Get Rid of Ick
It is my pleasure to introduce to you the newest member of our team and his first article for us entitled “How to get rid of ick (ich).” Eric is a biology graduate, has worked at pet stores, works in a wild bird store right now, and is a very funny person. He drew that fish. You have to have a sense of humor to let someone like me put your artists rendition of a fish on the intertron. We looked forever for a good picture of a surprised fish, but we couldn’t find anything. Anyway. Please stop by the Staff Contact/About page, and welcome Eric to the web. Eric will be working a lot with the new Pet Care section we have up. He’s hoping to have at least one new article every week, but don’t hold him to it. He’s a busy man with 2 cats, 10+ fish, and his wild birds.
June 15th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
question: How do I tell if my “white” fish have ick? You mention taking out the sick fish so I’m not medicating the non sick fish… but what will happen if I leave her in with the others? I have a black molly that has ick signs and our danio fish look and act healthy. I have had other mollys that had ick and put the medicine in numberous times. But if they never get it, I don’t want to do it too many times to the other fish. Thanks, Liz
June 18th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Liz,
Look at your white fish from all angles. The ich spots are generally raised above scale level. Looking at the fish from above or straight on will allow you to see the spots better. Also look for little red streaks, they will show up easily. The behavior of the fish can also give hints. If she is breathing rapidly she may have ich on her gills. Also watch to see weather or not she is rubbing her body against the gravel or other tank decor. Ich is itchy, so if she’s got it, she’ll be scratching.
If you leave your sick fish in with the others, there’s a pretty good chance that everything will be just fine. One of the main concerns is that you are adding a foreign substance into the environment. This can sometimes cause unneeded stress on the healthy fish. Another concern is that with some medications, different dosages are required for different species. The dosage for the medication Quick Cure, for example, is cut in half if you are using it on tetras. (If you have a molly, I’m guessing you have a community tank, which also makes me think you probably have some tetras.) It also has a tendancy to kill elephant noses.
Besides all that, some fish meds are expensive. It can be much cheaper to treat a 10gal hospital tank than a 55gal show tank.
If you plan to treat all of your fish together in one tank I would recommend first doing a 25% water change making sure to get as much crap out of the gravel as you can. Also keep an eye on your danios. They are sold as community fish and usually work well as such, but sometimes they can get nippy. If yours are nippy, it probably stressed out the molly and that’s why she got ich.
I apologize for the length of my response, but I wanted to try to cover everything. I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any more questions.
Eric