My Oscar and other cichlids have ick

[Mike berry]

I have 120 gallon 5ft aquarium with a red tiger oscar Jack Dempsey 2 blue Acura and a black Jack Dempsey possibly Acura hybrid. Anyway, they all suddenly got ick.
I have to 30 watt fluorescent 50/50 actinic bulbs I have Driftwood some live plants a lot of rock in a white sand bottom using a 400 watt heater and two canisters one being small just for use for biological media and the other being sun sun. With an UltraViolet sterilizer tons of filter floss pads biological media carbon and all other sorts of goodies in there but what would be the best way to cure the ache that's taking over my tank.?
Immediately when I noticed it I used malachite green but I only had about one dose in the bottle so should I continue with that or should I go and get something different and do I need to raise my temperature and to what temperature should I raise it to and I need to remove my carbon now, other than a slightly

 

[GamerChick5567]

I would try the old school salt treatment. Raise the temp in the tank up to 86 for at least 2 weeks (summer may be doing that already) and then add 1 tbsp of pure uniodized kosher or aquarium salt (not marine salt) per 5 gallons. That should speed the life cycle of the parasite up and the salt will help kill them when they hatch. You should vacuum the substrate and 25% of the water every other day and replace the salt concentration with each water change. It should be a much safer way to treat it than with malachite green and it won't harm your beneficial bacteria. You may want to leave the lights off, that way the tank can't overheat and the fish aren't as stressed. I've also heard that ich locates the fish by sight and can't see them as well with the lights off but I have no idea if that's true.

think the live plants may have carried it if you haven't added any fish and recently planted some. Pull the live plants you want to save, place 'em in a quarantined bucket with a home depot work light over them. Keep them separated from the fish, they may have ich parasites on them. After a month maybe add the plants back in, the ich should starve by then. I suppose you could also do a bleach dip but that could kill them.

I'm also thinking your uv bulb is at the end of it's life. Normally they will kill ich fairly quick. They last about 6 months before the output declines or whatnot. You can get generic UV bulb replacements for about a third of the cost of the brand name ones. I got 3 coralife turbotwist 9w bulbs for the price of one that way with amazon. Reminds me, need to replace one when I move.

Hope that helps.

 

[kno4te]

Heat and salt.

 

[Mike berry]

My UV sterilizing unit is still good, I hadn't been using it until after my tank was cycled and I have don't run it all the time because the flow of the pump is 600 gallons an hour but that sterilizer lights on 9 Watts so I figured I would only use it when I need it and now I have it on but it's on my main pump for the tank so I can't slow water flow down without reducing the filtration of the tank itself however I did go get some Victoria green Nitro something I called Marineland ick remedy and I've also raised the tank temperature to approximately 85-86 however I'm raising the temperature just a couple of degrees ever so often cuz I don't want shock my fish, however even though I'm using Marineland ich wouldn't be safe still use aquarium salt along with the higher-temperature

 

[Drstrangelove]

Couple things.

UV will not help in any real sense with ich. Some parasites might get zapped, but more than enough will survive.

I don't quite understand your post, but I strongly advise against using salt, heat and meds at the same time. Use 1) salt only or 2) salt and heat only or 3) meds at the prescribed temperature and not higher.

Using all three may put already weakened fish in danger.

 

[Mike berry]

I apologize for that my post is difficult to read because there's no punctuation or capitalization and then autocorrect kicks in every now and then, I can't stand to type an all I have is a cell phone so I use voice to text. But thank you that was just the answer I was looking for I'm using Marineland ick remedy and I've raised the temperature up to about 86 I also have two large air pumps and long bubble stones running 24/7 and I finally removed my carbon cleaned out my filters and made sure that everything was in best shape possible to help treat this so thank you very much for y'all's input and I really appreciate it I'm just going to go with the third option and use the Marineland stuff and we'll see how it goes I've always had pretty good luck in the past with ich treatments in a bottle. But the last time I've battled this, I was 12 yrs old. In 33 now. And this is a 120 gallon tank width of 10 in Oscar to Blue acara and a Jack Dempsey and then some type of a Cara Dempsey hybrid, so now that I have technology forums and all sorts of other goodies it's not like treating my old 10 gallon tank for my betta I've got some expensive fish that I absolutely adore so even when I think I know something I can always get 2nd 3rd or 80th opinion so thank you all at monsterfishkeepers love you guys, Mike out

 

[Mike berry]

By the way my understanding is the higher temperatures along with ich and the medicine itself to treat take some of the oxygen out of the water column making it harder for the fish to breathe I have access to oxygen tank and I can probably get or borrow one of the portable units would it be worth hooking up an AirStone and pumping in small meter doses of oxygen to the water column, I used to use compressed CO2 systems with regulators and diffusers and all sorts of stuff when I did planted aquariums, so if the theory that you can add extraordinary amounts of CO2 to the water column using diffusers and CR2 couldn't you help compensate for the lack of oxygen by doing the same thing but with just oxygen instead of CO2 any input would be great I appreciate it

 

[Drstrangelove]

You don't need to pump oxygen into the water. Oxygen enters the water normally through gas exchange. If the water at the surface of the tank is low in oxygen compared to the room, oxygen will enter the tank.

What you need to do then is make sure the tank has a lot of water movement to the surface, so oxygen levels don't fall below the surface. Any air stone or pump will do that.

 

[Mike berry]

Okay then since I have glass hoods and there what my lights set on I don't want my fish jumping out because when I feed them my oscar about takes my hand off every darn time I've got bite marks all over my hand from these different fish but because they jump I can't take the glass hoods off but they're Wellfit I do have a gap at the back and I've got a couple of computer fans what I might do is on one side of the tank put one blowing air in and then on the other side blowing air out that way I get good air circulation between the surface of the water and the bottom of the glass lid does that sound like a plan or or do I need to do something else like remove the lid and add some screen or something? I do have quite a bit of knowledge of osmotic functions like gas exchange and movement of gases in a surrounding area. I'm just afraid to keep the lids open because if a fish jumps out even if I catch it in time it's still going to be a hell of a lot more stress then if they don't jump out in Hit the Floor 5ft lower and get covered in dirt dog hair baby slobber and all sorts other junk, maybe I can remove one side glass and light bar and tape down some plastic window screen?, also one other question does light affect the treatment for this where do I need to do something different with the timing and intensity?