atorres25

Hi,

When I came back home this afternoon I noticed two of my neon tetras have ICH on them. By the first glance I got at them, both fish only got white spots, but a couple hours later (I have my tank at temp 80) I noticed a cyst on their bodies.

I freaked out, read a couple articles on the net and added what the methyl blue that I had in hand according to the bottle´s instructions. I continued reading more articles and got to the suggestions on your forum that getting the temperature up will kill it by itself, but I don´t have a quarantine tank to get my fish out of the tank.

If I raise the temp up to 82-85, will it kill my freshwater fish?

I have 3 neon tetras, 1 dwarf gourami, 2 guppies, 1 corydora, 2 cherry shrimp and live plants.

Is the methyl blue ok to treat ich, do I stop this treatment?
Should I raise the temperature with my fish in the tank?

I would really appreciate your advice, since I´m kind of new at this great hobby and I have become very attached to my fish.

Allie

Nope it shouldn't. Just turn up the temp to 84-86 and the ich should be gone in a few days. Meds are unnecessary unless your fish are snow covered.

joy613

One thing about increasing or decreasing the temperature is to do it slowly I usually go up or done 1 degree every couple of hours. Ich is a parasite that swims so make sure you vacuum your gravel good during the water changes.

capekate

great advice, may I also add, that you should keep your temperature up for at least two weeks to make sure you have killed off all the ICH.

COBettaCouple

Something that I like to add to the tank when treating ich is Ich-Attack. It's not necessary to clear the ich out since the warmer water for 2 weeks does that, but it does help the fish feel better. It's also good if you can change out 25% of the water every couple days and clean the substrate at least once a week.

atorres25

Thanks for your posts.

I followed your advice and I´m happy to report that the fish don´t seem to care much about the temperature and my sick neons appear to be active than yesterday, I think the ich is wearing off already. I´m gonna stick to the water treatment for two weeks. Today i cleaned the substrate and the water got kind of cloudy, I hope that it clears out by tomorrow.

An unexpected thing happened tonight, tank filter stopped working out of the blue. Thank god I still had the one from my old tank to replace it with. Anyway, I´m going to buy a brand new one tomorrow.

How often do you recommend that I should do the 25% water changes? Every 2 days, 3 days?

capekate

g'morning atorres
IMO the water change every three days would be good. When you changed out your filter, I hope that you added the filter media from the broken one to your new filter? This way you still have your beneficial bacteria that is growing on it for the tank, other wise you will more than likely go through a mini cycle if you didnt. If you did not, maybe a wc every two days would be better. When I give out advice, I have no idea how much fish/maintenance knowledge a poster may have, so any advice given is no way a reference that you do not already know this, it is just suggestions, in case you do not.
Sometimes when we clean the substrate the water will become cloudy, but your filter should take care of that and it will clear up quickly.
Glad to hear that your fishys are doing well with the higher temps...

Dino

83F is about as high as you need to go.
The organism dies off at 82.
The warmer the water is, the less oxygen it has.