Sick Fish! Help Please

[neilsarah]

I bought some plecos from a lfs about two weeks ago. Last week i bought some more fish and had to make room in one of my tanks so i shuffled some fish around into two different tanks. Well it turns out the tank was infected with something from the new pleco and i unknowingly infected two other tanks . My first thoughts were it was ick. The suspect fish had white sugar like spots like you would see with ick. I immediatly started treating with ick guard. Well long story short its been almost a week and they are not getting better. What else could it be. I stopped using ick guard and started Nox Ick. I did my second treatment today so i have one to go but im not seeing any improvements. They are rubbing the rocks and shaking and twitching. Any ideas?

[djlamonica]

I don't use any medication I kick the heat up to 84 or so add some aquarium salt and wait about two weeks .  I've uses the medication a single time when I started out and it did more harm then good.

[Cat(fish)lady]

I have to agree. No meds! Bump the temp up and do a water change then add salt!

Ick thrives in cooler water. The temp alone should really help!

If I'm unsure about any new fish I purchase, I treat with mela/Pima -fix for 3 days.

[Steve]

Same here no meds. I'm actually getting rid of ick in a community tank I have right now. I have had the heat bumped up to 89F for the past 4 days, long as there are extra bubblers (I added two pumps to the tank while the heat is up) then the fish can survived  and it will kill the parasites inside of 10 days.

[Ron]

Nox-ich is some powerful stuff, though I'd guess it should be 3-4 days before you start to notice a difference. It's been years since I used it, but IIRC the directions call for two periods of treatment (if not 3). Even if all the symptoms seem to disappear, be sure to use it as directed for the full duration.

[Maize-N-Blue-D]

I don't use any medication I kick the heat up to 84 or so add some aquarium salt and wait about two weeks .  I've uses the medication a single time when I started out and it did more harm then good.

THIS IS THE PROVEN METHOD for clearing up ick !

I have used it on my tanks with no fatalities..

Good Luck !

[neilsarah]

Thanks everyone. I did finish the nox ick treatment but now am just playing the temp and salt game. I am just concerned because it has been a week of treatments and the fish are still not right. No spots on them but strange twitches and shaking and also rubbing on the rocks. Only thing i can think of is the water quality because obviously when i was using the meds i had to pull the carbon out of the filters. I have those cheap test strips and the nitride and nitrate levels are ok. Only thing off was the PH and it was on the alkaline end not the acidic end. The strip does not have a check for amonia but isnt that the same as the nitrate and nitrides? Losing a fish here and there. 

[Regalblue]

Bump temps to 85, do 50% WC,  add correct salt dosage, wait 24hrs, do 50% WC, re salt, wait 24hts, do 50%WC,  re salt..... keep doing this until the problem is resolved.

Noxich is good, but not recommended for scale less fish