Ick...help :(

So I am 100% that the neon tetras in my community tank have ick. Now I have two dwarf gouramis in a quarantine tank with fresh, clean cycled water, because they haven't shown any signs yet. I never thought this would happen to me as I usually help people with fish disease rather than deal with it myself. As for the tetras, they are still in the tank. I know that ick is also carried through the water column and substrate so that is why I took the other fish out. Anyways I have a load of live plants in the tank, and don't want to kill them. My first thought is to use a medication to treat the whole tank with the infected fish in it, however I have been reading a bunch about it and some of these medications will harm or damage live plants. Any suggestions on what to treat the tank with so the plants won't be affected would be greatly appreciated.

 

Malachite green is what I have used to kill these parasites in the shortest amount of time.

You moved fish to another tank? Now you will need to treat that tank as well. IMO.


To my knowledge malachite green does not hurt plants . I have never noticed it do anything to plants.


Do the dwarf gourami have a cycled filter? What is cycled water ? A spelling mistake?

 

Raising the temperature to 86 F and keeping it there for two weeks also works. I’ve heard that it’s best not to medicate and raise the temp at the same time, though.
Whichever you choose to do, do it to both tanks, to be sure you get rid of the ich.

 

Hikari Ich-x is another medicine that is plant safe and works very well against Ich. I ordered some from amazon last week and it came in 2 days.

 

Where do you live emilyyyyy? If you live in Australia forget about using heat to kill the Australian strain of this parasite.
Many plants can’t cope with 86f/ 30 c .

 

Thank you for all the suggestions. I decided to move the dwarf gouramis and the neons into two different quarantine tanks (did this before posting). The gouramis show no signs of ick. I used water from a cycled tank is what I meant by cycled water, so all the fish at least have a little something to keep the water clean. I did a 50% water change on the now empty original tank, and I am planning to leave it empty for a few days. I have heard that by doing that any parasite in the water or gravel etc. would just die without a host. Since both quarantine tanks have no live plants I can treat them with regular ick medication that would normally kill plants. Let me know if this sounds good!

 

The live cycle of the parasite we call ich is around 7- 10 days -from eggs ,- to free swimming, -then on/ in the fish. In theory at least 14 - 20 days should see all the ich dead ( so the story goes). You are correct without a host most people believe ich dies out never to be seen again.
Raising the temperature shortens the life cycle to 7 days approximately.

The beneficial bacteria that are the heart of the nitrogen cycle live on all hard surfaces in a tank. Very few are in the water permanently.
The fish will need a cycled filter/ a filter that has bacteria on it.

The active ingredient in most “regular ich medication “ is malachite green. It does not kill or harm plants. Prolonged or overdosing will kill some of the beneficial bacteria. Overdosing is something I have no experience of . An overdose possible would kill plants? An overdose will kill fish as well.

What you are doing sounds like it should work if the fish have cycled filterS ?

You now have ich in 3 tanks .

edit
You will need to be careful with nets and hoses between the ich tanks and any other tanks as the parasites are in the water.