i moved cheeky in a 30 gallon tonight all by himself and i noticed he has ick on his body. i added meds and a heater. is it nessasary to add heat? will it hurt him? im useing malachite green. i used this on another fish a few months ago and it worked great should i leave the heater in or take it out? the ick is not that bad but as soon as i stuck him in the lighted tank i noticed it:(

i read on a website to keep off lights during the use of these meds so cheeky's going to be in the dark poor little guy, im just happy i took him out of that tub and put him into a lighted tank by himself. im going to be keeping him in the 30gallon. hes kinda on the aggresive side so hes not going in comunity tank will 30 gallons be ok for him? hes 5 inches now and ive seen some big orandas!

Sorry to hear that Cheeky has ick The 30G should be fine for him though, lucky guy!

im just glad i noticed it by taking him and puting him in the other QT tank. now hes all in the dark but swimming around acting normal and pushing the river rock around i think he may have had the ick but i also belive the ick came from some plants i bought from him so im not going to be buying plants for awhile and if i do their going in a QT bucket!

Here's a good treatment. The most important things are not quiting too soon & vacuuming alot.

Treatment: Salt (sodium chloride or NaCl) is a much gentler medication than Ich medications commonly sold in pet stores. Some commercial parasite medications can push a sick fish over the edge. Salt will not harm your filter bacteria, it’s cheap and will not harm humans coming into contact with it; however, not all fish tolerate salt. We recommend it only for cold water fish like Goldfish and Koi. Tropical fish are best treated with a malachite/formalin combination like Rid Ich or Quick Cure. Salt may also kill some plants, so you will need to remove any live plants into another container and disinfect them (Potassium Permanginate works well for disinfecting plants). The salt must be fully dissolved in tank water before adding it to the tank. Most any salt will work fine. Rock salt or pickling salt work great and are cheap. Avoid using salt that contains yellow prussiate of soda

It is very easy to treat Ich with salt. You’ll need a concentration of 0.3% salt (3 teaspoons per gallon) to eradicate the Ich. To reach 0.3% salt you would add 1 teaspoon of salt per gallon of water to your tank 3 times, each 12 hours apart. Predissolve the salt in tank water and then add slowly to a high water flow area.

It is important to keep track of the salt going into your tank because salt does not evaporate and is not removed with activated carbon. It is removed only with water changes. To keep the salt at the desired level, when you do a partial water change, you must salt the new water to the same concentration as the tank water. For example, if you remove 10 gallons of water you will need to add 30 teaspoons of salt to the change water to keep the tank at 0.3%.

While treating Ich, you will need to vacuum the entire bottom of the tank each day to remove any cysts that have fallen off. This will reduce the amount of tomites swimming in the tank and will help to clear the Ich faster. Heating the tank to 78-80*F will speed up the Ich life cycle and boost the fish’s immune system response. At that temperature Ich has a life cycle of 3-5 days. Typically, your fish will look like it is getting better then another wave of spots will appear. Each cycle is usually worse than the one before. But if you keep up the water changes and salt ich will clear within a week. Maintain salt at 0.3% for 7 days after the last cyst drops off the fish. This will ensure that the Ich is indeed gone. If your tank temperature is lower, the life cycle can extend into weeks so you will need to adjust your temperature or your treatment regime accordingly.

Be sure to keep your water quality excellent during this time. Ich will stress your fish so you need to ensure optimum water quality. As trophonts leave the host, they leave behind small exit wounds. That coupled with the stress suffered by the fish can give bacteria and fungi an unfair advantage, so it is important to watch out for any signs of secondary infection shortly after a bad case of ich. Here are some links that may help:

I used heat and salt to treat ich in my then tropical tank last year. It worked perfectly and I only lost two clown loaches, which are very intolerant of ich.

I'm now following the suggestion at the Goldfish Connection recommending a salt solution for the incoming quarantining of fish. It makes sense to nip anything in the bud before it has a chance to take hold. Since I'm quarantining anyway, it's not much of a problem to add the salt.

The same thing happened to me when I moved my new pearlscale into the main tank a few days ago. I had him in QT for a while, so I thought he was ready to join the others. After I putted him into the main tank, I just noticed he had whitespots on his body. Then I took him out IMMEDIATELY! I'm glad that I did that or the whole tank would have gotten ick. The bad thing is he still got the ick.

EDIT: I'm using Quick Cure and today is the second day, the ick seem to have gotten better but still there. Tried salt but didn't work. I used Super Ick Cure by API a while ago when my whole tank had ich and it worked great, got rid of the ich in 2 days.

I understand that initial quarantine should last a minimum of 2 weeks, preferably more. Perhaps someone with more experience can enlighten us more.

It is recommended by the experts to isolate a new fish for 30 days at least, treating for parasites and watching for any bacterial infections to pop up.

I am wondering about moving him though, since he was in the tank with the others they have been exposed and should be treated as well to keep from another outbreak to happen.

With whatever treatment you choose you need to do big, DAILY water changes & aggressive gravel cleaning! Getting rid if Ich takes hard work & vigilance! The treatment may knock some off of the fish but they can harbor in the tank. Not seeing the white thingees does not mean you are finished!