# knife fish dying treating for ich, help!



## loverofhorses1985 (Dec 4, 2010)

My fish were coming down with ich, So i went to pet store got treatment for ich. It was api super ich cure, the lady at the petstore told me what to do i followed the directions on box and what she said. I told the lady that i had a knife fish she said it would be fine, So i did two treatments as per box instructions. Three hours after second treatment knife fish was swimming around while light was on by heater, And he wont eat wont go in his hiding place... what can i do? I don't want to lose him, please help.


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## overburn (Oct 27, 2010)

Ich is easily treated by raising the temperature and adding salt to the aquarium.

So, raise the temperature slowly to 28C. That should accelerate the lifecycle of the parasite not giving it enough time to reproduce. 

Leave it like that for a week or so. 

If you don't see drastic improvements by then, add about one teaspoon of non-iodized kitchen salt per 2 gallons of water. However, I don't recommend adding any amount of salt to the aquarium. And if you have ich in your aquarium , it's better to treat the whole aquarium rather than just the affected fish.
Salt increases the water GH and leaves a lot of non-dissolved residue laying around. Also, fish don't like it in more than trace quantities. 

However if the ich is in an advanced stage, I recommend treating the fish with antiseptics mixed with their food to help with the wounds made by the parasite while adding salt to the water and raising the temperature to 28C in order to kill it. Garlic should do just fine as an antiseptic. 

I do not recomment using commercial medications for ich unless there is no other option. Those commercial medications contain copper and the copper could prove fatal to any inverts you have in your aquarium and will certainly weaken your fish. However that copper could kill the parasites infesting fish too.


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## Lil Gashog (Dec 1, 2010)

I don't mean to be rude or get in the way of this question but what is ich?I realize this could be a stupid question for those of you that are experienced,but i'm getting my first tank soon so i'd like to know,apologies in advance.


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## overburn (Oct 27, 2010)

Ichthyophthirius multifiliis (commonly known as white spot disease, ich, or ick) is a common disease of freshwater fish. It is caused by the protozoa Ichtyopthirius. Ich is one of the most common and persistent diseases. The protozoan is an ectoparasite. White nodules that look like white grains of salt or sugar of up to 1 mm appear on the body, fins and gills. Each white spot is an encysted parasite.

Ichthyophthirius multifiliis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


And good luck with your new aquaruim


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## verdifer (Sep 8, 2010)

I haven't kept freshwater fish for some time now but I do recall I had to treat a tank for Ich, I do know that Knife-fish are scaleless which means they don't handle the Copper based Ich Treatments to well, I believe the general rule for tanks that have scaleless fish is to use half what the bottle says.

So if the bottle says 5ml a day you would half this to 2.5ml, I know a few folks treat the Ich in freshwater with Salt if they do have scaleless fish, you can raise the temp but this will only speed up the Ich, I can't remember off the top of my head the heat needed to kill Ich I'm sure it was 89F but don't quote me on that.

And for Lil Gashog the best way I could describe Ich is probally to say it's like Head Lice that can burrow under the skin and kill you if left be.


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## Amie (Sep 15, 2010)

From my understanding of these medications they are essentially poisons that you are putting into your tank. Designed to poison the parasite and hopefully not poison the fish in the process. They also kill your beneficial bacteria that we all need to have in our tanks to sustain life. Fish that are already weak from having a parasite in the tank or are just weak in general sometimes won't out live the treatments. Medications should be used as a final and last resort. Try going with the raising the temp method. Much easier on the fish.


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## verdifer (Sep 8, 2010)

Raising the temp is fine so long as you are going to raise it to a level which will kill the Ich, otherwise you are only speeding up the process, rather than making it 1 week till it drops off the fish you will be making it 3 days.

The end result of this is the same only you will be taking less time, the Ich will still be in your tank you are only more or less making its cycle go a little faster.

And medications should be used in a quarntine tank if 1 is an option.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Stop treating. Do a 50% water change as soon as you can and put the carbon back in your filter to clean out the rest of the meds. Treat with temp only. 

Is a knife a scaless fish? If so, meds have to be administered differently with scaless fish.


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