Hi. I have only been interested and building an aquarium for about 6 weeks. My setup consists of a 10 gallon tank, hood w/fluorescent lighting, three aquatic plants, gravel, three fathead minnows, a shubunkin goldfish and one fat fancy tailed goldfish about twice as big as the shubunkin.

Two days ago I noticed ICH on the shubunkin. The reason I noticed it was that I changed my lighting from incandescent to fluorescent. I immediately removed the fish and placed it in a separate 1/3 gallon bowl. The next day I read everything I could find on ICH and bought QuickCure a malachite green and formalin medicine, administering the dose to the main tank and the quarantine shubunkin. The only ICH I noticed in the main tank, was 2 spots of ICH on the big fancy tailed goldfish's tailfins. Which after one day is no longer noticeable on the fins.

I didn't know anything when I bought the fish. I got them at Wal-Mart. They have dead fish in every other tank. One of the plants in my tank was a free floating sprout. It will make anyone wince to hear this, but I picked out the sprig from a tank that had two dead fish attached to the sprig's side by water tension. From what I know now, that was asking for an infection. Plus I had another rosy red (a recessive gene variant of the fathead minnow) which was nipping the tails of my goldfish for at least a day, before I had to take it out. This, from what I have read, would have stressed my goldfish a little more, leaving it more likely to succumb to an infectious organism.

The QuickCure has stained the seems of my aquarium, which is really horrible to me. The shubunkin still has 20-30 white pustules after 2 days of treatment. I change the quarantined bowl's water everyday with the same temperature and medicinal mixture. I also added aquarium salt to the main tank. I have read that 1 tablespoon for 5 gallons is therapeutic for fish and stops the ICH in one of its stages. However I also read that freshwater cold fish are more susceptipal to salt and should only be used when they are sick. I used one Tablespoon for my 10 gallons, which probably only has 9 gallons in it.

My question is should I put my shubunkin quarantined goldfish back in the main tank? I think it would be less stressful for it if it was in the main tank. The reason I ask is that both tanks are being treated, but so far the quarantine fish is the only one with the  spots (20-30). Or should I keep doing what I am now, keeping the shubunkin separate, changing its water everyday and treating the main tank?  If I keep on with my current course, should I transfer the shubunkin back after its spots have disappeared? Sry. I know it is a $2 fish, but I really like its color and have gotten used to how it behaves. Hopefully that isn't to strange...

Thanks,

Turkeyrole

Hi Turkeyrole, welcome to TRAC. 

If you bought the minnows from the feeder tank, they were kept in even worse conditions than the regular fish at Wal-Mart.  They usually don't live long.

I'd advise against keeping minnows with goldfish.  Goldfish are usually best kept only with other goldfish.  I think it's also best to keep the fancy varieties seperate from the comet type fish like Sarasas and Shubunkins.  If you watch your fish at feeding time, the Shubunkin probably swims much faster than the fancy goldfish.  It will get more food.   I think most fancy goldfish are downright handicapped and swim very poorly.  You don't say which type you have, some are worse than others. 

Your tank has too many fish in it.  I've read that goldfish need 20 or 30 gallons per fish to thrive.   I have four big goldfish in a 65 gallon tank with a canister filter.  They are doing really well.  Mine are a common goldfish, a Sarasa, and two Shubunkins. 

The stains from the Quick Cure will fade with time.  I'm not  sure if it's better to put the Shubunkin back with the other fish.  They are all probably really stressed.  Lets see what other people say about that.

We all get attached to our fish.  It's why we keep them.  Good luck!

Hi and welcome to TRAC.  The first mistake was buying your fish at walmart instead of Trilby Tropicals.  I have never had much experiance with ich but if you are treating both tanks I would put the quarintined fish back in the main tank.  I agree totally with Susan on keeping the Goldfish and minnows seperate.  As for the aquarium salt, I have heard that if you take the fish out and rub him down with a saltwater rub that will kill off the ich as well but I'm not sure of the frequency or mix of the salt mixture.  Mabye someone else can comment on that.  Do you have a heater with that tank?  I would follow the manufacturerers directions for the ich and then continue with regular water changes and maint.

Jim

Jimbo said :

Hi and welcome to TRAC.  The first mistake was buying your fish at walmart instead of Trilby Tropicals.  I have never had much experiance with ich but if you are treating both tanks I would put the quarintined fish back in the main tank.  I agree totally with Susan on keeping the Goldfish and minnows seperate.  As for the aquarium salt, I have heard that if you take the fish out and rub him down with a saltwater rub that will kill off the ich as well but I'm not sure of the frequency or mix of the salt mixture.  Mabye someone else can comment on that.  Do you have a heater with that tank?  I would follow the manufacturerers directions for the ich and then continue with regular water changes and maint.

Jim

I agree with Jim, unless you live somewhere where Wal-Mart is your only source of fish, go to a locally owned store like Trilby's.  The livestock will be healthier, and they should be able to give you advice on care and compatibility.  You can't get that at Wal-Mart.  You aren't saving money if your fish die and/or you have to buy a bunch of medications to treat them.

I've never heard of the saltwater rub.  Do you know anyone that's tried it, Jim?  It sounds dangerous to me. 

Goldfish and minnows prefer cooler water, but if you have a heater, Vance's advice to raise the temperature a little is good.  Not too much, it would stress the fish even more, but 80 or 82 degrees would be good.

I used to keep my goldfish in water with 1 tablespoon salt per 5 gallons of water.  I did it for years with no ill effects.  I only stopped because I wanted to use their water to water plants.

schambers said :

 

I've never heard of the saltwate rub.  Do you know anyone that's tried it?  It sounds dangerous to me. 

I remember a friend of my dad's had a saltwater tank when I was young and he had ich on one of his fish.  He would give it a freshwater rub/bath I think a few times a day.  He said that saltwater ich could not live in freshwater and vice versa.  I remember reading something many years later that had mentioned saltwater bath for freshwater ich.  This was well before all the modern alka-seltzer type ich medications they have now a days.  Check this thread out on battling ich  http://www.fishforum.com/tropical-fish-diseases/information-about-ich-also-known-white-1255/

After researching a bit I may not be remembering well.  The article may have been to add salt to the water and not the "bath" I had remembered.  You know too many beers kill brain cells?  Just found out that too-lol

Jimbo said :

After researching a bit I may not be remembering well.  The article may have been to add salt to the water and not the "bath" I had remembered.  You know too many beers kill brain cells?  Just found out that too-lol

I've killed off more brain cells than I can really spare! 

Hey Turkey,(that makes me giggle, btw)

I don't have anything to add that the others haven't already posted, but wanted to say welcome to TRAC.

I too have bought fish at big box stores, including the fish I used to re-start-up my tank a year ago.  But way more often than I liked I found that those fish typically did not live as long as fish I got from a fish-only type place.   Yeah, there are always those that do make it(my $1 khulis, for example) but in my experience those are the rare exceptions.  If I ever do buy from a place like that again I'll for sure quarantine the fish before adding them to my main tanks.

I've come around to only buying from local aquarium-hobbiest stores.  Their prices are usually not more than a buck a fish higher than the boxes(sometimes they are even the same price for some of the more common fish) and the fish have usually been quarantined before being offered for sale, and are kept in individual tanks rather than one huge system that shares water and filtration and temperature with dozens of varieties of fishes that do not have the same water/temp requirements as each other.  That sort of setup is just asking for stressed out if not actively sick fish.

I only have freshwater tanks, and my fave place is Trilby.  Not only do they quarantine the fish, they know their stuff, and they get in a lot of variety of freshwater plants and fish that you usually don't see other places. (and no, they don't pay me to say this stuff!  I actually mean it!)

Hey thanks for all of the responses and the welcomes. I have put a heater in my main tank, but it is automatic and is only heating the tank up to around 74 degrees, which hopefully will speed up the ICH lifecycle a bit. I will eventually take the 3 minnows left in out, now they stay clear from the fancytail, but if they get bigger and start harrasing him, which I am sure they will, it being their instincs they'll have to go. As for the shubunkin being faster and getting more food, I find he gets less food, because he's smaller right now and less aggressive at feeding time. I know I need a bigger tank for my goldfish, but there really isn't a way for me to get one, space, money, time and maintenance issues.

For now I am going to keep the sick subunkin out of the main tank and keep dosing him till the ICH spots are gone. Then reintroduce him to the main tank a couple days after. I have added an air pump to the quartine bucket, so that it has good oxygen content. Yeah I am not going to buy any fish at Walmart from now on. Besides having sick fish, their employee in charge of them was not knowledgable or polite when I asked her about them. I'll have to check out the Trilby store you mentioned, it isn't too far away from where I live.

If anyone knows the duration for ICH spots, that piece of information has alluded, elluded? elluded me in internet searches. It's important for me to find out, so I can figure what exactly is going on.

Also this is offtopic here, but I want to get a 5 gallon tropical fish tank going. With coldwater fish I am limited in the assortment of fish and I want to place my betta and maybe a few neon tetras or glofish (zebra danios) in there with it. I am going with the 5 gallons, because of space and money issues.

Thanks,

Turkeyrole

As you probably know from your research, ich's life cycle is temperature dependant.  I Googled "ich temperature life cycle".  I didn't find a table, which would have been nice, but there are some articles that will give you an idea. 

The instructions for the medication should also have a water change schedule.  Make sure you follow that.  The meds can build up in the water and gradually poison the fish.  You do have to treat until two or three days after all the spots are gone.

The optimal temp for ICH that I found was 86 degrees. The duration for the lifecycle at optimal was 3 days at lower 50 degree temperatures up to 5 weeks. I stopped temperature adjustment in the main tank, there have not been signs of ICH for 4 days.

The quarantine tank, with my shubunkin in it, still is being used. The shubunkin has more spots now more then ever, however several spots seem to be fading. I think that the cysts had not developed to their full extent yet. I replace the water with medication and the container everyday. From what I can tell with the medicine in the water, formalin and malachite green, plus switching the container there is nowhere for the organism to live while it is in its swimming and attaching state. The fish is still hungry and eats at the surface often, however I am concerned that its foraging feeding is being deterred by the bubble stone I added for aeration combined with the smaller size of the container. I have considered antibacterial agents for healing the already damaged area of the fish caused by the pustules, but the stuff I saw was over 6 dollars, more then 3x the cost of the fish. The temperature in the quarantine tank is well below 80 degrees, somewhere in the low 60s. This will, according to the information I read, lengthen the lifecycle of ICH, but as stated before, once it reaches its reproductive swimming stage it will be killed. Therefore if and when the white spots finally disappear from Shu (fish's name from shubunkin) I think an interval of 3 days, until reintroduction into the main tank, would be satisfactory. At this time I am very skeptical of having Shu live through this disease. Even though I have been very careful with the treatment, I have little confidence in the constitution of fish. Goldfish appear stronger then most, my fancy tail seeming like a force of nature in its hunger and growth. I'll keep you guys updated and please relate any experience’s with ICH that you have had.

Thanks,

Turkeyrole

i agree with the temperature adjustments. higher temps will raise your fishes metabolism and help them shake the ich. just be careful with your goldfish as they are coldwater fishes.

I wouldn't worry about the antibacterial meds.  You can add salt to Shu's water.  That and regular water changes will control most infections.  Check your ich medicine, it may have salt in it.  Too many medications will stress the fish.  That's counterproductive. 

I don't think I'd want to raise the temperature to 86 degrees for a goldfish.  That would add stress on top of stress.  80 would be good, but you work with what you have.

Shu might make it, goldfish are tough.  The parasite load should be gradually decreasing.  If he makes it through the next couple of days, he'll likely be okay.

I hope shu makes it!

Hello again. Well here is what happened with the ICH problem. I kept Shu (the red goldfish) out for 10 days in a water treatment, changing water everyday and dosing it with the QuickCure formalin malachite green medicine. Treated the main tank for 3 days after breackout. I put Shu back in after his spots were healing, knowing the next stage couldn't have survived in his environ of 10 days. I then treated the tank for 2 days after he was put back in. No signs of ICH for 2 weeks.

I was really worried there for a bit. I did want to ask about rocks in an aquarium. I put some rocks I had in the backyard, into the tank. I scrubbed them good before hand. I read they can change the pH if they contain calcium carbonate.  The rocks can be tested with HCL to see if they fiz. I am not going to do this, seems a lot to do, because I don't have HCL handy. Anyway, I wanted to ask, with regular water changes can these rocks change the pH enough to harm my goldfish? They are supposed to be a hearty fish, compared to others. I have about 8 slightly larger then golfball size rocks in the 10 gallon tank currently. Could I just keep an eye on the pH to see how much it changes after a few weeks? What is a dangerous level for a goldfish? Here is a picture of the tank a week ago, before I added 7 more rocks...

Thanks for all the advice so far!

Keep an eye on your pH and see how it does.  It's more important that it stay consistant than to have it at a certain number.  pH swings kill fish.  I've read that optimum for goldfish is 7.2 to 7.6 or thereabouts.  I'd worry if it got below 6.5 or above 8.5 or if it changes quickly in either direction.  My goldfish tank is usually aroung 7.8.  They drive me crazy spawning sometimes, so I know they feel good.

As for your question concerning the 5g, you should be fine with that amount of fish. Just go slow when adding them so your filtration can catch up to the bioload. An Aquaclear 20 would be great for that size. You can always dial back the flow if there is too much.