please help me help my goldfish

Question
I am so sad, i have two cute fancy gold fish a shubinkin, and and a oranda. I just recently added the shubinkin to my take its a 18 gallon w filter. I left home for two days came back and they were both covered in Ick, I have been reading up on the treatments, but they are covered and i don't want then to suffer....

what shall i do,

p.s i started them on ick treatment but they look so sad.

Answer
Hi Chris:  Goldfish are kewl!  Here is what you need to do to help them.  There is a medicine called super ich cure... works really well.  The temperature in the tank needs to be raised to about... 76 degrees for goldfish... the reason you raise the temperature is to shorten the life cycle of the ich parasite... it has a nine day cycle and with the warmer temperatures the cycle shortens to about 3-4 days.  ICH has three stages of life... first is when its in your fish. The fish's skin protects it from the medication in the water so it is immune. The second stage is when it leaves the fish and falls to the aquarium floor, forms a cyst and begins to multiply in the cyst... also immune to medication. The third stage is called the free swimming stage and it occurs when the cyst breaks up and spills millions of ich parasites.  This is the only stage in which they are vulnerable to medication... they also must find a fish host within  24 hours or they die.... so 8 of nine days of their lives they are immune to medication.  but if you raise the temp the ration becomes one in three days they are vulnerable.  Use aquarium salt and make sure you have a replacement program for your biological bacteria because the ich medication is likely to kill it off.   Hope this helps... dave