I've got rid of ich, what should I do now?

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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.
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By_a_coo
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I've got rid of ich, what should I do now?

Post by By_a_coo »

Hi there!

Last friday I bought one F8 that has white-spots on his whole skin and fins. It is so hard to find them around here, I decided to give my blood for this fish. I put him in a hospital tank last friday and on sunday I added 2 meds made of formalin, malachite green and methylene blue. Also, I added 4 tablespoons of salt/5G and I keep the temperature at 84.2ºF. I'm rigorously following the meds' intructions and changing 100% of water DAILY to keep it as pristine as I can (always replacing the recomended amount of meds).

The best of my news are that when I got home today (3 days past from the beginning of the treatment), I went to give him some clam and I noticed my fish has NO sign of ich!!! Nothing... nor even a dot :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: OMG I AM so happy!!

I started the treatment on sunday, as I mentioned; the instructions say to treat for 5 days, so it'll be done next friday, right? After that, how long should I keep him in the hospital with no meds to BE SURE he is healthy? I'm counting on you all! :)

Sorry for the long text and thanks!
Fernando
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seacowz
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Re: I've got rid of ich, what should I do now?

Post by seacowz »

according to the library on here:
"The best way to prevent ich, as I stated above, is to quarantine all incoming fish. A minimum of four weeks in quarantine is the best way to go."

so im guessing since they recommend a 4 week quarantine (and i was also told the life stage of ich was 4 weeks when i had an outbreak myself by a fellow on here) thats a pretty safe amount of time to make sure he's healthy. but quoting the library is about all i can do (complete novice!)!
I hope everything works out! :-)
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Re: I've got rid of ich, what should I do now?

Post by Pufferpunk »

The ich lifecycle is 21 days. Keep doing what you have been doing w/o meds, for that long after the cysts are off the fish.
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

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Re: I've got rid of ich, what should I do now?

Post by Agnate »

21 days? Sounds good. I just noticed my two Bettas have a lot of Ich (they had white bodies so I couldn't tell), so I set up a hospital tank and such. Looks like they'll be gravel-less for quite a while, hehe!
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Re: I've got rid of ich, what should I do now?

Post by By_a_coo »

ok.. thanks everybody, so I suppose I should keep him in a QT for 4 weeks more. Too bad!!! There's a wonderful well decorated tank waiting for him!!! LOL (just kidding... no chance to infect the whole main setup).
Fernando
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