My ICH Saga

Question
Hi Chris,

I have a 10 gallon tank.  It had been totally cycled and doing fine for about 3 months with 3 mollies.  My API test kit showed no ammonia, no nitrite & ph 7.2 - 7.4.  Even though I had been doing weekly 12% water changes, my nitrates were a bit high.  I read on a forum that dropping some Anacharis into the tank would help.  So I bought some from PetSmart and then my problems started.  The plants had snails and now I have snails in the tank.  One sailfin molly started laying at the bottom of the tank & couldn't swim to the top of the tank.  In a week's time it died.  Shortly, afterward, my other sailfin developed white spots & holes on it's fins.  I used Jungle's Lifeguard All-In-One Treatment for Fungus and Ick (took out the carbon filter).  After the 5-day treatment I did a 25% water change as per the instructions.  Next day I woke up and walked over to the tank and found my 2nd molly swimming vertically and twisting around.  Few hours later it died.  My final dalmation molly seemed to be fine - no spots and eating well.  The Jungle treatment, however, caused me to loose my biological filter and the nitrites in the tank spiked to 5.0.  I started doing daily 15% water changes (always using Tetra AquaSafe) but the fish seemed pretty stressed then one morning I woke to find the tank empty.  The final molly had jumped out of the tank during the night.  Heart broken, I decided to complete this new cycle process without fish by adding fish food each day and monitoring the water quality.  It took 2 weeks but the nitrites went down to 1.0 with no ammonia.  I did a 40% water change w/aquarium salt in the replacement water - 1/2 teaspoon per gallon & AquaSafe.  Temp in the tank was 78 degrees.  I waited 3 more days, tested the water, and still no ammounia, the nitrites down to .25, and the nitrates were 20.   I went to PetSmart and bought 7 small fancy male guppies.  Well, I woke this morning to find 2 dead and 3 more are dying as I'm typing this msg.  The three currently dying already have white spots on their tail fins.  I'm at my wits end.  Do you have any suggestions to what can be wrong?  Does ICH live in the tank even when there are not any fish?  I have a feeling all the guppies will die.  When that happens, should I break down the tank, clean it, get new gravel and start over with a fishless cycle? Guppies are suppose to be very hardy fish.  I just feel like this 10 gallon tank is a "tank of horrors" for the fish. Any help you can provide would be most appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
-Laurie


Answer
Hi Laurie;

I'm so sorry it took so long to get to you. I've had a very busy week. Don't worry, there is a solution to all this. More about that later. First, let's see if we can save some of the guppies, as long as my answer hasn't come too late. Make a 25% water change every day while vacuuming the gravel lightly. It will reduce the number of ich parasites in the water, remove some of the snails and waste and boost the immunity of the fish without stressing them further. Also use an ich remedy. Continue to add salt to any new water added for the water changes. Continue to use the water conditioner. If your tank has a heater, turn it up to slowly raise the temperature up to 82f. Be home to watch it though. You don't want to overheat the fish. Ich hates salt and heat. The medicine can then kill it quicker.

Now, why the guppies got sick; Ich is an opportunistic parasite. It is present in many of our tanks and water supplies all the time. When our fish are stressed for one reason or another, it gets them. Even though the ammonia levels and nitrite were fine when you added the new guppies, it spiked again. A fishless cycle does not allow us to add a full population of fish right away. You still have to go slow by adding a couple, wait a week, add a couple more, wait a week, etc. Beneficial bacteria colonies grow very slowly. There were just too many fish added too quickly for the system to handle.

I don't think the mollies had ich. Ich is a parasite that looks like salt specks and your mollies, as you already know, were being poisoned from an ammonia spike that led to a nitrite spike. (unless they did have spots and you forgot to mention it) It could have been the medicine killing beneficial bacteria indeed, but the snails may be partly responsible for the ammonia spike too because they do create a great deal of waste. It's like adding a whole bunch of new fish to the tank. However, snails don't overpopulate without help. There may have been excess waste and excess food in the tank for the snails to feed on. Vacuum the gravel and feed less food to help lower the possibility of more problems later. Overfeeding is a very common problem. we all do it from time to time. We just have to mend our ways and clean up after ourselves when we do.

I hope the rest of your guppies make it okay...

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins