Ich, cant seem to shake it...

[szangomango]

My tank was hit pretty hard with the ich. I have an african cichlid community with one GSP. This is a temporary set up, i have a 55 gallon waiting for the GSP to get well. I have been using Quick Cure. All of my fish are cured except my puffer. He still has ick on his tail fin. His body is clean. I am on day 9 of treating, and have read it shouldn't take any longer than 14 days. What should i do? i am doing 40% water changes every 2 days and treating the tank every day. please help

[zombiefetus]

If you have a septate tank for the GSP then you should really move him right away (assuming it has been cycled already).

Adding salt and upping the temperature of the tank is a better way of beating Ich then the harsh medications, if you can move him to another tank then it would make it a lot easier to treat him, and I'm sure he'd appreciate being away from the cichlids.
And Ich will take a lot longer than 9 days to cure anyway, it sounds like he's doing well, though I'd still highly suggest not using Ich medications with puffers.

We have an article about it here:
http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... tal/fwich/

[szangomango]

I dont want to introduce a sick fish into my new aquarium. I have the temp at 82 F and put 1 tblspn salt for every 5 gallons.

[zombiefetus]

Are there other fish in the aquarium? A GSP can't have any tankmates besides another GSP or a ceylon while in brackish water (when in full marine you could add other fish like clownfish and damsels).
But if the Puffer is going to be on his own then there shouldn't be a problem putting him in the 55gallon, The heat and the salt will kill off any ich that he may transfer over to the new tank.

[seacowz]

my gsp recently had ich. with a temperature of 82 degrees and salinity at 1.005 (do you have a way of measuring salinity in your tank?), water changes at 50% almost daily, and vacuuming the gravel (this vacuums up the form of ich that sinks to the bottom and lies in gravel before swimming up to re-infect your fish) he is now entirely symptom free. the lifecycle of ich is 21 days, not 14, so give it time.

[chevrolet67impala]

I'm treating my GSP with quICK cure...the bottle says it works in two days but from what i've heard it doesn't. It's weird because it was working well the first day and a half and then tonight more white spots popped up and now he has it on one fin. Puffers don't die from ick if they've had it for less than a week right?...I'm going to try all the stuff suggested here, but it's definitely reassuring to know that ick can last for up to 21 days(despite what the quICK cure bottle says) and I still have a long time to cure my poor puffy...(right?)

[Pufferpunk]

I would remove those meds out of the tank with a large water change & fresh carbon. Use the method written about in our Library. Works fine w/o any meds, except if you want to add Melafix, for damage done by the parasite to your fish.

[chevrolet67impala]

So he won't die from it anytime in the near future?

[chevrolet67impala]

I guess my last post should be ignored. I learned the hard way when my poor puffy died this morning...thanks for all your help

[zombiefetus]

I'm sorry for your loss. Puffers tend to be really sensitive to medications since they're a scaleless fish.

[Nick]

Quick cure is as dangerous to a puffer as the ich. I got a GSP covered with ich over it's entire body, and he recovered in a few days or so with just a temp of 82 and increasing SG to about 1/3 seawater.

[By_a_coo]

Well, the only choice I had was to buy one F8 that has white-spots on his whole skin and fins. I didn't know that it was dangerous to treat puffers with meds. But I did, I got 2 meds made of formalin, malachite green and methylene blue. Also, I used to add 4 tablespoons of salt/5G and I keept the temperature at 84.2ºF. After 3 days of treatment my puffer was totally cured. Three weeks have past and no signs of ich. I know is dangerous to medicate puffers, but I had great success doing this practice.

[Nick]

It can work, but I never try meds until I find that my puffer has a strain unresponsive to simple salt therapy. Fomalin is a cute industry term for formaldehyde, which burns a lot, so I use it as a last resort, even though it is generally effective.

[Pufferpunk]

Are you sure the few remaining spots on it's fins are ich? Could be a secondary infection, caused by the parasite, boring into the skin. Try Melafix.