Help, my fish has yellow spots... It's so small, but it's a disease, the fish name is Red Oranda, tell me how to cure him without packaged medicines, I heard about salt, but do i add it while he's in the 10 gallon tank? Do I heat it? How do I heat it I don't have a heater help!!?!?!!!!

Fdragonboss, this needs to be posted in the Disease Section.....one of the Mods will move it for you soon.

Hi F - when you say yellow spots, how big are they?

Ich usually shows up as white spots but if your fish is orange, they may look yellowy in appearance.

Firstly, are you able to answer as many of the questions in the red box as possible?

Also a good cure for ich is salting to 0.3% and the way to do this is start off with 1 teaspoon of sea, rock or aquarium salt per gallon (predissolved) - this will take you to a level of 0.1%. After 12 hours, you need to raise it another 0.1% (taking you to 0.2%) so repeat the 10 teaspoons (for a 10 gallon tank) of salt. Then 12 hours after that, you need to raise the salt to 0.3% so again, repeat this step.

Then, once you have the level of 0.3% - it helps to raise the temp to around 80 degrees - it speeds up the cycle of ich (what is your current temp?)

Anyhow, if you can post back more information this will help rule out whether or not it may be something else

uhh I don't currently have a test kit, or anything, and the fish its like white on it's body, there are spots on his fins what do I do!!!! Could I use regular table salt?
Do I apply after I move the fisH??

help help help, I did a water change on sunday, 4 days ago, and my red capped oranda has ich!!! Help, I do not have a test kit, but I know that my 10 gallon tank with 4 goldfish, 2 plecos, and 2 african dwarf frogs is way too dirty, but I just did a water change, what do i do how do I cure with salt and heat if I don't have heat? I'm a newbie please explain very very thoroughly thanks!!!

You're way over stocked. Your going to continue having troubles like this unless you get a bigger tank...that said....

How warm is your tank on a day to day basis? If its not cold on its own then I think you could get by without the heat, but if it is I'm not sure what you should do other than buy a small heater. If you are going to add salt you will need to take your plecos and frogs out, the salt will kill them.

With salt your best bet is to add 1 tablespoon of salt per five gallons. In your case you would use 2 tablespoons of salt. Take about a gallon of water out of your tank to add the salt to so it can dissolve,and then slowly add that water back to your tank. Don't add the salt directly to your tank. Doing this will get you to .1% For the treatment you want to get to .3%.

To get to .3% you will need to add the salt three times, 12 hours apart.

If you do a water change (and you should) make sure you compensate for the amount of salt you take out with the water. To do this add a teaspoon of salt for every gallon of water you take out. Salt can only be removed from your tank with water changes, it will not evaporate.

You need to use pure salt, with no additives. You can pay a pretty penny for aquarium salt or buy pretty much the same thing for a lot less. Instead of aquarium salt you can use pickling salt which you can buy in the same part of the grocery store as regular salt, I got 5 pounds of it for $1.50. Just look at the ingredients list to make sure the only ingredient is salt.

Once you see the last sign of ich dissapear you need to keep the salt level at .3% for at least 7 days to make sure all of it is killed.

Please guys, correct me if I'm wrong on anything

I've merged your other thread with this one and please, try to keep it all in one thread. I noticed you've started another in 911 so will have that deleted

Nichjake has given you good advice and the first step is doing several waterchanges because ich can present itself when immunity is low. With a tank that's extremely overstocked, it would be better for your fish if you do 40% waterchanges either twice or thrice weekly. Also I asked if you would try to answer as many of the questions in the red box as possible especially how often you do waterchanges, what kind of filtration you use, what water conditioner you use, any new fish added etc... This additional information helps paint a picture of what's happening in your tank although I think your stock levels may be part of the culprit.

Another thing you can do is take a sample of your tank water to your local fish shop and ask if they could test and write down the results - then you can post them back here.

Before you add the salt, perhaps it would be better for your fish if you do a big waterchange - say 60% because ich does open the skin up leaving your fish susceptible to secondary infection. So whenever ich is present, the water needs to be beyond perfect so they have a good chance to fight off illness

So please post back with as much info as possible

I feed my fish flake food, my ill fish is very active, I use a whisper filter, 10 gallons, I don't know the ammonia nitrate ph lvls because I haven't visited pet store yet, I do water changes once every week, 50 percent, the size of my filter is 5 inches, tank smells bad, grains of salt on fish, no new fish, tetra aqua safe for goldfish conditioner.

also could I do water change with my fish inside of the tank? if so how would they live in 60% of the water gone???

I also feed them algae waffers...

also the water is very dirty but I recently did a water change 4 days ago. 50%

Tank has been running about 1-2 weeks, brand new.

Unfortuantely, your tank won't have cycled yet so the ammonia levels with that many fish will be very toxic - I'm guessing almost deadly levels. Cycling a tank can take anywhere up to 8 weeks as it will go through the nitrogen cycle.

First stage is ammonia and this is why test kits are so important. You would need to test your water daily until your tank is fully cycled. The reason is so that you can monitor how high these levels get and do massive water changes to bring the levels down.

Second stage is nitrites - almost as deadly as ammonia and also need to be monitored daily.

Final stage is nitrates which is the total conversion of ammonia and nitrites.

When you ask how will they live with 60% of the water gone, you will be replacing it with fresh, dechlorinated water so they don't have to be in 40% for long.

You're in a tough situation because of 4 main reasons:

1) you have way too many fish in a 10 gallon - which will make your water very toxic quickly
2) your tank hasn't cycled yet so it's important to do daily waterchanges - sometimes twice a day
3) you unfortunately don't have test kits which will indicate to you how often and how much water needs to be changed - keeping their environment as healthy as possible
4) they have ich which if it's to be successfully treated, must be done so in perfect water

So all in all, i can only suggest (if you are unable to buy test kits) large daily waterchanges that will need to be measured to replace the correct amount of salt.

It may be a good idea to write down your salt levels ie. 0.1%, 0.2% or 0.3% which equates to 1, 2 or 3 teaspoons of salt per gallon and make sure that whenever you are in salting your tank, you replace the correct amount based on the amount of gallons you change.

I hope this all makes sense and I wish it could be simpler but hopefully with some diligence in waterchanges and salting - they should do ok for now

What type of Pleco's do you have? Also,ADF's don't do well with salt treatments,so you'll have to take them out.

so everyday I do 60% water change leaving the fish in 40% of the water, while I'm taking out all the ornaments and cleaning gravel won't it disturb them, thanks. reply soon so I can do water change.

You shouldn't need to take the oraments or mess with the gravel if you use a syphon to takethe water out. You can vacuum your gravel with that, no need to move things around.