# ammonia + ich probelm :(



## CrispedPenny (Jan 3, 2011)

I noticed my clown loach had white spots all over him, also my angel fish were looking grim, they hang out at the top of my tank and dont swim very much... I decided to check my ammonia, and it was high! ~2.0 
i have had my tank running for about two months...
i just did about a 50% water change and added some prime to my tank before i added my new water, i also cranked the heat up. my heater is reading about 86 and the thermometer is on the opposite side of the tank reading about 77 degrees.

Should i continue to do daily water changes adding prime each time?

i have a 55 gal tank. any help?


----------



## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

My personal opinion is as follows, and is based solely on speculation so if you can, wait for more experienced opinions:

Buy some Tetra SafeStart and empty into your tank. This will hopefully quell the ammonia, and will allow you to dose ich meds. Pull your filter carbon.

Or...

You could set up an emergency quarantine tank. Use a big clean bucket or tub (the bigger the better), heater from your tank, filter from your tank, and light. Pull your filter carbon pouch and leave in the main tank. The ammonia concentrations will be zero and will take some time to build in the QT tank, while you can dose meds in the QT tank.

Good luck!


----------



## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

You shouldn't quarantine for treatment of Ich....better to treat the whole tank.

You have two choices for treating the ich and the ammonia reading will just exascerbate the problem. Your choices are meds or temp/salt. One is high temp and it looks like you'll have to go by what your thermometer says over what your heater is set at. Heater settings never seem to be accurate anyway. You'd need temps in the 89-90 range sustained at least 3 days beyond the last visible sign of the ich (usually around 10 days). The problem here is the ammonia. Doing water changes in the middle of maintaining a high temp isn't going to work too well and water changes are the only way you are going to get it under control.

Your best bet may be meds. At least with needing to do water changes you can dose with meds immediately after and get the medication back up to where it needs to be. Since Clown Loaches are scaless....you need to do 1/2 doses for twice the recommended period. So if it says 1 tsp for 5 days, you would do 1/2 tsp for 10 days. Quick Cure works great for ich and would be what I recommend, but any will work.


----------



## sivakv (Aug 6, 2010)

MY suggestion is to reduce ammonia levels. from my personal experience, fishes get rashes/ich like behaviour if ammonia hits the roof. Once i ended up even changing 50% water 3 times a day, to get it under control, well after a week or so. Surprisingly the ich syptoms went off, apparently ammonia levels create those scars. I have heard my LFS guy tell that with temprature, ammonia gets more deadly. Add some rocksalt, let temp be lower and then work on water changes. 

This is from my personal experience. Except 2 managed to save the rest.


----------



## NeonShark666 (Dec 13, 2010)

You need to find out why your ammonia is so high. If your tank is fully cycled there are only two reasons: decaying food or dead fish. Making a water change does nothing to remove the source of the ammonia. I would start or increase your aeriation and change your carbon filter pads frequently to extract the ammonia out of your tank. Also, don't feed your fish until the ammonia has dropped.


----------



## CrispedPenny (Jan 3, 2011)

i think my tank was cycled. i wasnt 100% sure i took a sample of water to my lfs and they said it was g2g.
i have a large bubble wand in there i thnk its the 24 inch one,

starting to get a little panicked
4/9 neon tetras died
clown loach died
2 platties died
1/3 angel fish has a considerable amount of fin rot. his tail fin looks like a leaf after you picked all the green parts off..

What should i do?!?!
my ammonia is down ALOT
from around 2-3 to about .5-1 ish
ive done a water change every day for the past 3 days, turned up the heat as high as my heater will go and the tank is about 78-80 and ive added salt..

h-e-l-p.

During water changes I have been using the prime water conditioner


----------



## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

I gave what I thought was the best recommendation. I don't believe your tank is cycled. Personally, I think you need to get your own test kit and test for nitrites. Did you buy any ich meds?


----------



## CrispedPenny (Jan 3, 2011)

i bought some ich gaurd II beacuse i noticed my clown loach was the only one with ich - now it seems to be almost all my fish have ich now

nitrate 0
nitirite 0
hardness 75
alkalinity 0-20
ph 7.0
ammonia 0-.25
fish arent looking good


----------



## CrispedPenny (Jan 3, 2011)




----------



## CrispedPenny (Jan 3, 2011)

Should i continue doing water changes?

ive been doing 30-50% daily


----------



## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Have you tested for nitrites?


----------



## CrispedPenny (Jan 3, 2011)

nitrites sitting at 0


----------



## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

Continue doing PWC's but scale back your percentage to 10%-20%. Your ammonia is low enough now your fish aren't in grave danger of ammonia death. I would focus more now on taking care of the ich.


----------



## CrispedPenny (Jan 3, 2011)

I just adminsterd some "quickcure" the LFS sold me. hopefully that will help, ill let that run for a few days then do some water changes. my fish look a little more happy now vice hanging out at the top of the tank gasping for air


----------

