Loosing Geo's to Ich, or is it something else?

[mtchillin]

I have now lost 4 of my 6 G. Topajos About 6-7 days ago they were all showing signs of Ich, along with my G.Altifrons. I began treating with higher temps (86 deg) and salt (1 tablespoon/gal) and performed 2-3 water changes per week. A few days ago the Ich appeared to be falling off, but not completely. Soon after I started loosing fish...one two days ago, 2 yesterday, and another this morning. The remaining infected fish appear stressed and are swimming frantically. My G. Altifrons will rest on the bottom and then swim up and down in the corner of the tank. Could this be something other than ich?

Also in the tank are 6 Congo Tetras, two Bolivian Rams and 1 pleco. These fish are all doing fine with no signs of Ich.

All of these fish are under 2" except the pleco who is 8".

The G.Topajos and the Rams were the last fish to be added to the tank 2 weeks ago (4/19 & 4/20)

The tank is 100 gallons
Last water test, 5/2/08 Amonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 20, PH 8.2 (higher than I'd like)...

I think I am going to lower my temps and start treating with Ich Attack for now. Any other Ideas?

 

[japes]

That's quite a high pH for SA Cichlids, I'd work on getting that down to around 7 after this bout is over.

Salt and Heat treatment is well documented on this website, but personally I've had success treating my Eartheaters and other SA Cichlids with Heat, Salt, and Medication. I'm in Australia so I'm going to give you metric measurements for my procedure, but I bumped up the temperature to 32 degrees celcius, added Aquarium salt at 1gram/Litre (the dosing that the product recommended, wasn't going to go higher), and dosed the appropriate course of a Protozin based treatment called Waterlife Protozin. Heat and medication are useable together as long as there is a lot of surface agitation (aeration) in your tank.

Stop doing your water changes, and after the last visible parasite has dropped off, keep up your temperature and keep salt in the tank (no water changes) for around another 10 days.

Unfortunately, Ich can cause often fatal damage to the gill tissues and even stomachs (I've read) of fish, if you think you've killed the Ich in your tank but are still losing fish, and nothing visibly appears over the next few days, this is possibly the unfortunate reason.

Best of luck.

 

[mtchillin]

Thanks for the reply. It appears that this is going to wipe out my entire Geo colony as my G.Altifrons did not make it through yesterday and another G.Topajos didn't make it through the night. The last remaining Topajos is not looking like he will make it through today. I looked in one of the Geo's mouths and it was heavily coated with ich, along with most of the gill area, so I am going to assume that your last statement is what is happening unfortunately. None of the remaining fish in the tank are showing signs. Should I still continue treatment with medication? Yesterday was day 10 of the heat/salt treatment. over that time period some of the ich my have fallen of, but none of the infected fish was even completely clear of it so I am not sure if the treatment did anything at all, or if this could have been something other than ich. I really don't want to mediate the remaining fish if they don't need it...

These are the first fish have ever lost to ich. The only thing I can think of is that they were just too small to handle the ich and the treatment, or it was not ich...
This sucks!