# Ich and Quarantine



## CmdrSlack (Oct 12, 2010)

So, one of my mollies has developed what appears to be Ich. 

I read up on the parasite, and I'm wondering if moving her to another tank would prevent the parasite from spreading to my other fish. 

Obviously, the move might cause her more stress, which would be bad. 

I'm wondering if we're at the point where the parasite has gone to ground and reproduced. If I could move her to my 10 gal and not have to treat the bigger 30 gal tank, that would be better overall. 

Any advice?


----------



## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Better to treat the whole tank for ich. I'd recommend increasing your temp to 89 degrees slowly over the next day or so.


----------



## peteyboyny (Oct 18, 2010)

I agree. I'm just gatting my tank over a case of ich. And that's what I did. Slowly raised the temp in the tank to 86F for 3 days. My understanding is that Ich is always present. It will only affect fish who's imune systems are compromised, usually from stress of some sort or some pre-existing condition. Is there anything that may be stressing the fish out? I could'nt use any meds in my tank...didn't want to take a chance with my inverts and live plants. 3 days at that temp and my fish look great again. Hope it works out. Good luck.


----------



## CmdrSlack (Oct 12, 2010)

Well, the stressor was probably adding seven zebra danio from my 10 gal to the 30 gal. 

Short version of the story is that we started a 10 gal, got bit by the "must have a bigger tank" and the "bealsbob builds sound cool" bugs, bought, planted and cycled the 30 gal. The currently sick molly is part of the original set of mollies I used to cycle the 30 gal. 

I was hesitant to add all seven of my danio at once, but they school regularly and I didn't want to upset the balance/stress them by separating the school.


----------



## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

You need to keep the temp that high at least 3 days *beyond* the last sign. So that means you need to be looking at your fish everyday. Could be 10 days, could be 3 weeks. Temp must be 89.


----------



## snail (Aug 6, 2010)

Salt is good too but not so good for plants.


----------



## CmdrSlack (Oct 12, 2010)

Arg. Now I'm not 100% sure this fish has Ich or something else. 

General symptoms: tail fin has some white spots. Hard to tell on the body (this is a silver lyretail molly), but I thought I saw white spots yesterday. Generally rests on the bottom of the tank, moves here and there when bothered by another fish. Today, it was swimming to the top of the tank, but I noticed that the dorsal fin was either flattened down or largely missing. Seems listless...at one point got its head stuck between the heater and the tank wall, had to give 'er a nudge with the net. 

None of the other fish seem to be acting strangely, so I have no idea what's going on. 

Kind of sucks because this was the weekend when I was going to move the red tailed shark (and her cave fixture) to the bigger tank. Now I'm afraid to add her in and have her get sick.


----------

