Arow with ich!

[jeffery517]

I have 3 irredesent sharks with my new 8in arowana. It appears as though the sharks had ich (which I didn't see at first) and now my new arow has it. I have spiked the temp to 84,added salt and ich medicine, and I am now doing a 50% water change every other day. It has been almost a week and the ich is still not gone! The arow looks kinda pale, and I noticed that all of her back fins are falling off. SOMEONE HELP PLEASE!!! The white spots are everywhere and I don't want her to die. Any advise?

 

[TwistedPenguin]

Do NOT add ich meds plus salt. Do another water change to dilute it out of there and use just the salt and higher temps to treat the ich. What I do is raise the temp to 86-87 degrees and add 2 TBS/5 gal salt (plain pickling salt, no caking agents). Unless your nitrates are getting above 20 ppm there's no reason to do the 50% water changes every 2 days. Although it certainly won't hurt if you're re-dosing the make up water with salt also.
I've treated ich this way time and again. It takes 5-7 days of being in salt before you don't see the spots anymore. Then continue for another 3-4 days with salt.

 

[Eleven Bravo]

it's not going to heal right away, everything u've done is good so far. if u have a extra tank... like a ten gallon, make it a sick tank.

 

[Morledzep]

K is right.. leave the ich meds on the shelf, they cause nothing but trouble. High temps.. 86+ if you go over 88 you should add and air stone to the tank. or some kind of bubbles.. and SALT.. i have mortons rock salt and i have regular aquarium salt, they seem to work equally well for the time you're going to be using it.

keep the temp steady at or above 86 degrees for 7 - 10 days and then gradually bring the temp down and reduce the salt by half by doing 25% water changes every 4 - 5 days.

that being said.. i've had fish in my tank with my arowana get ich, but my arowana has NEVER had ich. same with the damned oscars.. doesn't matter who gets sick around them, they never seem to be affected.

 

[bluehairman]

if you dont have time you can use regular table salt... iodized or not. i've never actually used table salt, but people i've seen people do it.

 

[jeffery517]

No I do have the aquarium salt and I also have bubbles in the tank. At first it didn't look like she had ich, but when the light was shining on her, you could see spots everywhere! It's really sad!

 

[jeffery517]

just wanted to give you guys a quick update. I went home last night and my iredecent sharks were practically floating and the arowana looked like it was resting in the floor of the tank. Obviously they weren't doing well. I immediately set up a "hosiptal" tank but the minute I tried to pick up the fish, they all died. All 3! Practically at the same time. The sharks looked really bad. When I left for work in the morning they didn't look like they were getting worse but when I got home last night their eyes were white and it looked they had strep throat all over their bodies. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen! I guess ich got the best of them. Now I am wondering if they had something else and I was treating them incorrectly. I saw the white spots all over though so I thought for sure it was ich. Is there any similar disease? Its weird cause I put goldfish in the tank for the arawana to eat a week ago and they are still swimming fine with no spots whats so ever! And my snails are fine too! Whats going on here?

 

[RogierT]

There are some basic rules:

Add salt or try a salt bath. The salt cannot contain jodium.
Make the temp go higher, around 30 celsius if your fish can handle that.
Change water alot, use aged water.
Keep daytime to minimum, some parasites use lights to their benefit.
Medication doesnt always work, when you do use it. Make 100% sure what the disease is. Alot fish breeders have been using antibiotics way too many, creating resistant strings of virus and parasites.

 

[jeffery517]

I did put aquarium salt in every time I did a water change. We were doing a 50% water change every 48 hours and putting the medicine in too. We raised the temp to at least 82. I swear we did everything we should have! It doesnt make sence! This is my 2nd arowana! The first one got eaten by my 15in royal knife and now this one got eaten by ich!