h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Now Whitespot sounds exactly like what it was... huge white thingie where his dorsal should have been... and his whiskers got all red colored (he was a Dojo-- whiskers are normal). Hm... that means it doesn't bode well for the other fish in the tank.

Tom: still haven't gotten the postcard yet... though I haven't been to the post office yet today. Maybe it'll be there today?

Uh oh ... sounds like ich. Get some medicine in that tank, pronto!

Yeah, that's what my mom said when I talked to her about it last night. That or flukes. But the fish died before we could do anything. As for the other one... he shows no signs of anything yet...

Trust me ... put some medicine in the tank, and change some of the water. I used to keep fish, and it's very difficult to get rid of ich.

What do you recommend for ich?

It's been awhile, and I'm so bad at names ... but it's something that begins with an "M ... blue" ... sorry I can't help you more. I know most pet stores have all sorts of stuff.

Methlyene Blue, perhaps? Might be able to "permenantly borrow" some from the science building...

depends how many fish you want to loose, I could be wrong but I think that could be toxic to them, what type of fish are they any way?
tropical?

Don't want to lose *any*

They're tropical... freshwater. At least, that's what the guy at the store told my roomie.

card?

Everything you never wanted to know about ich from a bunch of websites: (BTW, it was M-something green, not blue ... I told you I was bad at names! )

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"Ich", or "White spot disease", is a primarily coetaneous infection of freshwater fish caused by the protozoa parasite Ichthyophthirius multifilis.

Ich most often causes the appearance of small white spots over the body and fins of fish. However, it is important to note that Ich can present with many different appearances, and that other things besides Ich can cause small white spots on the body.

The adult stage lives on the skin and body of the fish. It will burrow under the epidermis, causing skin damage. Disruption of the skin leads to osmoregulatory disturbances, osmotic stress, and allows for the easy entrance of secondary invaders like bacteria.

The cyst stage lives on the bottom of the aquarium, and gives rise to about 300 tomites per cyst.

The tomite stage is the only stage which is sensitive to medication!

The life cycle takes 12-16 days to complete, depending on the temperature, and the tomite stage lasts for only three days.

All of these facts may seem trivial, but they are important because they dictate what treatments will be effective.

How To Treat Ich

1. Check your water quality!!!!!! 9 times out of 10, the fish can do fine with a few Ichthyophthirius in the water, but when they are stressed by anything, like questionable water quality, it makes it much easier for the little buggers to set up shop in your fish's skin.
2. Do a 50% water change, just to be safe.
3. Add 3 tsp. of aquarium salt per gallon to your tank. This reduces the osmotic stress on the fish caused by the invading organisms, and may adversely affect the organism as well.
4. Pick up an Ich medication of your choice at the local fish mart. Most of the ones that are sold are more or less effective. My personal favorite is a malachite green/formaldehyde combination sold under the brand name "Quick Cure". ("RidIch" has the same ingredients.) Note: Most people recommend halving the dose of Malachite-containing medications if you are treating small catfish, any scaleless catfish, or tetras.
5. Disregard The Instructions On The Bottle!!!!! Use the dose written on the bottle, but treat like this: Treat every 3 to 4 days for 4 treatments, changing 50% of the water before every treatment. Do not treat once or twice, like the directions will tell you! You need to treat over 12 to 16 days in order to get all the little guys when they are vulnerable. (See life cycle diagram for explanation)

(Excuse the digression here, but this is my chance to vent my frustration at the aquarium trade -- I think they purposefully give poor medicating information so that the consumer will treat only partially, and knock down the parasite burden only enough to temporarily cure the fish! Because not all the organisms are dead, they will bounce back in a few weeks or months, and the poor consumer has to run out and buy more of the Ich medication! What a scam!!)

Other things which may help:

6. Raise the temperature in the tank above 85 degrees for 5-7 days. The tomites do very poorly at these temperatures, and it also speeds up the life cycle so more organisms are vulnerable to killing at any time.
7. You can use a diatomaceous earth filter to decrease the number of infective tomites.
8. Move fish to a clean tank after 7 days. This reduces reinfection by tomites left behind after the initial treatments.
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Ya learn something new every day!

Ah... I shall pass the info on...

Tom: ???

Wow Shea! You are just a font of info. A veritable cornucopia of fishy helpful hints.

Ummm, that didn't come out right.

Yeah...

have you got the post card?

have you got the post card?

Nope...and I just went down to the post office to check and see if they put something in my box late last night.

And they didn't.

Poor Amy

Thanks, TJ!

::still trying to decide what to put in a care package for Amy::

Amy, do you own a Truck?