, and she still ate a little bit, but today she didn't do that at all. She stayed at the bottom of the tank, behind one of the plants, and didn't move at all despite my attempts to get her to swim or eat.

Moments ago I went back to the tank to check on her, and she had moved to the front of the tank, tucked in next to the anchor decoration I have in there. She wasn't moving and when I used the net to fish her out she still didn't move - not a single gill, not a single fin. Perfectly still.

I feel just awful - I really liked Spot (she was ALL orange save one black spot on the back of her tail) and am sad to see her go.

The other fish all seem fine - I've got one more day of ich treatment to go (all outward signs were gone as of Tuesday) and the rest of the fish are just as active and social as they always have been. Let's hope whatever Spot had hasn't transferred to the others.


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## lycanthrope (Jan 27, 2009)

sorry to hear about your fish. im going thru the same thing right now with a sunburst wag platy. she is the only female in the tank and contracted ich(or started showing the spots) about 4 to 5 days ago. she is looking better now but one of the other 3 platys seems to have it now. she also just had fry. are they more or less subceptible to ich? anyone know anything about this? also i have 2 peppered cory cats how are yours doing?


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## jones57742 (Sep 8, 2007)

Jaynee said:


> Nitrites: .5 ppm
> Ammonia has run higher than normal ...


Ja: I somehow missed your thread when you created and modified it but the Forum now has a much longer timeout.

You should be detecting *zero nitrites and zero ammonia.*

Although at the concentrations which you quoted immediate lethality is not probable your fish are not happy campers.

Imagine yourself in a small bar with thirty other folks who are smoking heavily and the bar has no ventilation: you would not be a happy camper either?

Now envision yourself six months later without being able to leave this bar and everyone has still been there smoking heavily: do you not believe that you would be under serious stress or dead.

Well that is what your fishies feel like.

TR


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## Jaynee (Oct 11, 2006)

TR: The levels were high at that point but I was able to get them under control with PWCs and by putting the filter back in without the carbon (I had removed the filter altogether when I began the ich treatment because I hadn't read about cutting open a filter to remove the carbon). Once I put the filter back in the levels came back down very quickly.


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