Far East Super Ich Update: All Dead.

Hello all, I have recently gotten 7 millenium rainbowfish from imperial tropicals, and on the first day in quarantine I noticed a little ich. I immediately added the recommended dose of Kordon Rid Ich +, and have been continuing once daily treatment (1 tsp. in 10 gallons every 24 hrs w/ waterchange and thorough gravel vac, tank at 78 degrees for the rainbows) for the past 6 days, only to have the ich get much worse. All the fish now look as though they have been dunked in salt. Now, before you tell me to try salt and heat, I will say that I am very reluctant to use that method since I have used it with ich twice before (3 waterchanges per week, 88 degrees, 1 tablespoon of salt per 5 gallons), and had 100% death in one case and no improvement in the other. I tried Kordon ich attack on that same case to no effect, and finally had luck with Kordon Rid Ich +. I am not sure what to do now that this treatment is not working. I would hope someone who has experience with rainbowfish could help me out,
I cannot find any info on how tolerant they are to heat or whether it would be safe to add the medication every 12 hours. I am willing to try heat and salt again if it is the only option, but I am worried the high temps would kill the rainbows, so I am looking for help there too. How high can I raise the temp without killing the rainbows? How tolerant are they of salt or increasing the dosage? I really don't want to lose more fish! Thanks in advance.
Edit: I have heard of a strain of ich called far east super ich, but I can't find much online about it, does anyone know what this is?

 

Try heat only. Salt only stresses out most fish. Raise the temp 2°F every hour until you get to 86°F or 88°F (better).

 

I recommend ParaGuard, it works a lot better than Kordon Rid Ich. I also recommend you add a calcium supplement bc it makes the active ingredients in ParaGuard and such less toxic. You could also add in th **** medicated wonder shells with the Paragard to get a full effect. Do this for 10-14 days with 10-20% water changes in between each treatment. I also recommend some poly-filter or purigen media to absorb any meds that are in the tank right now before adding more meds.

 

Ok, I have ordered some Paraguard, thank you for the suggestion. I will try that, but I am still looking for suggestions in case that does not work. Does anyone know anything about "super ich"?

 

Ok, I have ordered some Paraguard, thank you for the suggestion. I will try that, but I am still looking for suggestions in case that does not work. Does anyone know anything about "super ich"?

Yes I’ve heard of it and it is most common in tanks that have been treated with Rid Ich then the Ich becomes immune some how...try my suggestion and if you see no improvement you can take more extreme measures.

 

I've had success with salt dips and no success with adding salt to the tank, But I don't know if you are comfortable with salt dips or not

 

100% sure it is Ich ?

 

Try heat only. Salt only stresses out most fish. Raise the temp 2°F every hour until you get to 86°F or 88°F (better).

Agree. I would add that you need to keep that temp for about 2 weeks, to be effective.

 

I've had success with salt dips and no success with adding salt to the tank, But I don't know if you are comfortable with salt dips or not

How would I go about safely doing a salt dip for ich?

100% sure it is Ich ?

99%, it looks just like all the other bouts of ich I have had from new fish. It looks like little salt grains on the fish, some larger and some very small, though the small ones grow after a day or two before they fall off.

 

4 teaspoons of salt per one gallon of warm water in a container. Put one fish in first as an experiment for 10 minutes. Watch them closely for signs of stress (floating and not moving are normal for the first two dips or so) then do your other fish in groups. Repeat every other day until symptoms improve (add on 5/10 minutes each time up until half an hour)! Sometimes with ich the parasites drop off on the first dip!!

 

Started Paraguard, but it was too late for two fish so far, the rest are looking terrible. I will keep you guys updated. Imperial Tropicals got great reviews from what I was able to research, but if you order from there be prepared for an ich outbreak and be sure to have multiple methods of ich control on hand, this strain is like nothing else I have ever dealt with. On the plus side, the seller did offer to "make things right on whatever I lose," so I will keep you updated on that as well for those who are curious about ordering from Imperial Tropicals. Here are some pics of the fish that are left, this is after a week treating with Kordon Rid Ich +:

 

Wow! That's possibly the worst case of ich I've ever seen! Hope your fish survive. Nice to hear IT is stepping up and taking care of you.

 

Update: They are all dead. I will be deep cleaning my quarantine tank and starting over, hopefully Imperial Tropicals will take care of replacing the fish. Next time I will be using Paraguard as a preventative, as Seachem suggests is safe. RIP Mellenium 'bows, may my next ones fare better than these

 

So sorry about your losses

One tip to add fish to a QT is to drip acclimate them and then net them to put into the tank so you have minimal water contamination from the unknown water source.

 

So sorry about your losses

One tip to add fish to a QT is to drip acclimate them and then net them to put into the tank so you have minimal water contamination from the unknown water source.

Thank you for your condolences. If I had gotten the fish from an LFS, I would have drip acclimated them, but they were ordered online and arrived individually bagged. In the bag, the fish produces ammonia and depletes oxygen, and the carbon dioxide the fish exhales makes the pH of the bag rather low. At a low pH, toxic ammonia becomes much less toxic ammonium. When the bag is opened after several days of shipping, however, the fresh oxygen which gets into the bag raises the pH and turns the ammonium into ammonia, which is very toxic and can shock and poison your fish. I prefer to open the bag, pour the water and the fish out over a net, then put the fish right in the tank from the net without any of the bag water. I measured the ammonia in the bags I received these fish in, and it was over 8ppm. The ich came from the fish themselves, which had ich spots on them straight out of the bag.

 

Update:
Imperial Tropicals sent me another 7 rainbows completely free, and they were polite and apologetic in their responses. The new fish, unfortunately, also had ich. I started a very rigorous treatment where I transferred the fish to a small holding tank with a high concentration of aquarium salt (2 tbs./gallon), drained the QT tank, put it in the shower and hosed it off along with the filter and heater, scrubbed it with a sponge, and boiled the filter media. I then refilled the tank and added the fish back, along with Paraguard, Stress Coat, Melafix, and Pimafix (they also had fungal finrot). I did this once every 24 hours. The fish were stressed, but the ich went away pretty quickly. I do not recommend such a drastic treatment unless you are sure it is far eas super ich, which I was assuming it was. The rainbows are still in QT, ich free for almost a week but I am going to let them have another week in there just to be sure and to let their fins grow back to normal.

 

This so-called "super ich" looks the same as what we were calling "the krud" back in the late 1970s. It also originated from the Far East back then. The white spots in Ich are not as large at any point in their cycle, and tend to look more uniform in size. They are also not fuzzy, nor do they stand out from the body very much, where the Krud is clearly raised. If it was caught early, raising the temperature and adding salt was the only proven cure. Those who mistook it for Ich and treated with those medications invariably lost the fish. BTW, Salt does NOT stress out most Freshwater fish, in the proper amounts. That's an internet old wives tale.

Any tank I ever saw it in I sterilized. I mean bleached, hot water, and a vinegar rinse, then air dried for at least a week. I don't know if that was necessary, but I did not want to deal with that stuff ever again.

I will say that I am surprised that you got sick fish twice from Imperial, but even the best suppliers occasionally have problems. It is also possible that the long shipping from Florida to Washington state may have triggered the infection.

I hope you have better luck now that the fish seem to be healing.