# New Tank, Think First Fish Has Ich, What To Do??



## Magdelaine (Apr 9, 2005)

Hello,

I used to keep a 10 gallon tank when I was 10 years old, and I've alway wanted to try it again. Now 25 years later, I have a 10 gallon tank that I started yestereday. I brought home a fantail goldfish to start cycling it (although it will be a tropical tank) and I noticed late in the evening that the fish was swimming funny. It was swimming really hard, trying to stay almost straight up (vertical), then it would drop to the bottom and start over again. On closer inspection today I noticed a white spot near it's dorsal fin, and I just noticed another near its tail on the other side.

I have nothing in the tank except gravel and some plant bulbs that haven't started growing yet. My thought is to get another goldfish to help speed up the cycling and then just wait out the ich life cycle (3 weeks at 75 degrees should do it). What do you all think? I really hate the idea of adding chemicals to my new tank...

Elaine


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## fish_doc (Jan 31, 2005)

I would not get a second goldfish to cycle the tank. Goldfish are a real dirty fish and one will do fine. Try and wait out the cycle with the normal ick treatment of salt and temp increasing. Even waiting for the tank to cycle will take about a month so a 3 week lifespan of ich being treated with salt and temps wont affect the cycle time.


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## Magdelaine (Apr 9, 2005)

By salt treatment you mean 1tsp per gallon, right?  Do I change out the water before I introduce new fish after doing something like that?  If so, how much (what percentage)?

Ok, I won't go out and get another goldfish unless "Elmo" kicks it. :wink: BTW, is adding plants something you should wait to do until cycling is over as well? And while I'm asking, I put 5lb of gravel in the tank but it doesn't seem like enough, esp. if I want to grow plants. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks for the help!

Elaine


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## Magdelaine (Apr 9, 2005)

FWIW, I didn't hear of fishless cycling until I checked out this forum.  

I have noticed the fish seems to be swimming better since I added the first tsp of salt.  I will probably add it very gradually over the next day or so.  

I still need to get some stablished gravel to start my bacteria culture...until then no food for fishy!!

Elaine


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## fish_doc (Jan 31, 2005)

You are correct on the salt levels.

As far as gravel you can usually use about 1.5 lbs per gallon in a aquarium.


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## Thunderkiss (Mar 19, 2005)

Coppersafe works wonders for ich .


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## Magdelaine (Apr 9, 2005)

Would I want to use Coppersafe in addition to the salt treatment and waiting? Or will the wait do it? Is there any way for the ick to live in my filter if I don't treat?

Elaine


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## fish_doc (Jan 31, 2005)

There is a three stage lifecycle with the Ich parasite. 

1. The mature parasites (trophozoites) dig themselves into the fish’s skin, forming visible white pustules, and begin feeding on the tissue and fluids. 
2. Each trophont matures, breaks out of its pustule and settles at the bottom of the tank as a cyst coated in protective gelatin. 
3. Inside the cyst the trophont performs a rapid series of cell divisions, generating as many as 300 new cells (tomites). These tomites are released and swim freely for up to 70 hours (3 days) seeking other hosts to parasiticise. Only about 15% actually succeed but this is enough to increase the infestation rapidly if left untreated. 
The life cycle is temperature-dependent, however. It can occur in three to four days at 70 degrees F and up to five weeks at 50 degrees F. At lower temps, the parasite will remain dormant. Its optimum working temperature is 86 degrees F. 

So at the proper temps you can manage to kill any of the parasites without meds if there is no host.


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## Magdelaine (Apr 9, 2005)

Hmm, this is basically what I thought. Does finding a new host include the fish that had ick in the first place? Is it possible for a single fish to get it over and over thus prolonging the cycle? I now have fishy in a salt bath at about 78 degrees...

Thanks,
Elaine


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## Magdelaine (Apr 9, 2005)

I think my last question just got answered because I noticed a new spot on Elmo after at least 3.5 days of being spot-free. I'm not too surprised it got re-infested because I'm currently on day 6 of cycling a new tank, so I'm only feeding every other day and it's stressed because of the conditions...

We did survive our first ammonia spike... I don't have a test kit but the water got cloudy for a day or two; now it looks a lot better.

Given that Elmo isn't going to be in optimum condition until the tank is done cycling, I guess a little Coppersafe is in order? Or won't he just get it over and over? :roll: 

Elaine


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## crazy quattro (Mar 22, 2005)

Magdelaine @ Sat Apr 09 said:


> FWIW, I didn't hear of fishless cycling until I checked out this forum.
> 
> I have noticed the fish seems to be swimming better since I added the first tsp of salt. I will probably add it very gradually over the next day or so.
> 
> ...



What type of salt did you add? Im guessing table salt wouldnt work?


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## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

About a month ago I read all the fish books I could find about how to treat ich. Only one of them mentioned using salt to treat ich, and that listed a very high concentration of salt, used as a dip, one hour per day for 7 days. That high concentration was 3% salt, which is on the order of 10
tablespoons of salt per gallon! And this was listed as just one of the treatments you could use for ich, as an alternative for more traditional medicines like malachite green. NONE of the books listed lower amounts of salt, that the fish swims in continuously, as a cure for ich. 

Fish_doc, you certainly know what you're talking about, as the cycle you've described for ich is exactly what I read in the books. And the books confirmed the temperatre dependence of the ich cycle, so indeed rausing the temperature would speed up the cycle and get it over more quickly. 

But I don't see how these doses of salt that you suggest are going to help... It seems to me that instead of using salt which may not do anything, a better bet is to use a proper ich medication.

For me, since all my tanks are planted, the tanks get a full load of plants before fish come anywhere near them (well, I didn't do this with my first tank because I really hadn't gotten into fish then, but that's how I start up any new tanks). This helps the fish survive the cycle. In particular, I add lots of floating plants -- hormwort works well for me. This grows very well in the hard water that we have here, and it absorbs enough ammonia while growing to keep the levels of ammonia and nitrite reasonably low during the cycle. Last time I did this the ammonia and nitrite levels stayed at 0.5ppm or below during the cycle. I would recommend adding some floating plants to any new tanks, whether or not it's going to be a planted tank in the end. You can gradually throw away the floaters after the cycle is finished. I recommend hornwort or anacharis for hard water, and water sprite for soft water.


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## Magdelaine (Apr 9, 2005)

Yes, sadly, fishy has many more spots this morning, all over his tail and fins.  He apparently has got it much worse now.  I would take a pic but it's too depressing.

I've had trouble over the last 24 hours regulating tempurature (it jumped from 78 to 82 and stayed there even without lights and heater, and this is a goldfish!) so that probably made him that much more vulnerable.  Plus, where else are those little buggers going to go?  He's the only game in town (or tank as it were).  

OK, new question.  If I treat with medicine, that means I have to discontinue charcoal filtration.  I have one of those Whisper filters with the carbon inside the flossy bag (that is supposed to be a host for my new bacteria).  Do I just take the carbon out of the inside or do I have to get a new (empty) filter?  I don't think I can discontinue filtration altogether because I'm now day 7 of cycling, and we're just now getting to the nitrite stage...Unless daily 10% water changes would keep it safe during medication.   

I wanted to add some plants but when I stopped by the lfs they were all brown and rotting.  I forgot to ask when they would get new ones.  We live in a small town and the only choices are Wal-mart (where I got ick fish) and the lfs whose tanks are brownish and grubby    (no floaters, tho).  I think I will give fishy a _real _salt bath today, 3%, since he's got so many spots.

BTW, I added regular iodized sea salt to the tank (I figured the iodine wouldn't hurt in such small amounts), but for the salt bath I will use kosher or rock salt.


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## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

> I think I will give fishy a real salt bath today, 3%, since he's got so many spots.


Be very careful doing this. You can't just make him up a salt bath and dunk him in it. You have to slowly acclimatize him to this level of salt. I've never tried doing this, but I would guess that you'd want to take at least a couple of hours slowly bringing up the salt level, and then afterwards you'd want to take a couple of hours slowly dropping the salt level via water changes.

This is a very tedious process, and I think it would be far easier to just get some proper medicine. And yes, you would want to remove the carbon from the inside of your filter. Don't get rid of the flossy stuff, or buy a new filter, since the whole point of cycling is to grow your good bacteria, and the main place they live is the floss inside your filter. If you get rid of the flossy stuff you have, you'll throw away most of your good bacteria, and you'll have to start all over again.

My own experience with cycling and ich is this: I didn't know *anything* about fish when I started out. To cycle a 20 gallon tank we bought 2 zebra danios and 2 small fantail goldfish. The zebra danios didn't have any problems at all, but after a week the goldfish were showing symptoms of nitrite poisoning. I looked up nitrite poisoning on the Web and found several web pages where they suggested adding salt (1 tablespoon/gallon) to the water. So I did, and the goldfish looked a bit better. Temporarily. Then one died, and I had no idea why. Probably it was so stressed from the cycling and the high salt levels that it just couldn't take it. The second one started acting funny, and developed spots (ich spots). I added some ich medicine, but it was too late. It died anyway. (I found out later that although salt is a valid cure for nitrite poisoning, the levels recommended in that article were completely bogus, and 1 teaspoon would have done it for the entire tank.)

Now I know what I did wrong. First, goldfish are not good cycling fish. They just aren't all that tough. Zebra danios are ideal, and the ones I got originally are still alive 6 months later, and they now have 4 other zebra danio friends to keep them company. Second, the levels of nasty chemicals you get from a cycling tank are bad for any fish, so now I use floating plants to keep the levels down for cycling. To find floating plants, you may have to go to an on-line retailer. LFS don't tend to have very good plants, and my experience with on-line aquatic plant places is excellent. (Well, I've only used one, but it's excellent.)


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## Magdelaine (Apr 9, 2005)

Ok, another question... I started to treat the water with Malachite Green yesterday after taking the charcoal out of my bag in the filter. I still have the temp between 78-80 degrees. It says to repeat dose every 24 hours. Do I keep this up for 3 or 4 days and assume it's done? Fish _looks_ totally ich free...

FWIW I decided to dip fishy in a salt bath anyway, because I had prepared it before I read Myra's post...

He lasted less than a minute in that water; he immediately started swimming sideways and upside down and looking very uncomfortable, so I took him out. But!! I noticed less than 2 hours later all of the spots had disappeared from his fins and most from his body, and today he has none at all! That's less than 24 hours after I noticed he had gotten ich the second time. I really think it might have helped. He's looking much healthier today.


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## Fishfirst (Jan 24, 2005)

```
But!! I noticed less than 2 hours later all of the spots had disappeared from his fins and most from his body, and today he has none at all! That's less than 24 hours after I noticed he had gotten ich the second time. I really think it might have helped. He's looking much healthier today.
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The spots disappeared because thats what the salt does. It makes the cysts fall off the fish... unfortunately salt alone won't "cure" a fish (it just releaves the fish), so keep treating the fish and the tank, I usually go over the recomended length of time for dosing to make sure, but I have never used the product you are using so I would get someone elses opinion on the duration, don't stop treating though even if he looks ich free... ich is still in its free swimming stage and is still able to reinfect your fish.


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