Unsure of how to approach ich

Hi! I’m new to the forum and generally new to fish keeping. Long story short, I recently had an outbreak of ich after adding some fish from my LFS (no quarantine, I know for next time!). I first noticed a bunch of spots on an ember tetra and then a few other tetras had some a day later. I’ve been treating with a suggested ich treatment for about a week, the spots on the original ember tetra are greatly improved/almost gone however over the last 24hrs I’ve had 3 neons die. All other fish look generally okay, but the remaining neon tetras are all acting strange, and looking bad with their fins appearing to be slowly degrading and most covered in white bacterial looking stuff.

My main question: is should I move the neons to a hospital tank (I have a 45L not in use) and keep treating them separately for ich and whatever else they might have, or just continue to treat the whole tank for another few days? Never dealt with disease before!

Some important info
- 130L planted tank, not properly cycled (I think I crashed it when I moved the fish from the 45L to this one a few weeks ago) but trying to be on top of testing and water changes
- readings were 0.25 ammonia and 0 nitrites/nitrates before water change yesterday, Ph 7.4
- I’ve raised the temp to about 25/80degrees over last 2 days
- treating with ichonex by Aquasonic and dosing with seachem prime, seachem 55 tidal filter + sponge filter in tank (no carbon)
- stocked with 4 peppered cories, 8 ember tetras, now 7 neons and 1 honey
- located in Australia

Thanks, hope I’ve covered everything!
replying to add:
I forgot that a few days prior to finding the ich spots on the tetra I had a cory die. It was swimming weird (drifting and floating) for about a day or 2 and then I found it dead, so unsure if it was early ich or something else? And since posting this morning I’ve noticed that another cory is doing the same thing and seems to be floating up the top of the tank on its side however when I poke it it swims away and back to the bottom. A few other threads I’ve read through have had similar issues with cories but couldn’t find any solution

 

Dont move any fish...you need to treat the whole tank.
Keep raising the heat gradually to about 29 degrees.
You should also add aquarium salt at a concentration of 14 grams per 12 liters of water and keep using your ich treatment.
That ammonia level is really low and I would dose a bit of Prime to keep it under control.

The idea here is that the heat will speed up the lifespan of the parasites. We can't kill the ick until it releases from the fish. Those white spots that you see have a whole bunch of tiny ick babies that are going to hatch out into the water and look for more fish (or the same fish) to attach to. Once the ick babies are in the water that's when we can kill them with the salt. The salt will basically dehydrate the parasites. So we need to use the heat and salt together.

Once we clear the ick we can worry about the cycle.

 

MaddieM,
Welcome to fishlore.

This is extremely IMPORTANT you live in Australia. Our strain of ich is not killed by heat nor is stopped from reproducing by heat.
Malachite green and Formaldehyde are the active ingredients in most successful ich medications sold in Australia.

As the tank is not cycled you will have to change some water every 48 hours and use Prime as your conditioner. The ich treatment I use says to do water changes every 3 days and redose the medication. A gravel vacuum will help remove some eggs form the substrate.

Dont move the fish .
Yes heat will speed up the live cycle of ich but heat is going to lower oxygen levels. As the medication will also lower oxygen be careful not to raise the temperature to high.At this time of year ok you can raise the temperature a little,but not in summer when we have hot days. Adding an air stone is mandatory in an Australian summer anyway.
Ich lives for about a week or slightly less in summer.
Continue treatment for ten days after the last spots are seen. Treatment includes water changes. As the tank is not cycled fully you will be still doing water changes to lower ammonia to as close to zero as possible.

I have not used salt to kill ich . If you lived in Canada without medication that would be a option.
Ich is extremely common in Australian shop brought fish. It’s easy enough to kill the next time you see it. Sorry you found out what to look for by losing fish.

From my experience and my local club members a full does of Australian ich medication dose not kill
fry , tetras, shrimp, scaleless fish ( cories) or kill bacteria. Even though the medication says to half dose those species.All Australian medication says that I believe to cover themselves and to say our medication is just as strong as the other brands?

 

Hi! Thanks for the reply guys

To add, I have been keeping an eye on water parameters as close as possible and doing partial water changes when I can (this was prior to the ich outbreak) and dosing prime to try and keep the lower levels of ammonia under control in between water changes, I even added a dose of prime this morning just to cover all bases. I’ve also had the fish in the new tank for about 3 or 4 weeks and only had the ich show up about a week ago, and then only had the tetras die in the last 24hrs obviously looking back tho the cory could have been the first victim.

The ich treatment I have (which has malachite green as an ingredient), says to do a water change, add a full dose, and then half doses over the next 2 days, then if need to continue do another water change and do 3 more days of half doses etc. Are you suggesting instead I keep doing full doses instead of the half doses?
Lastly, if I keep up the meds for 10 days post the spots disappearing should I add carbon back into the filter to try and get rid of any lasting meds or will it eventually just come out with water changes over time?

thanks!

 

Follow the instructions to the letter this time. If you join my aquarium Society/ club you will meet members that do not measure the medication they pour it in and judge by the colour. As you are new and I have not used the brand you have just follow the instructions. I would however suggest to continue treatment for ten days after the last spots are seen.?

My personally opinion is carbon is wasted space in any filter. You will be removing and replacing enough water to not worry about old medication. I don’t know anyone that uses carbon full time in fresh water tanks. If you do it has to be replaced every month or it’s not going to do anything.

Just so you know .
The ich can be spread from tank to tank on wet equipment, wet hands or on plants etc.

 

Follow the instructions to the letter this time. If you join my aquarium Society/ club you will meet members that do not measure the medication they pour it in and judge by the colour. As you are new and I have not used the brand you have just follow the instructions. I would however suggest to continue treatment for ten days after the last spots are seen.?

My personally opinion is carbon is wasted space in any filter. You will be removing and replacing enough water to not worry about old medication. I don’t know anyone that uses carbon full time in fresh water tanks. If you do it has to be replaced every month or it’s not going to do anything.

Just so you know .
The ich can be spread from tank to tank on wet equipment, wet hands or on plants etc.

Thanks for the info! Yes I’ve heard that carbon isn’t really necessary long term, good to know I don’t need to go and buy it. Tbh I’ll probably end up running out of the medication I have as my LFS suggested a small bottle would be enough, would you recommend continuing with the same medication for now and following it to the letter OR changing to the brand you suggested, blue planet? And yes I’ve been cleaning my equipment after using them and letting them air dry, I don’t have any other tanks set up atm so don’t need to worry about spreading it but I’ve been trying to clean stuff after use to prevent anything being reintroduced to the tank the next time I use it (not even sure if the ich would survive that long out of the tank but I was just being safe)

 

From what I have seen and the bottles I have read all the medications sold over the counter in Australia have almost identical amounts of the same ingredients. In other word use whatever you can get at a reasonable price. With 30 plus tanks and being retired I have had ich a handful of times. Buying that one litre bottle worked out cheaper long term after I brought numerous little bottles. Only if you are medicating large tanks is the price really and issue. But I bet a slightly larger bottle than what you were sold will be a little more economical ?

The ich parasites don’t survive out of water and die without a host if they don’t find a new fish in 30 days.

 

From what I have seen and the bottles I have read all the medications sold over the counter in Australia have almost identical amounts of the same ingredients. In other word use whatever you can get at a reasonable price. With 30 plus tanks and being retired I have had ich a handful of times. Buying that one litre bottle worked out cheaper long term after I brought numerous little bottles. Only if you are medicating large tanks is the price really and issue. But I bet a slightly larger bottle than what you were sold will be a little more economical ?

The ich parasites don’t survive out of water and die without a host if they don’t find a new fish in 30 days.

Thanks for all the info! I’ll go and grab some more medication in the next few days and continue it as you suggested, yes in retrospect a larger bottle would have been better, live and learn I guess. Hopefully no more deaths but honestly the neons do not look great and the cories are also acting off so my hopes are not high.. funnily enough the honey gourami is looking better than ever ‍lol

 

From what I have seen and the bottles I have read all the medications sold over the counter in Australia have almost identical amounts of the same ingredients.

OP is using Aquasonic Ichonex which contains copper sulphate and MG which is a bit different to the standard formaldehyde and MG combo such as in Blue Planet White Spot Remedy. Don't know if it makes much difference.