ich / filter question

Hello,
I'm new to this forum and a new goldfish owner. I have 4 small fancy goldfish. Last weekend I went away for 3 days and put a food block in the tank. When I got back last night i noticed that 3 of my fish have come down with a bad case of ich (i'm not sure if this happened because the food block was providing too much food... judging by their poop it was! Or it could be stress as 3 of the fish were introduced to the tank only 2 weeks ago). I went to the fish store straight away and got 'coppersafe' by mardel. I put it in the tank 12 hours ago (no improvement yet), but my question is about the filtration. I was told to remove the carbon from the filter, however my filter has carbon inside the gauze. I can't remove the carbon unless i remove the whole gauze filter. So, for today, I turned the filter entirely off because I thought it best to let the medicine remain in the tank. Any suggestions? I'm really worried about one of the fish in particular who keeps lying at the bottom of the tank and doesn't want to swim around. I don't want to do anything to make their situation worse.

Thanks for any help

 

I have not been fresh water for 20 years or so now….but…if you kill the filter run an air stone. I would think you could be creative and make your own filter insert with no carbon. The carbon is going to remove your medicine – so you want to get it out of there.

I would take a knife and cut the filter floss and rinse out the carbon and stick it back in to run the filter….that should do it for you. Good luck ! and welcome to the forum !

 

I agree with what's posted above. You can also buy filter floss sheets and stick them in there to replace the standard insert. But for future reference..3 days away doesn't require a feeding block. The only time I would use one of those is if I were gone for a week or more. Fish can go quite a while. I have left my reef alone for a week with no problems. Welcome to 3reef!

Ivan

 

Thanks for the tips! I'm going to try cutting the filter floss and removing the carbon like you said. And I'll definitely think twice about using a feeding block again. It's good to know they could go 3 days without food. Thanks!
Does anyone know how long it should take to see improvement when using ich medicine?

 

I think a couple weeks before it's completely gone. Just follow the directions EXACTLY. It should say how long a full treatment will take.