[Sitaga]

Sadly I have experienced 4 loses due to Ick (and 2 are sick now – one for a second time) in my 6 week old freshwater tanks. I feel I have been very diligent in my water testing and water changes, but none the less, I have lost many fish. I want to first state that 6 weeks ago I purchased 2 tanks - a 10 gallon and a 15 gallon, so many of my issues have been brought on by new tank syndrome (as I have read).

Regretfully, at the expense of the fish's life, I have learned a few things during this process that I would like to share with everyone. I'm still learning more every day, so any addition to this post would most likely be beneficial to others as well. There has only been 2 fish in each tank at any given time. I spend pretty much all day in front of my tanks (they are in my home office), so I have been able to watch them through the entire process -- very sad to say the least. I felt I could not let their deaths be in vein.

Symptom 1: A couple days before I first noticed the Ick the fish would position itself in strange places in the tank. For instance, I have a small suction cup thermometer at the top, back corner of the tank. The fish would wedge itself between the glass and the thermometer, nose down. This happened with two of the fish.

Symptom 2: The day before the Ick was visible all the fish were very hyper - pacing up and down the glass repeatedly. All 5 fish displayed this behavior (maybe I'm a slow learner) the day before they had visible white spots. I gather this is caused by spikes in ammonia. I tested my tank with test strips every other day and all results came back with reports of zero. I am going to try the test kits (liquid drops) today and see if anything reports different.

Symptom 3: The last sign I got was the fish rubbing themselves against rocks (decorative rocks, not the gravel). This started happening just hours before I noticed the white spots.

Symptom 4: As I have read the clear cut sure way to tell if your fish has Ick is if they have white spots on them. It has been my experience that these spots reproduce like a plague over the entire body of the fish until it finally dies.

I believe that had I known this information before hand I could have noticed what was happening and had a jump start on treating the Ick which may have saved a few lives. My hope is that someday someone will stumble on this post when their fish has one or more of these symptoms and that they will be able to save their fish.

I’m sure I have done things wrong along the way and I hope that anyone seeing this was experience will share with me possible flaws in my pets’ lives. I take constructive criticism very well and will take all the advice I can get.

Sincerely,
Sitaga
a.k.a. Bill