Fish have ich, treating with ethylene blue, but tank turns clear ?

Ahhh maybe malachite green was what I wAs using in previous tanks. That is what my rainbows are looking like.

Fortunately only a few fish have noticable signs of the white spots on them and they are subtle. Now that I remember I may have treated with malachite green I plan to go buy some tomorrow.

Thanks for the response, this should help. It's a high tech tank so I suspect that a higher nitrate level (for plant fertalization), too low of PH, and perhaps a contamination from the fish store are culprits.

In the mean time I have stopped performing fertalizing, I may increase temperature as well.

I agree with Seattle nox ich with malachite green cleared an outbreak in my tank in less than 6 days along with raising the temp to about 82 degrees.

Great, two opinions voting towards the same answer. At least this fungal/parasite is a common problem that can occur in aquariums with poor water quality. My fish with the worst symptoms are the larger rainbows that were added most recently.

I'll follow your guy's advice and get some malachite green for the fish. I've got a 20 gallon quarantine tank... but unfortunately it is still cycling.

I'll post up my success here in the next few days, I suspect it will clear up quickly since the fish are about half as bad as the pic of that cardinal tetra above.... But better to be proactive to save my fish and livestock!

Hi DOJOLOACH23,

Because of the life cycle of the protozoa that causes Ich it takes about 3 - 4days before you will start seeing noticeable improvement.

The only time the medication is capable of killing the protozoa is when it is in the 'free swimming' stage looking for a host fish. Once the protozoa finds a fish it forms the white cyst (Trophant) that we see. The the cyst drops off the fish and and sinks to the bottom of the tank where the protozoa multiplies thousands of time. The cyst then bursts sending the thousands of new protozoa in search of a host fish....this is the time the medication can kill the protozoa. The total cycle takes about 5 days +/- a couple of days depending upon temperature. The warmer the conditions the quicker the life cycle.

Ok. Currently the tank is at 81.3F. Going to up it to 83 tonight. and start with the malachite green treatment tomorrow.

Thanks for that input. I really had no idea how the parasite spread other than it being free floating in the water.. makes sense that it would need to drop off onee host to multiply before finding another host.

The temperature itself should be able to take it out. You could also do the salt thing if you don't have fancy plants, or can store the plants somewhere warm so any ich on them can die out.
Medicine is not really needed for this. remember to dry out all nets r items used in the tank to kill off the ich.