Ich Outbreak 3 Days Before Vacation! Urgently Need Advice!

Seemingly overnight I have had an ich outbreak in one of my tanks, and I leave for a 2 week vacation in 3 days! I'm not sure what the best course of action is here and I urgently need help! Unfortunately I will not be able to have a fish sitter for the tank in question, so I don't know what to do. Currently the tank contains 6 neon tetra, 1 common goldfish, 1 pleco, and some ghost shrimp. Ive read that increasing the temperature to 86 should make it go away, but I don't know if my fish can handle those sort of temperatures for 2 weeks. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

The 86 degrees needs to be maintained for a full two weeks. What are you worried about the pleco in those temps? (I don't have plecos so I am not familar with their needs.)

 

Are there any pet sitters ( you can call your local vets for assistance as well ) you can hire? At least have them check on them every few days and adjust temps for you. You say you can't have one, any reason you don't want to? You will need to adjust temps slowly over a course of a few days and you may not have enough time to do it yourself.

Also I don't know if the goldfish can sustain that temp range ( someone else can hopefully answer that ) as they are cold water fish to begin with.

When you get back, we can discuss your current tank situation and compatibility of your fish and what to do about your stocking.

 

Rather than the heat method, in this case, I would go with meds. But you'll still need someone to dose while you're gone.

 

The 86 degrees needs to be maintained for a full two weeks. What are you worried about the pleco in those temps? (I don't have plecos so I am not familar with their needs.)

I'm worried that the goldfish and pleco won't survive that long at those Temps

Rather than the heat method, in this case, I would go with meds. But you'll still need someone to dose while you're gone.

Are there any pet sitters ( you can call your local vets for assistance as well ) you can hire? At least have them check on them every few days and adjust temps for you. You say you can't have one, any reason you don't want to? You will need to adjust temps slowly over a course of a few days and you may not have enough time to do it yourself.

Also I don't know if the goldfish can sustain that temp range ( someone else can hopefully answer that ) as they are cold water fish to begin with.

When you get back, we can discuss your current tank situation and compatibility of your fish and what to do about your stocking.

I have a very untrustworthy roommate and can't leave my bedroom unlocked while I'm away unfortunately. My other (more reliable) roommate is watching my two tanks in the shared area, but I don't trust him with full access to my room either.

I know about the stocking issues though, I had put some wild caught goldfish in the tank to cycle it, and ended up keeping one when I added the tetras as a space holder (biologically speaking) until I took the next step in my stocking plan (which is to replace the goldfish with GBRs). The pleco came with the tank because it's previous owner said he was just going to flush it if I didn't want it, so I'm working on rehomeing it.

If it comes down to it, I'll release the goldfish back where I got it from and hope for the best for the pleco (which is so far unaffected). I just got home from returning the tetras (which appear to have been the culprits). I'd rather not get rid of the goldfish and pleco before the vacation ad I'm worried I'd have to re-cycle my tank afterwards, setting me back at least a month in my stocking plan, but if it's the only option in my situation, I'll end up doing it.

 

I would not turn up the heat since no one can monitor it and your gold fish is a cool water fish. Use Super Ick Cure. Goldfish can last weeks without food. Pray for the best. The neons probably were ill to begin with. It happens quite often. Cold and tropical fish should not be housed together anyway. The pleco will slow his metabolism as well as the shrimp. Fact is you have to treat the tank now or completely start again. And think about moving.....

 

I just administered the first does of Kordon rid ich. I've turned up the temp to 80 (it was at 78), which I know the goldfish can handle for at least a few days until I leave, and I plan to treat with rid ich every 12 hours until I leave for my trip, at which point I will turn off my heater and let tge tank assume room temp. Hopefully the warm water speeds up the ich life cycle and the treatment works fast enough, and if it doesn't, hopefully letting the water stay at room temperature while I'm gone will slow down its life cycle enough for my fish to still be fine when I get back. Right now only the caudal fin is affected, and no spots are visible anywhere else. Wish me luck guys

 

Please do not release the goldfish back where you caught them. They should not be there in the first place, and adding them back is very irresponsible, bad, and illegal. Instead, find someone with a backyard pond who can take them, or give them to your LFS.

And neons are not temperature compatible with GBR, and neons should not be kept with goldies. So your future plans have issues too.

 

Can you board the fish at a LFS?

 

Metronidazole worked for me in 3 days...

 

I would actually turn the heater off and let the tank cool. It makes the life cycle of Ich really long.
Dose with a med that can linger for a week without biodegrading or needing water change.
This will buy you time.

 

Please do not release the goldfish back where you caught them. They should not be there in the first place, and adding them back is very irresponsible, bad, and illegal. Instead, find someone with a backyard pond who can take them, or give them to your LFS.

And neons are not temperature compatible with GBR, and neons should not be kept with goldies. So your future plans have issues too.

The pond is my apartment complexes pond, and I'm not exaggerating when it's only inhabitants when I moved in were thousamds upplon thousands of goldfish and Chinese mystery snails. I understand that they're not supposed to be there in the first place, and I have even called the DNA about it personally seeing as both are invasive species, at which they essentially said "not our problem". Due to this I personally have started stocking the pond with fish that I catch in the wild in order to combat the invasive species (redear sunfish and channel catfish are what I've been putting in it) because I don't want to see them spread. All in all, I would say that I have had a much larger positive impact than negative, and I don't feel that me releasing a single goldfish back to where I caught it is a problem, given the particular situation. Thanks for your concern, but it had nothing to do with the question asked, and is not of any help to me. Also, I'm curious how a backyard pond is any better than my apartment complexes pond, seeing as there is the possibility for them to spread from either one.

As far as the stocking issue with neons go, I was made aware of this when I posted a thread regarding my stocking plans not long ago.

Can you board the fish at a LFS?

Unfortunately I don't have a LFS anywhere near me, and petco won't take them

Metronidazole worked for me in 3 days...

I'll have to look into metronidazole then since fast acting is exactly what I'm looking for

I would actually turn the heater off and let the tank cool. It makes the life cycle of Ich really long.
Dose with a med that can linger for a week without biodegrading or needing water change.
This will buy you time.

I've only turned it up until I leave because I want to speed up the life cycle while I'm here and still treating it, but as soon as I leave I'll be turning the heater off in order to slow the life cycle down until I get back

 

I didn't know it was a pond for the apartment complex - I was thinking a wild pond. If it's an apartment complex's pond, it should be fine, as it's not natural/wild and it's not connected to natural waterways.

But when I see someone mentioning releasing a fish, I'm definitely going to bring up the fact that they should never release fish into the wild, regardless of whether it's on topic or not.

 

I just got back from the vacation and the tank in question is in great condition. There is no sign of icu and all inhabitants seem healthy and normal.

HOWEVER,
catastrophic failure befell my fancy goldfish tank. There apparently was a brief power outage about 3 days into my vacation and it's filter didn't start back up on its own. In addition to this, ich somehow found it's way into the tank as well despite all my precautions (none of the equipment used in the first icu tank was used in the fancy tank). When my roommate noticed the fish weren't acting normal he took it upon himself to go buy more food from the store and feed them what had to have been 5 times what I left out for him (I had filled two 7 day pill containers with the proper amount of food). The bottom of the tank had a layer of rotting food when I just got back. When I arrived home about 2 hours ago the tank water was brown and there was only about 3 Inches of visibility. Despite all this, my roommate never informed me there was a problem while I was away and said that everything was fine when I checked up with him a few days ago. The fish are on the verge of death, and had I arrived home a day later they would likely be dead. I've done all I can to get thing back in order, hopefully they make it.

 

Sorry to hear that.