Ick Medicine...?

[spresent84]

I have just noticed that my African cichlids have Ick. I treated my tank with ick med and sadly, my strongest (and favorite) fish died within minutes.

Will this medicine kill the rest of my fish also? Or so I keep positive?

[Bri]

I swear by Malachite Green. It has worked for me multiple times, once was on a very severe case on my Oscars. If you are worried about the health of your other fish do a partial water change or move them out of the treated water and treat them differently after a few days if they still seem to be suffering from Ich. This may be the best bet!

[Me and my fish]

Are your other fish ok? What are they like now? I would say they will because it's pretty uncommon that they die from it. I've treated many bettas with ick and only a few have died. I wouldn't worry because maybe your favorite fish hit a rough spot or maybe he had it a while and the meds just did it for him and he had to pass on. I'm so sorry about him! I would keep positive because your other fish probably would have died too if it was the medicine. Try not to worry about it and just keep taking care of those fish!

[tikitiki]

I'm with Greg, not a fan of using chemicals. Salt and heat treatment is usually the best way to go, unless you have salt sensitive fish-plecos, catfish, loaches, tetras, any scaleless fish...but then they'll also be sensitive to the ich meds available. Also, keep in mind, those meds claim they treat ich in 3-5 days, when actually ich treatment needs to be continued for a good 2-3 weeks to effectively kill the ich. That's because ich is only killed during it's "free swimming" stage. Here's a few articles that are pretty good and explain it in more depth:

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=16&cat=1791&articleid=2421

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthyophthirius

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