I have a 90 gallon tank which I had to leave for a week when I went on vacation. A relative fed the fish and without water changes the nitrates did manage to get to 40ppm. Ammonia is 0, nitrite is 0, and again nitrate is 40ppm. Sadly when I came back I discovered ich on 3 of the fish. The tank has a red devil, a tiger oscar, a green terror (or gold saum can't tell yet but they are covered in ich), as well as a sun catfish and a blue crayfish. Every fish in the tank including the crayfish is about 4" long. I am not sure how to treat for ich in this situation because I cannot really remove the crayfish and catfish and I know many medications kill or harm these two, as well, they may be sensitive to salt. Any help would be appreciated because I would like to start treating the fish. Thankyou.

Welcome to ofl

The first thing I would try is turning the temperature up to around 30°C and leaving it like that for around five days. the problem is, when you see the white cysts, they are immune to most medications. Turning the temperature up accelerates the parasites lifecycle. Definitely treat the tank to kill any free living parasites. If you look under helpful articles, there is a very good article about treating ICK, it's a very long read but it should give you some really good information. But try turning the temperature up for a few days, hopefully this should do the job

So I should just heat it to 30 degrees without using mediaction or should I treat at the same time?

First of all, raise the water temperature to 30°C and leave it like that for 10 days (sorry I made a mistake saying five days)

It is very important not to medicate the tank during this period. The problem with raising the water temperature is warm water tends to contain less oxygen. Medication can also cause oxygen depletion, so you mustn't do the two things at the same time. Do this for 10 days, if the white spots disappear, don't turn the water temperature down, keep it at 30°C.

The life cycle of white spot decreases with higher temperatures so it has less time to get to a host at higher temperatures. At 30oC it has such a sort life cycle that it will die out.

Turn the temperature up to 30oC. After ten days all symptoms should be gone. Leave the temperature at 30oC for another 6-10 days. You should now be symptom free for this period , if so return you tank temperature to what it was (bout 25oC), if you keep symptoms then leave the temperature at 30oC until you see no symptoms for 6-10 days

When I 1st started keeping oscars over 5yrs ago I got a few cases of white spot, I am now sure this was cos I didnt heat the water when I made water changes. As soon as I started to heat the new water, I never got another case, and all my fish have been well for around four and half yrs or longer now. I havent changed anything else and still do everything the same way so the tempery drop in water temp must have an effect??

DO NOT MEDICATE THE TANK YET!

It will kill the suncat and cray.

Remove the fish, then medicate. use meds with malachite green and/or copper.

Ok, I kind of panicked when I saw how bad off the suncatfish was. I removed the crayfish and plants to a 5 gallon and then treated with formalin in the main tank. Tonight I did the second treatment but the biological filter is definately damaged as nitrites rose to 0.3. I am not sure what to do now. The tank was at 28 degrees before but I rased it to 30 degrees like you said. I have two large aire stones with the pump now on full and two canister filters being used to move water on the surface. What should I do now? Add salt to prevent damage to the fish from nitrites or start changing water or both? And what should I do about the medication I am using. The fish are all doing great even the sun catfish.

I have been treating for a few days now, about 40-50% water changes a day, 1 tablespoon of salt dissolved in each 5 gallon pail added, temperature at 30 degrees, and treating with formalin every 24 hours with 1 teaspoon to about every 15 gallons using a 37% formalin solution. (Ick Guard II) The red devil is becoming very agressive, he chases the other fish around the tank for a few seconds quite often. Is this normal? Is there something I should change about treatment as I am not seeing very good results yet. The fish aren't getting any sicker but some seem to bet getting more spots on their fins, although the red devil isn't even visibly affected. Thankyou for your time.

Forgot to say, ammonia is 0, I lowered the dose a bit on the formalin to 1 teaspoon to every 15 gallons because of its affect on the biological filter, has brought nitrite down to 0.1, and nitrate is about 15ppm. PH is about 7-7.5 and always has been.

Hey i just saw this post.

I just found out my own ciclid has got white spot.

what should i do?

Just raise tank to 30degrees?

It is open to debate on whether you can get white spot from an infected fish or whether you can get it from doing some maintainance wrong (like putting cold water in). Some say you can only get it from outside the tank like infected fish, some say it can be dormant in the tank. Another thing not know is why the fish dont get thousands of spots when they get infected as each spot releases thousand of spores and only a fraction will get on a fish

Ich problem seems to be under control. just turned heater up and yeah its all gone. ill leave it on for another few days.