# Help!Ich killed my tank and now...



## newfishguy09 (Apr 26, 2009)

Hey everyone,
I'm hoping somone can help me with my problem. I recently purchased a 29 gallon tank and had 7 platys that were in a 10 gallon tank. When i was moving them to the 29 gallon tank i discovered a baby platy in the old tank ,so i moved them all.After 2 months of no problems with the new tank (besides one fish getting dropsy and dieing) i decided to get a rubber lip plecostomas for the tank. A week or two went by and then one of the fish got a white spot which i assume was ICH. He died and then two more days went by with no victims until the third day which another fish died. 

For the next 4 days each one of the fish in the tank died until all that was remaining was the plecostomas and the baby platy. I gave the tank a couple of good water changes and cleaninings in the following days and have continued since. It has been almost 3 weeks since the last fish died and the plecostomas and baby pleco have been in good health. The baby platy has grown considerably aswell. i have got the water tested half a dozen times since i lost the last fish. The readings were always fine except for the first time the ammonia was a little high. It has been fine since then.

Sooooo my question is if it was indeed ich why didn't it kill the baby fish aswell as the pleco? Have i waited long enough to add new fish to the tank or is the Ich still possibly in the tank. Was the water i got with the pleco possibly where i got the ich from as it was the only thing i have done to the tank. If anyone has any idea any intput would be great. Thanks!


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

yes, ich could have come in the water. Ich has a free-swimming stage that is too small to see. Its a good reason to quarantine and drip acclimate new fish & snails, and dip all new plants. 

yes, i think you could have ich in the tank. As long as there is a host (fish) in a tank, there could be a low-level infection that could get severe in new fish. 

If you add new fish without quarantine with medication, you will likely bring home new ich even if you had erradicated the ich in the tank. Pet stores these days have all the water in their tanks connected to central filtration so if any one fish has ich, all the fish are exposed to ich and their water is suspect.



> Why didn't it kill the baby fish aswell as the pleco?


 Fish have immune systems like people do. Even the nastiest diseases don't kill everyone infected and the ones that survive often will never show symptoms again. Sometimes, though, they can pass the disease to others. 

I'd read two schools of thought about ich. One is that healthy, unstressed, well-fed (with excellent nutrition), fish in clean water (no ammonia, no nitrite, low nitrate) will never get sick with ich even if it is ever-present in the water. The other is that if you quarantine all new fish and treat (medicate) them as if they have ich, you need never introduce ich into your tank(s). Of course, you can do both. Quarantine and keep the fish as healthy as you can. 

From personal experience, I've kept fish happy and healthy for months, then let the tank get cold, and had ich appear overnight. After aggressive treatment for the full time period (10-14 days), the ich was cured with minimal losses. I've never seen ich recur in the same tank where it was before. I have never seen any ich in fish I've gotten from a seller I know medicates all new fish before letting them into his system. 


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## newfishguy09 (Apr 26, 2009)

So i'm still at a standstill with my problem... I bought a test kit and the ammonia is 0 and the nitrite is 0 and the nitrate is 10. The water temp is 80.
As i said before the pleco and the platy are both doing fine and the platy is the most energetic fish i've ever had. It's been almost a month now, am i safe to buy new fish? And if so do i have to medicate them or the tank for ich when adding them?


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

If it were me, and I didn't have a QT tank, I would go ahead and buy a few new fish. But have the quickcure or whatever standing by and medicate at the very first inkling of ich. If a fish even scratches once, I'd dose the tank and keep dosing it. This is the issue with not having a QT tank. Every time you add new fish, you risk the fish you have already. And you don't want to add too many fish at once since you will get a mini-cycle when you start feeding more.


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