Help please! Is this ICH on our Glofish Tetras?

First a little background on the tank. Purchased a 20 gallon tall (24" length) for my daughter over 2 years ago and due to my lack of knowledge then about the nitrogen cycle the fish didn't make it very long. Our tap water is also horrible here and we have a water softener so after a lot of research I decided to start brewing my own water to start over and begin cycling the tank. I make 7 gallons at a time in a water storage container with a spout cap using distilled water (Walmart Pink Top, no copper in distillation equipment). I add 1.75 - 2 caps of Seachem Replenish, about 1.25 tsp of Seachem Alkaline Buffer and about 0.75 tsp Seachem Acid Buffer. This ends up after aeration with the following parameters: PH= 7.4 / GH = 7-8 deg. / KH = 5 deg. I fully cycled the tank with no fish using ammonia over about a 2 year period (was done cycling after a month or so but I wanted to keep it going for one day when we got around to getting fish again). I would do partial water changes every couple of weeks and always kept the nitrates under 30ppm or so. The only issue I noticed with the tank was a milky colored coating that would slowly accumulate in the gravel and particularly on anything silicone. I read that this is likely just calcium buildup and it's nothing to worry about. It would get stirred up a little when doing a gravel vac and float around in the tank but the filter would clear it within minutes.

Fast forward to 4/18/21: we drip-acclimated and added 5 glofish tetras to the tank. Besides for one fish that seemed to be a bully and nipped the fins of 1 of his tank-mates, they seemed to be doing fine. The orange one that was fin-nipped grew his fin damage back in about a week. On 4/30/21 we drip-acclimated and added 4 more glofish tetras to try to build up their numbers to hopefully stop the bullying. It seemed to work. While the 4 new ones were drip-acclimating though, their bag was knocked off of the stool that it was standing on by my 2 year old and it fell to the ground hard. I'm sure they were super stressed out at the very least. We poured the bag through a net and added them to the aquarium just as we had done with the first 5. Right away, 2 of them were socializing fine and 2 of them were breathing very heavily. One was gasping at the surface and he ended up passing the next day. The other one that was breathing hard seemed to calm down after a couple of days and start breathing more normally. Soon after however, he became recluse and wouldn't eat. I don't think he has eaten for well over a week now but he does come out now and then and socialize a little. Sunday 5/9 I started to notice a few little white specs on the fins of a few of them and the purple one that won't eat started to look like he has a few scales missing and his fins were clamped. Yesterday I noticed that there were more white specs and they were now also on even more fish. It's hard to see on these fish but at the right angle I can see some on their bodies too. I started researching Ich and called a LFS that has been around since the 70s and described the problem to them and they told me that I needed to start raising the temp up to 82 and start dosing Seachem Cupramine for the Ich. I raised the temp over the course of about 5 hours from 74 to 78 deg. and the fish started swimming around faster, frantic and started flashing a little. I dosed 11 drops (into a glass with some new water in it) last night and tested for copper about 15 minutes later and it was at about .20 mg/L. I added 3 more drops to some water in a cup and slowly poured it into the output stream from my HOB to try to bring it up to .25mg/L (recommended dose for freshwater fish according to SeaChem). When I got home this evening, the fins of some of them look a little tattered including the orange one who had already regrown a part of his fin once. I don't know if I now have Ich and Fin Rot or what and don't know what to do. I know Ich is common but I haven't been through it before so I am just trying to digest all of the information (lots conflicting) on what to do next. Any help anyone can provide I would greatly appreciate. I am scared to increase the temp more or to do anything else because most of the fish seem to be staying near the top of the tank now besides for some occasional flashing and occasional exploring. Only about half of them ate anything this evening as well. I have aquarium salt on hand too but it seems like everything I do makes it worse so I am hesitating and wasting time. Please help!

Current Tank Specs:
- Size: 20 Gallon Tall (24" Length)
- HOB Filter: Aquaclear 30 with no carbon, 2 sponges and 2 bags of ceramic
- PH: 7.5 / Ammonia: 0 / Nitrites: 0 / Nitrates: 10ppm / Temp: 77.6

 

That does look like ich.

 

Also...there is an airstone in the tank and I bumped up the filter flow a little when I started increasing the temp. I have read all about the Ich life cycle and know that I need to keep bumping the temp up to try to get them to fall off of the hosts faster but I am worried about the fish hanging out at the top of the tank now. It seems as if they are looking for higher oxygen concentrations maybe? Some of them are hanging out at an angle with their mouths really close to the surface but it doesn't look like they are gasping at all. There are also some painted resin ornaments that have a little paint missing, 2 silicone anemone and a few fake plants. I hope that the higher temps aren't causing any of these to leech something into the water. I don't want to take away their hiding places but maybe I should remove some of this stuff from the tank for now (or permanently). Not sure, just feeling helpless even after all of my research.

 

If your temp is at 77 I would go even higher. So I don't think that's the issue. It won't go away overnight. Just watch to make sure it's going in the right direction.

 

Keeping temperature at 86F or higher for 1-2 weeks should cure the ich. Vacuuming the bottom also helps.

 

Thank you everyone for your replies! With just a 4 degree increase in temp. the fish just seemed like they were going nuts. Is that normal? I know higher temps speed up their metabolism and they were all (except for 1) eating everything that I would give them last night but today half of them don't want to eat so I was just worried that it wasn't going in a good direction already and I was doing something wrong. I know that treating Ich takes time, I just don't know how bad to expect things to get before it gets better. I guess it's only been a couple of days so far since I've noticed it so I'll try to take a chill pill. I'll continue to slowly bump the temperature up. Does anyone have any experience in treating freshwater fish with Cupramine or Copper? Do you think that I should be adding any salt? Thanks again! I'm eager to learn! I just don't want my inexperience with diseases to be responsible for the quick demise of our fish like it was with the last batch 2 years ago when I was ignorant about the nitrogen cycle and water parameters.

 

Temperature should be enough, aquarium salt at 1 tablespoon per 2 gallons will help too. You may lose some fish, but if you want to cure the ich then raising Temperature to 86F and add some salt, then they should make it through.

Copper is overkill and will probably cause more harm than good.

 

I think this will help you out with the treatment of ick;
ICH (ICK) Life Cycle and Natural Treatment | Freshwater Fish Disease and Fish Health Forum | 153206

 

Thank you everyone! I'll keep slowly turning up that heat. I lowered my water level about another inch for now to create more surface agitation. Hopefully that and the airstone will help to oxygenate the water as I raise the temp. I'll post updates. I hate it when someone posts and doesn't share how the story ended.

 

Well, this morning our orange tetra died suddenly. He had previously seemed to be the most resilient of the group and one of my favorites. I found him caught in a plant and he was missing a good portion of his fins. When he was freed from the plant he just floated to the bottom and couldn't move. The fins on most of the other ones also look much worse today. I don't know what is going on here. The fins seem to be turning white too and eroding rather quickly. I had continued to slowly raise the temp last night and this morning I dosed the tank with Aquarium salt (1/2 tsp. per gallon) after seeing the very aggressive fin deterioration. I just noticed that a previous reply said to use 1 tablespoon per 2 gallons though. Should I up the salt? I added carbon into the filter too this morning in an effort to remove the Cupramine that I had previously dosed. Any suggestions? Could it also be a fungal infection? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

 

Probably bacterial due to the ich, clean water is really all you can do. Antibiotics rarely work, and usually just crash your cycle.

 

Thank you for the response. One of the green ones was just laying on the bottom of the tank in a corner for a while but his gills were still moving a little. I thought he was a goner! My daughter lightly tapped the glass next to him and all of a sudden he got up and started swimming around. He even ate a little bit of food. He's still swimming now. If only I had quarantined the new batch of fish.... The first group were doing so well except for the occasional bullying before the rest were added. I knew better and should have setup a smallish 2nd tank with one of the sponges from the first to try to kick start the cycle. Hindsight is such a %&#@$! At least my 6 year old daughter is taking the losses remarkably well. Much better than I was this morning. I seem to get too attached too quickly. Honestly though, a big part of the reason I was having such a hard time with it earlier was the fear of her being hurt when she got home from school. It was quite a relief when I told her and she pointed out that it was okay because now all of our fish that have died now have new friends and are swimming and playing together in heaven. She's such a sweetie. I'm still not giving up on these little guys and gals though until they do! What amount and frequency of water changes do you recommend to do with a possible bacterial infection? Thank you for all of your suggestions everyone!