Calab

I've been fighting with Ich for the last week or so, without much luck. I've raised the temp in the tank, using salt, and ich medication.

Not all of the fish appear to have ich, so I've decided to seperate the sick ones from the healthy ones into two new small tanks and to clean out the old 10 gallon, and getting a proper cycle done.

I plan on sterilzing everything from the old tank, except the biofilter material.

I've a couple of questions...

1) The "biofilter" in my pump... should I assume that it's infected with ich and discard it? Would it be safe to put it in its own clean water supply and keep it fed with ammonia? I'm assuming that keeping the filter healthy, while there are no fish, will cause the ich parasites to die off. How long should this take?

2) I've a couple small plants that I'll also be removing from the tank. Again, should I just assume that they carry ich and discard them, or can they be saved?

Lucy

Hi Caleb, I'm sorry I can't answer your questions, but I know it is recommended that your temperature be raised for at least 2 weeks to be effective.

Hang in there, others will probably be along shortly who can answer your questions.

Tumbleweed

When you treated the tank did you remove all charcol from the filter? If not the charcol is filtering the medication and it will not work.

Calab

Most definately removed the charcoal. Not really sure why it wasn't working very well. Only two things that I can think of...

- The medication was stressing the fish out more, making them easier targets.

- It's not ich, but something else that they have. The medication did improve the look of the fish, so I'm pretty sure it's ich. It looks like ich.

Tumbleweed

I would try a 50% water change and do 1 more round of ich reatment and see what happens after a couple of days.

aquariumnewbie

Most importantly is try to calm down and see where the problem lies. And do not tear down the whole tank and restart because if the fish is having Ich, it will be more stressful to have to adapt to a new environment. So a 50 - 75% water change followed by any Ich medication you have. Raise the temp, add salt. And see how they are doing and keep up with the treatment and water changes.