Ok, today I was watching my fish scratching their heads and body on the gravel and the caves. My convict cichlids look fine. but, my bumblebee cichlid,ice blue zebra cichlid, was scratching everything for a minute then rest's for a minute then he scratches again. what is the easiest way to cure it?? please help. I dont want to loose my "wild type" zebra cichlid, or my bumblebee...
PLEASE HELP!! my bumblebee cichlid has ich. for 2 days now!
- Thread starter AfricanCichlidFan
- Start date
There's a sticky covering the treatment of ick. Everything you need to know is mentioned there but to summarize; raise temp above 84* and add salt, at least one tbsp/5 gal of water. Good luck.
It's hard to say what exactly is the trouble here. What substrate do you use? If you are using fine sand, it could be silt irritation which I can understand your fish would definitely be scratching around. I wish the microscopes are readily available. You could have done a skin scrape and check whether this is flukes, dinoflagellates or onset of bacterial infections or saprolegnia. Do you have praziquantel? You can buy it as Prazipro in pet stores or Droncit in vets.
AfricanCichlidFan, you can't be "sure it's ich" just by scratching. Like Lupin said there's too many other things it could be. Greanted that's one of the common causes of scratching but that's not a reliable way to make a diagnosis. Heat and salt wouldn't hurt but if it's flukes or something it won't solve the problem either.
(beginneralex14, he can't just go ask for "itchy medicine" at the LFS.)
(beginneralex14, he can't just go ask for "itchy medicine" at the LFS.)
Well, 2 days ago I bought a new male convict cichlid, he only lived for 2-3 hours 
. he had white spots on him. maybe thats why my fish caught ich??
. he had white spots on him. maybe thats why my fish caught ich??