Ich Again??

Question
QUESTION: Hi Ron,
I'm hoping you can help me! I have a 75 gal w/4 Blood Parrot Cichlids, 4 Cory's, & 4 Black Skirt Tetras. On Nov 6, I noticed a white spot on one of my Blood Parrots. I began a treatment w/Rid Ich the next day. I did a water change & vac, took out my cartridges & replaced w/foam filters (I use a Marineland Emperor Bio 400). I upped my tank temp to 82. When I started treatment, I also had 2 other Cory's & a small Rubberlip Pleco in the tank. I kept my treatments up, following the directions on the bottle of Rid Ich, doing the small water changes everyday as stated in the directions. The Ich never did get on all the fish. Just the Blood Parrots. In other words, here a spot, there a spot. After 3 weeks of this, I was advised to add aquarium salt. Ok....I lost 2 Cory's & my Rubberlip Pleco. 5 Days ago, no spots. Whew, finally! Kept the treatment up just to make sure. Then, tonight, 2 spots show up on one of the Blood Parrots. HELP!! What am I doing wrong?
Is this actually Ich and if it is, why after all this time is it not going away?? The spots look like grains of salt. No one I contact has any answers for me. My hubby & I are at our wits end about this. One more thing, ammonia spikes, so we do a small water change now every 3 days instead of everyday. Was advised to do water changes that way instead of everyday. One more problem, I've got a 55 gal w/3 Giant Danios that's been cycling since Oct 9. It's even been seeded with gravel & water from my local fish store. Ammonia has been .50 & the nitrite .25 for weeks. I've started using Stability to try to help it cycle. What do I need to do in order to get the cycling complete?? Thanks for any help you can give me.

ANSWER: Hi Kathy,
 Ick doesn't appear as one or two white spots.  It appears as dozens or hundreds of spots.  

 It is much more likely that the spots are small wounds, i.e., the result of biting by other fishes.  

 You should not have ammonia spikes if you do water changes every day or every few days. By the way, you cannot do water changes too often.  If you want to change some water every day, that is perfectly fine; it is just a lot of work.  If you have ammonia spikes, that suggests that you are overfeeding and/or uneaten food is accumulating in the tank.  Never put in food for your fish to "eat later".  Give them only what they eat right away and only once a day in general.

 I do not add any chemicals to make a tank cycle.  A tank will naturally cycle in about 6 weeks, provided you have a few fish in it. During that time, do regular weekly 25% water changes, and you shouldn't have any problems.  There is no point in adding bacteria cultures to a tank that has already started cycling.  Either add it right at the start, or don't add it at all.  

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>




---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you Ron for answering my questions. Please be patient with me because I'm a novice. When I saw the white spot on my Blood Parrot, I immediately thought it was Ich because that Blood Parrot was the newest in the tank. Even my local fish store thought it was Ich. I stopped the treatment 2 days ago. I did a 50% water change, vac, cleaned the ornaments & put my cartridges back in the filter. The ammonia spike started occuring within days of starting the Ich treament. I try not to overfeed & watch them when they're eating. I do feed a small amount twice each day & I fast them once a week. Before treatment, my ammonia was zero. If this were your tank, what would you do in order to get your ammonia level back to zero? Should I do small water changes everyday? We have a Python so water changes are not so difficult & I use Prime. Should I add an extra carbon filter? Right now the ammonia reading is below 0.25. I don't want to lose any more fish, especially our Blood Parrots.

Our 55 gal should have completed cycling already since we started the cycle on Oct. 9. I'm going to follow your advice on doing the partial water changes once a week while it cycles. We really need this tank to finish with the cycle because we have a 10 gal, fully cycled, that has a few Danios in it. We plan on moving them to the 55 gal, then using the 10 gal as a quarantine tank. Like I said, we're novices, but we are serious about learning all we can about keep fishing.

Thanks again,
Kathy

ANSWER: Hi Kathy,
 Part of the problem is that treatments for ich often contain copper which is very hard on microorganisms in your tank, i.e., damaging or killing the organisms which control ammonia.  

 I suggest going with small water changes every few days.  Carbon filters do very little in most aquaria.  In fact, I never use them and I maintain 140 tanks and I haven't used carbon in decades.  They work for a short while, then "fill up" and are essentially useless after that.  

 I would be careful about being overly concerned with water chemistry. Keep in mind that most of the little test kits that you buy at pet stores are close to meaningless in the values they report.  Secondly, parrot cichlids are tolerant of a wide range of pH and water chemistry. The key is clean water.  Do the water changes, be careful on the feeding and your tanks should even out soon.  

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hello Ron,
I'm back. I need your help again. Things were going great with my Blood Parrots & tank. Then, today, two of the Blood Parrots have white spots on them again. This time there are at least 20 white spots on both of them. The other two Blood Parrots & the 4 Black Skirt Tetras are clear, so far. The two that have the white spots get bullied by the other two, so I know they get stressed. Do you think it's Ich again? You know we treated the first time for weeks with Rid Ich. Surely after so much treatment there shouldn't be any left in the tank? I transferred my Cory's into our 55 gal about a week ago (finally cycled), so instead of Rid Ich this time, can I use aquarium salt? The water temp is 80 degrees right now. Please help.

Answer
Hi Kathy,
 If it is ick, you need to use Rid-ick or something like it. Salt only helps a little.  

 The trouble with ick is that it has a two phase life history. In one phase it is free swimming and it is only at that point that it is vulnerable to the copper in the Rid-Ick. When it is in the encapsulated form (the little white cysts) it is pretty much atomic bomb proof. It takes about a week for it to go from one form to the other. Why people raise the temp is because that speeds up the "hatching" of cysts to make them vulnerable to the copper.  

-- Ron C.
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>