First off, I want to say I LOVE this board, although I just registered recently this board has been a wonderful resource in the past. It got me through tail and fin rot, ick, and septiciemia from having an uncycled tank. Needless to say, I have two established tanks, properly cycled, mostly due to the advice I have found here.

My current problem is this.... I brought home a chocolate oranda from my LFS and put her in an uncycled quarantine tank. She was doing great (or so I thought) for the past several days (with two water changes) so I placed her in one of my main tanks. Immediately, with the new lighting (her QT tank has no light) I saw she had a minor case of ick, like 6-8 flecks over her body. I immediately scooped her back out and put her back in QT.

So my questions are:
1) Is there a possibility that my established fish may get ick? In other words how contagious is it? She only spent a short time in the main tank... but I am worried since ick is a parasite.
2) I added Maracide (leftover from previous problems) and salt to the QT tank. How long does ick usually last? As I said my QT tank was uncycled, although I filled it halfway with water from my established tanks. I know I should keep an eye on ammonia buildup (I do have testing kits) Should I do a daily water change? I am afraid it will stress her further, plus remove medications from the water. Any advice? I know if the ammonia gets out of control she will be in for even more trouble. My previous case of ick came with a whole bunch of other problems, so it all got treated at once for several weeks. Also its a pain because the only way I can see the ick on her is by shining a flashlight on her (she is in a dimly lit area) and the bright light stresses her out.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks a lot for all of your (past and future) help
Obsidian

Welcome to Koko's


Ick is always in the tank, It attacks fish when they are stressed out or weak. Its a very easy thing to kill but there are some things to remember when your dealing with it.

1. yes it can be contagious if the other fish are stressed out or week.
2. Make sure the lights are off when treating the tank. Ick needs light to reproduce.
3. Salt helps out will the kill. one tablespoon per 10 gals of water once will help.
4. Use a med that has Methane Blue in it this will kill them fast.
5. Make sure you use the Ick med three days past the time the bottle says cause even after you kill them off the body the eggs are going to hatch from the gravel with in two to three days.
6. Right before the three days after the bottle or box tells you to stop do a 40% gravel syphon this will help you get out most of the eggs then use the med again for three days.

Then after all the treatment do a 40% water change

remember to throw away the filter for your tank after treating or else it will keep on reproducing and causing more havic on your fish. i found out the hard way...