Possible Ick situation...

Oh no! Sick fish?! Come here and see if someone can help!
Forum rules
Read this before posting!!

Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.

1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.

2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.

3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)

4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.

5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.

We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.

While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.

Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
Nick
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Re: Possible Ick situation...

Post by Nick »

If they never go away and appear in different spots over months, it's not ich. The lifecycle of the parasite requires dropping cysts and forming new ones.
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crazedpuffer
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Re: Possible Ick situation...

Post by crazedpuffer »

Can you post a picture?
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Nas
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Re: Possible Ick situation...

Post by Nas »

I'ts hard to get a decent pic, my puffer swims away after the flash goes off and hides for a few minutes. I have two or three pics but the spots don't show so well, they look more like film grain actually.
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Nas
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Re: Possible Ick situation...

Post by Nas »

Sorry i can't get decent pics but i did just notice a group of little bumps near the base of his top fin, i've had fish with ich before and these bumps don't like like it but i can't be sure. There are about four or six of them in a really small area...
crazedpuffer
Former Staff Member
Posts: 1755
Joined: Sat Aug 06, 2005 11:57 pm
My Puffers: 1x Porcupine Puffer
1xValentini
Location: Long Island, NY

Re: Possible Ick situation...

Post by crazedpuffer »

Is it it's spines?
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Nas
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Re: Possible Ick situation...

Post by Nas »

crazedpuffer wrote:Is it it's spines?
it's not spines, it's on the sides of the spines...
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