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dear all,
there is a white speckily stuff that just showed up on two of my africans. two days later one is dead. what is it, what causes it, and most important how do i get rid of it. i thank all who can help me! kirin.

that is called ick. it is easy to cure in it's begining phase but hard to kill once it has infected your fish, if it is still in the "white speck" phase it is easy to get rid of, first thing to do is, raise the temo in your tank to 79-80* F. then do a 40% or so water change, go buy some stuff caled Rid-Ick(that is what i use) and fallow the directions, but i would do the treatment for a full week, take out the carbom in your filter if you have any at all, evrey day right befor you put in the meds do a water change. make sure to keep air in the tank cause the hotter the water the less air in the tank. you will start to see little worms all over the tank, that is fine, that is the specks going into the next phase. when the worms die they will gather at the top of the water, clean those out. you might have to keep putting in meds for more than a week. if you feed your fish "feeders" stop!!! that is probally where they got it. i think thats it. if i am leaving anything out please ad it guys. also do a search on the net for "ick cures" or something along those lines.

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From the imortal words of Jerry Gercia, "what a long strange journey this has been".

"to be old and wise you must first be young and stupid"

If it's ick which it sounds like it is, I would recommend not using meds to treat it at this point. You just need to raise the temp of the tank up to 80-82, and add 1 table spoon of salt per 10 gals of water. Leave the tank alone for 5 days, and if you don't see a change then do a 25% water change and repeat. This has worked for me on several occasions.

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Aquatics Unlimited

I think if it has already killed one fish, I would go with the more concentrated rate of 1tbs per 5 gallons for the salt, but either should work well... just remember you have to raise the temp AND add the salt for it to work

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Adam

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Got ?'s about HITH? Read this to learn more!

the salt and upping the temp makes the cycle of ick faster. what usually causes ick is a sudden increase or decrease in temp, stress, or maybe a bad feeder. if you want to use the medication, you dont have to use the salt, but it will probably end up killing off your benefital bacteria. using the salt and high tempeture wont kill your bacteria. 0

Good Luck with curing it!!!


Steve

good luck