Fish Help

[7thswan]

I know there are some fish folks on here and sure could use some help.What can I do about ick? The tank is about 200 gallons. Catfish. Thanks.

[jwal10]

I use 100 gallon, 2'deep, black rubbermaid water tanks for the fish, they are in my greenhouse. I find that I needed to circulate more water to keep it cleaner. My system is auqaponic with a holding tank and 4" pvc pipe with pots. I pump water from the center depth of the fish tank up to the holding tank and gravity flow every hour. I also have floating foam beds with pots of lettuce on the fish and holding tanks. I do put some barley straw in the end of the pipe to act as a filter in the summer and to slow down the flow. I have yellow perch, I hear catfish keep the water stirred up more, never raised catfish....James

[Ellen West]

This is the most common malady, it can hit your tank from a newly introduced source, or just seem to rise of it own from stress. Overcrowding with catfish happens sooner than you think, chilling is another trigger, so look to those things.

A mild salt dilution is the old time cure.

If you're not eating your stock, a good product is Aquarisol. Not sure what it has in it that you might not want to consume. You can order it here, but even feed store fish departments usually stock it: http://www.aquariumguys.com/aquarisol16oz.html

I used it to treat all new fish in isolation before I introduced them to a tank.

[7thswan]

I just got them Wendsday. It was pretty stressless, cool day, short trip, tank had been set up for 1 week with fresh water. Tank only used for water. The best thing I can figure is the water might have been too cold. Am using a pretty big pump thru a lava rock/fiber filter waterfall.They are not lacking for air. So far I have put in 1 cup salt. I guess I need to up that and am trying to figure out a way to warm the water. Is this sounding ok? Thanks again. ps, thanks for the suggestions,yes these are for eating. oh ya 25 fish,now 22.

[HTG_zoo]

A lot of hobby fish keepers believe that all fish carry ich and when they get stressed enough show symptoms. Moving them, and too cool water are usually enough stress to cause a flare up.

Treatment is usually pretty straight forward, raise the temp in the tank slowly to the highest temp your fish can withstand in your tank. Upper 80's is generally recommended, 86 is the magic number for many. I know some who go on up to the 90's though. Keep the tank warm for about a week after symptoms subside.

Meanwhile, add salt to the tank. You add about 3 teaspoons per gallon. Aquarium salt, or plain softener salt with NO treatments for rust or anything like that, or table salt with no anti caking agents. Disolve the salt in a bucket of water and add that salty water to the tank gradually. Really gradually, over a period of 2 days, adding 1/4 of the dose every 12 hours.

You'll need to increase your water changes while treating the fish. Firstly the higher temp makes the fishes' waste more toxic to them so you'll have to remove that waste faster. Secondly, the ich spots you see are spores attached to the fish, those drop off and hatch in the tank, reinfecting your fish. You want to remove as many of these as possible. If you can do it, a daily 25% water change is best. If not, try 50% at least once a week, if not twice. Remember, when you add water back to the tank, it needs to be close in temp & salinity. So use your hot water and add 3 teaspoons per gallon.


For your heating needs, they do make aquarium heaters large enough for 200 gal. Expensive outlay, but if you were going to raise fish each year or over the winter, they're probably worth it. Get the plastic shatter proof kind, not the old school (cheaper) glass kind.

[Ellen West]

Lots of details to pay attention to in HTG-zoo's post.

Just wanted to add that even a simple change of water can stress fish, use a gradual adjustment technique in consideration of water chemistry and temperature. Fish handle a sudden change from cool to warm better than the reverse. If you have them bagged, float the bag to equalize temp, gradually introduce the new water into the bag, then open it to let the fish swim out on their own.

[FoxyWench]

i thirds everythign htg-zoo says

[HTG_zoo]

I got to thinking about this and worried I didn't stress slowly enough! Also on the frequent water changes that new water has to be the same as the old water minus nitrates/nitrites. As long as the water is the same temp and chemically the same, most fish do fine with big water changes. If you're temp or chem composition is too far off, they'll all die.

[7thswan]

Thank you, I tried to do some searching and did find the salt info. but it did not say to do it slowly. I did it in 2 treatments tho. I'll be looking to warm the water somehow, we have tank heaters but they have a 32 degree shut off, maybe there is a way to override that. These fish are sold to people for ponds/lake stocking- I can just imagine the issues the people have with that. I filled another tank last night, hopefully it will warm and I can take water from it for the clean/old water transfer. It was 57 here yesterday and going to be 88 tomorrow with 9? on Monday.