Help! My Clown Loaches have ICH!

[beckyrwh]

I am a new fish owner and could use some advice. I've been doing lots of research, but so much of what I read is contradictory. Here's the background:

I have a new 55 gallon tank with plastic plants and a HOB Emperor Bio-Wheel filter. One month ago we put in 5 Harlequin Rasboras. We checked the water quality frequently and never had any readings other than completely normal. We've done two 25% water changes with gravel vacuum in the past month. Two weeks ago we bought 3 clown loaches. Even though they have several hiding places they've been very skittish and we don't see them for days at a time.

Yesterday we noticed that one of the clowns had ich. When we saw the other two we noticed they also were covered with the white spots. I did some quick research and bought some Maracide for the tank and administered the first dose (full strength). I have also increased the water temperature (it's currently at 83 and hopefully climbing -- heater is at max setting). I also took some water out of the tank to increase oxygen.

I have since done additional research and found conflicting advice saying :
Maracide is too hard on loaches, use at half strength.
Take the carbon out of the filter (package directions say this is unnecessary)
Add salt to the water, or some say this is too hard on loaches.
Don't add salt in addition to the medicine - others say this is okay.

I am so confused as to what to do next. Do I continue with the Maracide? Do I also add Maracyn or another anitibiotic? Do I add salt (special aquarium salt, or another kind)? Should I do a water change?

I don't know if I'm cut out for this. I was up half the night worrying about my loaches!

Here are my current readings: (my water is cloudy right now, perhaps I'm getting a bacteria bloom?). For the first time, they aren't quite normal.

Chlorine: 0
Nitrite: .5
Hardness: 250
pH: 8.0
Ammonia: 3.0+ (hard to tell exactly)

Any specific advice from an expert who's been through this would be appreciated!

[poeticpyro]

alright, i literally JUST beat ich. i used a salt bath treatment and it cleared it up in about 3 days. the carbon can be filtering out the active ingredient, no matter what it says on the package. change about 20% of the water and slowly add salt. eventually you want to get up to no more than 1 table spoon per gallon. raise the heat (i know you said it was the max, but if you get a new heater etc.) to 86. keep the lights in the tank OFF, it helps decrease stress and keep an eye on the little guys. i honestly had amazing luck with this and so have a lot of other people. i'll post another reply on here with the thread that i started about ich.

best of luck...

[poeticpyro]

http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php ... highlight=

make sure to increase the aeration as well!!! hope that helps.

[TammyLiz]

If your ammonia reading is 3 the most important thing for you to do right now is get that number down. The tank must not be cycled. Sometimes a month does not do it, especially if you don't seed the filter with some old filter media. I'm sorry to say that if you keep your loaches in the tank they very well may not survive the cycle. I would suggest you return them to the store. Ammonia and nitrite MUST both be 0.
If you do not take them back to the store this is what you need to do:
Immediately do a 50% water change.
Find some mature filter media, either from an established tank you have or from the pet store, keep it warm and wet and put it into your filter as quickly as possible.
Do another 50% water change tonight or in the morning
Continue with water changes of about 30% at least once a day.
Medicate for ich immediately following each water change (I suggest Malachite green with formalin, half dose. If you choose this, keep the lights off)
Keep it up for several weeks or until the ammonia and nitrate read 0.
Continue checking for ammonia and nitrate for a little while to ensure they do not spike back up again.

Loaches need mature tanks, and certainly don't do well in uncycled ones. Taking them and the Rasboras back to the store is probably the best option. It will save you a lot of work and may save the fishes lives. Then you can proceed with a fishless cycle.

[NancyD]

Hi beckyrwh, I'm sorry your fish are sick. You are in for a 2 week battle with many water changes. Maracide is fine, I think malachite green & formalin, same as many brands. Don't do more than 1 kind of med at a time, so skip the salt (or copper or anything else). Today do a 30%-50% water change, your ammonia & nitrite levels are hard on your fish. Leave the water level a few inches lower than the top so the splashing will help aerate the water. If the carbon in your filter is newer than 5 days take it out so it doesn't remove meds. Give a half dose of maracide. & leave the tank lights out it breaks down the malachite.(its a good idea to give most meds 1/2 morning & 1/2 night until you see how fish react). You can turn lights on briefly to check on them, it's not that fast. If the tank gets a lot of sunlight you may want to throw a dark blanket over it since you don't have live plants, fish won't mind.

Add second dose the next day, then 3rd day change 25-30% water. Dose again, half strenghth for the entire tank capacity, in your case based on 50 gal (gravel etc take up room & the malachite will break down). Continue doing this EVEN IF SPOTS ARE NO LONGER VISIBLE for 2 weeks. You probably came across the ick life cycle in your research basically 3 stages: on fish, in gravel & in the water to reinfect fish. You want to gravel wash to remove as much a you can & the meds will mess up the ammonia cycle as you've seen. After 2 FULL WEEKS cahnge 40-50% water & add carbon to remove residual meds. Then get in the habit of weekly water changes, loaches especially need good water quality. Get a small quarantine tank for new fish to reduce the likelyhood of future disease outbreaks.

Good luck & let us know how they do.
Nancy

[NancyD]

I see TammyLiz & I are on the same wavelenghth, you must type faster .
Nancy

[beckyrwh]

Thanks for your advice. I'll do a water change right now. I was hoping to wait as I thought it would deplete the Maracide, but I guess the Ammonia level is more important right now. The Maracide says to dose on days 1,3 & 5. Are you saying to do it more often than that? Also, what happens after day 5?

[NancyD]

My understanding is if you are doing half dose, the treatment should be twice as long. You'd probably be OK doing 10 days especially at an increased temp. to speed up the life cycle of the parasite. Many people have a recurrence & I think this can be due to not treating long enough the first time & switching to another medication. here's a site that may explain http://www.caloriesperhour.com/fish/notes_ich.html Sorry I don't know how to do links) Better to be safe & treat a few extra days than to have it come right back. I know it's frustrating, hang in there.
Nancy[/url]

[worton]

Hey,

i'm not sure about that since my fish got ich uhm so long ago I cannot remember :) however when I talk to a vet he said that some medicine won't work in warm water so there is no point in using medicine and warming water - however you got probably different meds than we here :).

Just raising temperature and doing bigger water changes always were enough for me.

Also cyclying tank during treatment is not very good idea and I guess that petshop won't take back sick fish :(.

Regards.

[beckyrwh]

Well, I did a big water change yesterday and added a half dose of medication. I also put a towel over the tank to make it dark. I tested the water today and the Ammonia is still high, so I think I'll do the same today. The temp. is up to 86, so that's good. I saw one Loach this morning and he looked about the same. Hang in there loachies!!

[poeticpyro]

you won't see much progress for a while. realize that you're going to need airstones etc, just to increase Oxygen... and the white spots on the loach will leave tiny craters, so make sure you have something like "stress coat" for after treatment to help rebuild the slime coating. it's pretty much aloe.

[beckyrwh]

My understanding was that I wouldn't need an airstone with my biowheel filter. I've lowered the water level so it's really waterfalling in and creating lots of bubbles. I've been adding StressZyme and a Tap Water conditioner after each water change (in addition to the Maracide). Will I still need the Sress Coat with these?

[poeticpyro]

ok, wasn't aware of the lower water level (i was skimming)... bio-wheel or not it's always good to have more and more aeration, but if the water level is lower, you should be ok. um... i don't think you need to use anything other than the stress-zyme, so that's good. they will have little craters in them, it's sad. mine have a couple left from the outbreak not too long ago. well... take care and good luck!

[beckyrwh]

Sadly, I lost my first loach last night. Actually, he could have been dead for awhile since I never see them anymore. I found him inside a cave. The others are still alive, but don't look good. They hide all the time and I don't think they're eating.

So far so good on the Rasboras but I think they're losing color. I could really use some advice on what to do about the ammonia. It seems like everything I do for the ICH are hurting the ammonia situation (assuming the tank is still cycling). The meds kill the good bacteria, the water changes and gravel vacuum remove the good bacteria, the high temperatures cause ammonia to increase.

Do I just keep on and hope everyone can hang on? How do I get out of this high ammonia cycle? BTW, I added Ammo-Lock yesterday, but it's not showing any effect yet. Any advice would be appreciated. What a mess!

[Gary Herring]

Do I just keep on and hope everyone can hang on? How do I get out of this high ammonia cycle? BTW, I added Ammo-Lock yesterday, but it's not showing any effect yet. Any advice would be appreciated. What a mess!

I hav'nt really followed the thread, but a couple of things to add:

Excersise caution when using ammo-lock. I have used it a number of times in the past and while it is seemingly effective at 'de-toxifing' ammonia, it makes testing for ammonia virtually impossible. I have found, as have many others, that it gives an artificially high ammonia level when the water is tested. I.E. it makes your ammonia level seem much worse than it actually is.

Get rid of the ammonia temperarily by using zeolite ('ammo-chips' etc.) in your filter. I know this would affect the meds, but IMHO you must tackle these problems one at a time - and your priority without question should be the ammonia and nitrIte, and getting the tank cycled. You will not beat the ich untill you have the water right so untill then, don't even try: you will just end up prolonging the whole process.

Last but not least, and I know this is'nt helpful but its got to be said:

Don't stock your tank with fish, especially sensitive ones like loaches, untill your tank is fully mature!!!!

That, and that alone, is the only way to avoid a mess such as this.

Good luck!!