Ich? New Fish Mom. Help.

Hi, guys, I'm scared. I am a new mom to three Glo tetras they are in an 8-gallon tank with a heater, filter, light, sand, and three fake plants. I will admit before I got them I did not do my research on them or anything so I am jumping in blind (big mistake I regret. wish I would have been more educated before I got my babies but still would never give them away) ANYWAY Thursday night I went out with my friends and didn't look at my babies when I came home I fed them before I left and checked everything. Yesterday I saw on my pink and yellow glo fish (pinkie and fatty) what looked like to be air bubbles? After spending a longgg time on the internet, looking at my fish, and calling the store, I got them from it was determined as ich. I have been giving them microbe lift herbtana as the store recommended. But am afraid its not working pinkie and fatty are still covered in white spots, pinkie has not eaten yet( I give a mix of flakes and blood worms) I noticed she had a white spot on her eye and that she is going to the surface way more than she used to I also noticed that her fins do not come to a smooth end anymore but rather jagged ends I am scared about my babies and want to treat them all I do not know what works best. Water treatment(like I've been doing) heating the water, or adding salt? Please help my babies and me what do you recommend I use? What product is the best to use?

 

Pictures would help if you can.

I have a few questions that we are all going to want to know in order to help rule things out and what you should start doing to help your fish out.

1. Do you know about the Nitrogen Cycle? If not, please try to do some research on it. Invest in a liquid test kit, as these are the more convenient, cost-efficient, and reliable method to keep track of your water parameters. I'm assuming you're doing a fish-in cycle so you want to make sure you don't let the Ammonia and Nitrite spike above 1ppm. In the mean time, you should be doing water changes to keep those levels down and should be using a water conditioner to treat the water and make it safe for the fish before adding into the water. I highly recommend Seachem "Prime" as this will also detoxify ammonia for 24-48 hours to help alleviate the stress of those toxins for your fish.
2. What temperature are you keeping your fish?
3. How did you acclimate your fish to the tank?
4. How long has the tank been running?

Theres three ways to tackle ich; heat, salt, or medicine. If you're already salting your tanks, keep in mind that when you do water changes to only add salt for the amount of water that you are putting into the tank. Example: You change out 4 gallons out of the 8 gallons, you only dose salt for 4 gallons. In general, you would dose 3tsp per gallon (1tbsp per gallon). But keep in mind some fish can't handle salinity well, mostly catfish species and scaleless fish.

If you're going to use heat, this helps by speeding up the life cycle of ich. Usually above 80F would be recommended to treat ich, however, some fish can't handle those temperatures too well. Danios might be able to, but they generally thrive in cooler temperatures.

I don't know how effective Microblift Herbtana is, last time I read about it people had reported it was not effective in their case, but that was a couple years ago. I would suggest Seachem "Paraguard" or Kordon "Ich-X". Both have proven pretty effective. I think Paraguard would be more ideal in your case, in the event that the ragged fins might be a symptom of a bacterial infection (fin rot).

But again, pictures would help so we can give you a better conclusion and direction.

 

Ich is one of the few diseases that is easy to identify. It looks like someone sprinkled table salt on your fish. It's a parasite. If these are the first fish you put into your tank, the disease came from the fish store.

Follow the instructions on the medication exactly. If you have any charcoal in your filter, remove it. There are three general phases to the parasite's life cycle. The white spots you can see are a phase of the life cycle where the ich cannot be killed. You're going to have to be patient. If you just started treating yesterday, it's going to take another day or two for the white spots to fall off. Make sure you treat for the entire duration recommended on the medication. The ich is still present after the white spots disappear, you just can't see it. The medicine will kill the parasites in the free-swimming stage, which is invisible.

The life cycle is the white spots on the fish, then the white spots fall off, drop to the bottom, then form cysts where the parasites multiply. When in the white spot or cyst stage, the medicine can't kill them. After a few days, the cysts burst open and release zillions of little nasties into your water. That's the stage where they can be killed. Again, you can't see them at that stage, so you have to continue treatment.

There are three methods to kill ich; medication, heat, and salt. You've started using the medication method. Do not combine methods, meaning don't raise the temperature and don't add salt. If you want to raise the temperature slightly, like a couple of degrees, that will be fine since it will speed up the life cycle and cure it a little more quickly.

 

Pictures would help if you can.

I have a few questions that we are all going to want to know in order to help rule things out and what you should start doing to help your fish out.

1. Do you know about the Nitrogen Cycle? If not, please try to do some research on it. Invest in a liquid test kit, as these are the more convenient, cost-efficient, and reliable method to keep track of your water parameters. I'm assuming you're doing a fish-in cycle so you want to make sure you don't let the Ammonia and Nitrite spike above 1ppm. In the mean time, you should be doing water changes to keep those levels down and should be using a water conditioner to treat the water and make it safe for the fish before adding into the water. I highly recommend Seachem "Prime" as this will also detoxify ammonia for 24-48 hours to help alleviate the stress of those toxins for your fish.
2. What temperature are you keeping your fish?
3. How did you acclimate your fish to the tank?
4. How long has the tank been running?

Theres three ways to tackle ich; heat, salt, or medicine. If you're already salting your tanks, keep in mind that when you do water changes to only add salt for the amount of water that you are putting into the tank. Example: You change out 4 gallons out of the 8 gallons, you only dose salt for 4 gallons. In general, you would dose 3tsp per gallon (1tbsp per gallon). But keep in mind some fish can't handle salinity well, mostly catfish species and scaleless fish.

If you're going to use heat, this helps by speeding up the life cycle of ich. Usually above 80F would be recommended to treat ich, however, some fish can't handle those temperatures too well. Danios might be able to, but they generally thrive in cooler temperatures.

I don't know how effective Microblift Herbtana is, last time I read about it people had reported it was not effective in their case, but that was a couple years ago. I would suggest Seachem "Paraguard" or Kordon "Ich-X". Both have proven pretty effective. I think Paraguard would be more ideal in your case, in the event that the ragged fins might be a symptom of a bacterial infection (fin rot).

But again, pictures would help so we can give you a better conclusion and direction.

HI thanks for writing back I learned about the nitrogen cycle after the fact I started my tank. I got them on Feb 24th. I use distilled water and its heated to 79F the water readings are
No3 :0
No2:0
pH: 6.0
Kh: 0
Gh:0
I just got done doing a water change today acutally I do 20-30% water change and I siphon the substrate. To acclimate my fish I set them in the tank while still in their bag from the store for about 10 minutes after that I slowed added the new tank water into their bag for 10 mins and after I let them swim out. Before I even put the fish in I treated the water with water conditioner, and stress coat. I check their water about twice a day since the tank is new I don't wamt there to be a spike and have them pass when it could have been something prevented. Below are my fish the green one is the only one that does not have ich (yet) since they all share a tank I want to treat the tank itself

 

So those are tetras, and they should be able to handle higher temperatures if you choose to speed up the life cycle of the ich parasites.

The thing about distilled water is that it's very similar to RO (Reverse Osmosis) water. This means that it completely lacks any mineral content, it doesn't even have any hardness to it at all. Fish actually require some degree of mineral content in the water in order to be healthy. Usually you would want to mix in some of your tap water if its same enough, or you have to remineralize the water yourself. Now unfortunately I don't use distilled or RO water so I don't have any suggestions of what products you can use, although I'm sure seachem will have a good lineup if you want to start looking there.

 

Thank you for getting back to me. I tried to use my tap water once (put water conditioner in it and everything ) and the readings were off the chart no matter what I did. Do you know what is going or any ideas with their fins?

 

Hello and welcome to fishlore! For Ro or distilled water. You can use a remineralization product called Kent RO Right. And just follow the instructions. I would also read about this product and about how to slowly acclimate to the fish. You can cut it with tap or distilled water slowly.

 

Test strips are known for being unreliable. An API Master Test Kit is going to give you more reliable readings.

It's likely you have high levels of ammonia, but your test strips won't test for ammonia.

The acclimation process isn't going to make any difference if you bring home fish with ich. Bagging the fish up at the store and introducing them to a different environment is enough stress to trigger the ich.

You said you did water changes. Are you supposed to redose the medication? Normally gravel vacuum and water changes are part of the recommended treatment, but that coincides with an additional dose of meds.

Distilled water is not good for an aquarium. Unless you control it with the right elements, it's going to cause swings in pH. The water your fish were in at the store is going to be much different from distilled water. I'd recommend getting the API kit and testing your tap water. Unless your tap water has high levels of toxins, there's something in the aquarium producing them.

 

Welcome to FishLore!

Okay, kind of a lot to cover here so sadly this will be a bit long.

Here is a good link about curing ich without medicine and is well worth reading:
ICH (ICK) Life Cycle and Natural Treatment

Test strips are notorious for being inaccurate and if you can't trust your results, why bother testing? I would highly recommend you invest in an API Master Test Kit for Freshwater.

Okay, here's where I tie these last two statements together. At a pH below 7.0 highly toxic ammonia starts turning into much less toxic (some claim non-toxic) ammonium. And by the time your pH gets down to 6.0 all of the ammonia has turned into ammonium. So while it's good that ammonium isn't very toxic or possibly non-toxic, the bad thing about ammonium is that it is a poor food source for the ammonia converting bacteria (since ammonia is that bacteria's food source). And since it is bad food source it will be very difficult if not impossible to cycle your tank. Now one would think that if ammonium isn't toxic, than there would be no need to cycle the tank, weekly partial water changes would be enough to keep the ammonium levels low enough that even if slightly But I'm not 100% that toxic your fish would be fine. But I'm not 100% that line of reasoning is true, but it seems to make sense.

Now how do you take care of the most pressing issue, treating ich. Usually treating for ich in an uncycled tank causes you to treat with the heat method that was explained in that link. The reason being is that when using most (if not all) ich meds, you cannot perform any water changes while treating. But if you are doing a fish-in cycle, you need to perform water changes to keep the ammonia and/or nitrite levels low enough that your fish do not die from exposure. But since with your pH level being so low (if your test strips are correct) you have ammonium instead of ammonia and you should easily be able to go without any water changes until the meds have run their course. As far as med recommendations, I only had ich once (well actually I didn't have ich my fish did...but I digress). I successfully treat it using Tetra Life Guard. But be sure to remove your carbon when treating with meds (cut a slit in your cartridge if necessary to remove it), since carbon removes meds from the water.

Finally...You may want to raise your pH. In your case one way to do this would be to just switch to regular bottled water rather than distilled (which you really don't want to be using anyway). The pH of the bottle water may be close to 7.0 or above which would allow your tank to cycle. Or you could add some brushed coral. You can put some in a media bag and stuff it into your filter if it will fit, or you can just put the bag of crushed coral directly into your tank. You could even sprinkle it in with your gravel. Or you could just buy a cuttle bone (you know those things they sell in the bird department of the fish store) and put that in your filter or directly into the tank. As the crush coral or cuttle bone slowly dissolve in the water, it releases calcium into the water increasing your hardness and raising your pH level.

But be aware, if you have ammonium in the tank and raise the pH, that ammonium converts back into highly toxic ammonia and can poison your fish. So you need to keep an eye on your ammonia levels to keep them low. Using a water condition made by SeaChem called Prime will detox up to 1ppm of ammonia and/or nitrite for 24 hours, so if you use Prime and do frequent enough and large enough water changes to keep your ammonia/nitrite levels under 1ppm at all times your fish will be safe from exposure.

Best of luck and feel free to ask any additional questions you may have

 

Thank you all for getting back to me. I think it is clearing up but there are definitely signs of fin rot (mainly on my pink one) pictures on the left are when I first started treatment pictures on the right are from today

 

It's difficult to see with that lighting but it doesn't look like it's fin rot. It just looks damaged possibly from rubbing against objects in the tank due to the irritation caused by ich. Do water regular water changes, and be sure to clean the gravel, and this will help keep the water clean and promote fin regrowth and healing.

 

Thank you. So far they seem to be doing better expect my pink one she hasnt eaten today or yesterday but I am thinking she might be stressed/uncomfortable due to the ich and the treatment. I actually kind of really love to clean their tank and their sand especially cause I get to see all the nastiness in there and knowing they are living in a cleaner and safer tank after is so rewarding lol.

 

It is very rewarding to clean the tanks. I also enjoy watching their natural behavior once they have fully settled into the tank.

Just keep up that water change and hopefully her appetite will return soon enough. Keep a close watch on her.

 

I acutally just got done watching them swim around she is my main concern right now she had ich the worst out of all of them. I will continue with water changes and vacuum their substrate. Thank you for getting back to me on this I was so scared and worried

 

Ah that maybe why then. The last time I had an ich issue was almost a year ago, and my Bleeding Heart Tetras had it the worst. They didn't eat until they were almost fully recovered.

I'm glad I could be of help. Please don't feel hesitant to ask for help here, I find FishLore to be one of the more friendly and yet truly knowledgeable fish forums out there. There's a great community here to help.