# Is it ich or something else



## SomethingGourami (Dec 28, 2012)

My 36 gallon tank has 2 buenos aires tetras, 5 lamp eye tetras, and 2 gold fours is. In the past week, 1 lamp eye tetra and 1 gold gourami died. Almost all my fish are covered in white spots. So I wanted a few days and they still have the spots. Please tell what diasese it is and how to cure it.*c/p*


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## jschwabe5 (Nov 26, 2011)

Ich is pretty easy to identify, it will look like grains of salt coating your fish from head to tail. It is a parasite, it can be controlled pretty quick with medication and temperature. White cottony patches it could be bacterial or fungal. If you can post a picture showing the spots we can ID


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## SomethingGourami (Dec 28, 2012)

Dumb auto correct, 2 gold gourami. And yes it is more salt like. I will try to post pictures soon. Some fish seem to have gotten rid of it.


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## jschwabe5 (Nov 26, 2011)

If that is the case you do have ich - its best treated with temp and medication. Look for a product at your local fish store called Quick Cure, its a blue liquid and pretty cheap. Do a water change - vac the gravel. Remove any carbon from your filter and turn off UV sterilizer if you have. Slowly raise the temperature in your tank to 85 degrees. Ich is a parasite - the higher temp will not kill the parasite but helps speed up its reproduction cycle. Follow directions on quick cure its so many drops per gallon. You may not see much change until after a few days of treatment. Keep the temp up for 7-10 days. Quick cure med is not recommended on catfish and loaches.


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## tbub1221 (Nov 1, 2012)

jschwabe5 said:


> If that is the case you do have ich - its best treated with temp and medication. Look for a product at your local fish store called Quick Cure, its a blue liquid and pretty cheap. Do a water change - vac the gravel. Remove any carbon from your filter and turn off UV sterilizer if you have. Slowly raise the temperature in your tank to 85 degrees. Ich is a parasite - the higher temp will not kill the parasite but helps speed up its reproduction cycle. Follow directions on quick cure its so many drops per gallon. You may not see much change until after a few days of treatment. Keep the temp up for 7-10 days. Quick cure med is not recommended on catfish and loaches.


last time i saw ich it took at least 3 days of treatment to see a change but it will improve. it his a German blue ram id gotten that was a little stressed but he got over it . Ich is a parasite that prays on sick weak and stressed fish. if you didnt add any new fish recently and your fish became ill that fast i would think its a water control issue , i myself have seen it in situations where fish are exposed to ammonia even at lower amounts for extended amounts of time. it will usually affect smaller fish lethally a little quicker. without treatment they will die and if they are all sick now there is a good chance some will die regardless. i think there are a whole lot of good products out there to treat ich if its severe , but if you find that the water chem levels are where they should be then it has been my personal experience that as well as bumping the water level up to a minimum of 82F not exceeding 86F will increase the breeding/Growth cycle . Those little white salt like spots are actually like a little pod and once it gets hard it falls off like a scab and then 1000's of little parasites swim free to re attach to another sick fish so by increasing the temp and making them hatch faster they then swim through the water in the meds/poisons faster. Atlast that's how it seems to work. The last little tip i can give you is to boost the salt content in the tank as it is a natural healer Salt is a true skin irritant and in irritating it causes the fish to produce more natural bdy slime slime coat , this is what will usually protest fish from ich parasite.. I Have treated with heat and salt only more than once with success . most importantly is water quality if its not clean and you have ammonia no meds will do anything. ****Do not use primafix/melafix or any other tea tree oil product because it will be harmful to your gourami's labyrinth organ.. primafix is useful as a natural invert / Loach safe med but not if you keep gourami.
Good luck with treating your fish , Keep us posted on progress


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## SomethingGourami (Dec 28, 2012)

I posted this forum about a week after the infection. All I have done is keeping my light of and the fish seem to have grown immune to it. Is it safe to add all my decor back to the tank. (took out all decor to make it easy to observe my fish). 

My 4 lamp eye, 2 buenos aires, and 1 gold gourami are still alive.


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## ionix (Oct 11, 2012)

SomethingGourami said:


> I posted this forum about a week after the infection. All I have done is keeping my light of and the fish seem to have grown immune to it. Is it safe to add all my decor back to the tank. (took out all decor to make it easy to observe my fish).
> 
> My 4 lamp eye, 2 buenos aires, and 1 gold gourami are still alive.


Light has been used only in the form of UV sterilization, a lack of light seems a bit impossible. "Correlation does not imply causation", like this statement: "As ice cream sales increase, so do shark attacks on humans." It wasn't that people were buying ice cream that caused the sharks to come in-land. 

In the same way, perhaps your water conditions improved over that time (light is detrimental to the converting bacteria).

You could check each species of fish you have and perform a heat treatment of the parasite. If each species of fish can handle it, increase the temperature to 86F and that will cause problems for ich reproduction, leading to making spawning impossible for the parasite. You could also do a salinity treatment as well, it is no where near brackish or saltwater conditions. 



> In a non-planted aquarium with tolerant fish, the addition of Aquarium salt at the rate of 1 teaspoon per 4 liters/1 gallon of water disrupts the fluid regulation of Ich. Do not add salt crystals directly to tank. Always dissolve salt in a small amount of tank water before adding to tank. This dosage may be repeated every 12 hours for a total of three treatments. When Ich is gone, salt is removed with daily 25% water changes. [2]


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## tbub1221 (Nov 1, 2012)

heat and salt , IMO keeping the light off will not impact in a positive way , i could be wrong , just look all the fish over well . At temps over 86F its harder for oxygen to bond to water molecules thus making breathing more difficult for the fish. check first to see that they can all handle warmer temps but id say yes , this really will be the key along with aquarium salt bump.
YOU SHOULD REALLY LISTEN TO ALL IONIX IS SAYING , THIS IS SAFE SOUND ADVISE . 
God Luck My Friend..


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## SomethingGourami (Dec 28, 2012)

I heard that darkness reduces stress. Maybe this helped with my fish. Fish look normal now.

Ionix, maybe sharks like the taste of ice cream filled people.


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## ionix (Oct 11, 2012)

SomethingGourami said:


> I heard that darkness reduces stress. Maybe this helped with my fish. Fish look normal now.
> 
> Ionix, maybe sharks like the taste of ice cream filled people.


Hahah. Maybe. Who says sharks don't like ice cream. *r2


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