Ich due to temp fluctuations

[jpluttme]

My tank was experiencing temperature fluctuations due to the warmer weather which stressed out my fish a bit and now 2 of the 7 have ich. There have been no new addition to the tank in 2 years.

I've fixed the temperature problem and the fish with the ich are active and eating well. With the help of the cleaner shrimp, the gramma looks better, and the clown seems to be spot free after 2 days. I'm sure this is probably the stage where the ich falls off and multiplies in the substrate.

I've also been vitamin-enhancing the food and making sure the water is perfect with frequent water changes.

It will be a nightmare to remove all the rocks, anemones, and corals. The fish that were not affected- were they not as stressed, and as a result less vulnerable to the ich?

I've read so many different things on this board, that I'm not really sure what to do at this point.

Will the fish that were affected be able to fight off another infection if I can keep them from getting stressed and keep up the vitamin supplementation? Should I remove each and every fish from the tank now and treat them all or wait a period of time to see what if anything happens?

The last thing I want to do is stress out my fish any further, and risk stressing out the fish that were never infected if I transfer all of them to a qt tank.

Has anyone had a minor outbreak of ich and been able to keep their fish from getting it again by keeping the fish healthy and fixing temp or water issues?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Hattie B]

Hi,

what most likly happended IMO is that your tank has had ich for quite some time, since there has been no new additions and then when stressed (the tank temp) some fish 'got' ich.

So for quite some time they have been able to fight off the parasite.

If it were me, I would remove the fish and QT and let the main tank be fallow so if something like this does not happen again, or if it does then they would not be infected again.

You could continue to give them good food and good water quality and they might be able to fight it off and keep on going, just keep in mind that if you add another fish at some point that when that fish is stressed, he has the potential of geting ich and the other might too.

Good luck.

[jpluttme]

Thanks for the advice! I don't plan on adding any other fish, and am going to wait a few days to see how the fish are doing. I have a QT set up and waiting, but all fish seem to be eating and very active.

This happened at a really bad time as I am going out of town next week and won't be able to monitor water quality in the qt tank so hopefully if the fish can fight off the ick for now I will qt them anyway and treat with copper while the main take stays fish free for a while.

Thanks again for your input.

[Hattie B]

Thats IMo is a good idea. I would wait until you got back if you decided to QT, ammonia can raise quicky in a QT and pH problems as well.

best of luck.

HB