Cloudy with ich??

[Obsidian]

Hello
My 20 gallon tank is continuing to have problems and I am now officially frustrated. The water gets cloudy when I change the water, but the parameters say everything is fine (0 ammo 0 nitrite about 8 nitrate). There is very little algae in this tank, which has happened over the last month. At that time there was noticeable algae.

Now I have ich. I don't know if it is from my new cherry barbs (2 females added about 10 days ago) or if it is from whatever is making my water cloudy. I have to think something is causing this. I don't have tests for hardness. Is there anything about hardness that would make my water cloudy?

For the moment I have raised the temp a notch (tank is already at 80-82) and I added in the first of 4 tablespoons of salt after completing a 20% water change. I will add in subsequent tablespoons of salt with daily water changes and if I don't see a change by the weekend I will buy some ich meds.

Any thoughts/suggestions/insights would be appreciated. I really don't care to loose all my fish.

[Clerk]

Whenever I add new water to the tank the minerals from my pipes make the water look cloudy until it settles. Other then that, it could be a bacterial bloom from some nutrient in the tap water.

[Obsidian]

Do you know of any tests that would give me other possible bacteria readings?

The cloudiness is not usually extreme by any means and is often gone in a day or two. This last change on Sunday though the cloudiness was worse than usual and remained, so I put activated charcoal in, which provided very minimal help, and then today several of the fish have visible signs of the ich, and many more are glancing off of decorations.

[emc7]

Have you added any pH adjusting chemicals?

[Obsidian]

No I don't really add anything but dechlorinator. Every now and then I will add some stress zyme when I change their water, but it had been at least a month since I had added that. I did add some of that yesterday with the 20% change. Ph is at 7.2.

[Obsidian]

Okay I removed the charcoal and used a dose of Clout. There is still some flicking happening and still visible signs of the ich, which seems appropriate since that was just last night. The directions say to repeat if there are still signs of Ich. So far it does seem to have decreased the signs on some of my fish, so I take that as positive. But I am concerned about my cory cats and my bristle nose. The clout says not to use with bottom dwellers. I went ahead and used it because at least one Cory has active Ich. They seem to have tolerated the dose I gave them, do you all know if it would be safe to repeat since they seem to be doing okay with it? I am still bringing up the temp (it is not going up as fast as I thought it would) and adding a table spoon of salt per day to get the salinity up (will be done with that today). That treatment I will keep active for a month to make sure the ich stays gone. I used the clout because so many of the fish are affected I wanted to be more aggressive.

And how much water should I change? I am conflicted about this because of the cloudiness that has been introduced with the water changes. Part of me wants to do a large water change to get rid of the disease, and part of me wants to keep them small because I am not convinced the tap water is not part of the problem.

[emc7]

What do the instructions on the clout say about water changes before redose? You don't want to overdose the med, esp. to the cories. Ich won't be in tap water. But there could be some irritating contaminate. could you fill buckets now and let the sit? See if there is cloudiness in the water before you add it to the tank. If there isn't, I would guess you are doing chemistry. Some ion in the tap water is grabbing a ion in the tank water and precipitating out as a solid. If thats the case, its most likely harmless. But there could be phosphates in the water that are feeding a bacteria bloom. How did the fish react to the cloudiness the first time? Did it stress them?

[Obsidian]

No it never seemed to bother them that I could tell. I am pretty sure that the Ich is from my petsmart Cherry Barb addition. There were not signs of it in the tank, but still.

I think I am going to wait on the clout because I see a noticeable difference in the fish just from lunch to now after work. The tank is up to 86 degrees and the salt is all in there. So I will keep that up and then only add a second clout dose if I still see signs or if things seem to be getting worse.

Thanks everyone!

[Obsidian]

The visible ich signs cleared with the treatment I provided, and thankfully the water has cleared up as well. Some of the fish do occasionally glance against an ornament.

Is it safe to drop the water temp yet? Should I do something else due to the continued glancing?

Date of origin of problem 3/17/08.
I have done regular weekly water changes of 20% adding appropriate salt back in. I have not replaced the charcoal yet.

Thanks

[Obsidian]

Well okay, I am just going to assume it has been long enough and start lowering the temperature. It has been longer than 2 weeks. I think that is the right amount of time.