I have a 55 gallon tank that had 5 goldfish in them that recently died of ick due to buying a fish at nnnnnn. The fish died and infected all my fish, and they all died, too. I was treating the tank with the blue stuff, took out the carbon, and raised the temp of the water. Anyways, I also have a 10 gallon tank that has guppies in it, a whole lot of little ones cuz my guppy had lots of babies. After cleaning out the big tank, I put some of the guppies in there to see if the water was ok. They all died within a few days, with no symptoms of ick. So, we drained the entire tank, and then added more guppies to see if the tank was ok. They lived and are still alive.

Um, then the 10 gallon tank got ick, without adding new fish, and they all died. I think I cross contaminated the tanks by dipping a net in and out of the two tanks? I changed to a new medicine: Victoria Green Acriflavine. Claims only one dose is needed. I noticed in the 55 gallon tank that some of the fish had white spots on their tails, and I decided to treat that tank as well. Ok, so all the new gold fish I put in the 55 gallon tank died after I used the medicene. I had two red comets and two shabukins. The guppies in the 55 gallon tank are fine. The medicine killed my comets, cuz they were not sick! I put only 5 tablets in the tank, took out the carbon, and changed the water before I put another dose in. What did I do wrong? the ammonia and Nitrates are fine. there are not too many fish in the tank. did this medicine kill my fish? Please help! What is the best way to insure all my fish don't die again!

thanks.

Ok, I'm guessing noone can help me cuz I haven't gotten any replys. How about this: I read that Ick is caused by stress. If that is true, how did my 10 gallon tank get ick if there was not change in their tank besides me taking some of the fish out? I think the presence of ick is all it takes for the fish to get sick, at least in my case. Any advice? For my empty tank (10 gallon), do I need to keep medicating the tank? Or will the parasites die within an amount of time? Should I empty the entire tank? ( I plan on doing that) Please Help!

Ok first of all are you tanks cycled? Can you tell us an accurate ammonia and nitrite level?

If not, get your water to the pet shop and if you can't buy the tests, have them test if for you, make sure you WRITE down the numbers, and bring them back to us. Don't take their word for it that your water is fine, because half the time the pet store doesn't know what they are talking about.

Secondly, what is your pH out of your tap, and the pH in your tank right now?

Ich is always present in the water, but only shows up when the fish is stressed. Overcrowding, spawning, and Poor water quality are major stressers imo. Spawning less so, but it is stressful on the fish imo.

I've had ich on a fish I brought in as a rescue. It's always GOOD to quarantine new fish, but in this case I did not. My q/t tank was out of commision because of a leak, so I put the rescue in my main tank. NOT one of my fish caught ich. And this fish had it pretty bad. I used salt in the water and that took care of it.

The fact that the ich cross contaminated tanks, and killed a bunch of fish suggests to me, that there is something else very serious going on. You have to ask yourself why the fish developed ich, if they were unstressed and healthy.

The fact that you had several deaths suggests that something in the tank is out of whack. It could be ammonia, nitrite, high nitrates or a pH raise or drop. It could probably be a few other things too.

Hopefully someone else that knows more will reply to this soon.

Good luck


Jessica

PS the fact that they died after you used the medicine suggests that the water is in fact off. Because poor water quality hurts their gills, and adding a harsh med (like many ich meds) will often times kill the fish because their damaged gills just cannot handle it.

If the ich is not completely out of control and covering the entire fish, I vote to use salt from now on. If you ever need to know how to use salt, people here can tell you, or there are several threads on the correct way to add it, and which salts to use.

I am so sorry for your losses.

((((Hugs))))))

Jessica

thank you for your help. I will check the quality of the water and see what is up. thanks again.

Ok, I checked the levels of my 55 gallon tank, and this is what I got:
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrate: 40ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Hardness: 300ppm
Alkalinity: ~200ppm
pH: 8.4!!!!

Ok, I know I can buy stuff to lower the pH of the water, so did that play a role in killing my fish? I noticed that one of my guppies are kind of straying from the rest...so the condition of the water is probably the reason.

I feel like there is still reason to be worried about ick, so I bought the salts and researched how to use them.

Also, my 10 gallon tanks, which is barren now, I didn't even bother testing. I changed most of the water, and I will let the filter run, and should I add salt to the tank to kill the ick as well?

I am in the process of changing a bunch of the water of the 55 gallon tank.

What does the hardness do? The altalinity? It says on the test kit buffering capacity, that sounds familiar, and I could take an educated guess, but I don't know the exact meaning.

Let me know if you can answer my questions. Thanks much.

Ariel