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Hi guys, so last weekend I bought 3 feeder goldfish from Petsmart (sorry, Pet-sh*t) and added them to my tank. However, I started noticing 2 days later that one fish had many little white spots developing on her fins. Two of my fish that were already in my tank became very weak during the course of the week and died and I'm trying to prevent any other fish from dying off. This is my first experience with Ich, so not sure what is typically done about this. I read that Ich isn't harmful to turtles, but that the Ich "medicine" you put in the tank for the fish can be harmful to turtles. Is this actually true? Should I be quarantining my turtle from his tank even if I'm not putting medicine in?

So far I have raised the temp from 75 degrees to 82 to try to kill the Ich this way, or at least make the water less friendly for them. Hoping this doesn't affect my turtle too much... It ALSO looks like three more of my fish have developed the white spots but they haven't died. They definitely are not acting normally though, kind of sluggish. They're all really mostly feeder fish for my little guy, but I don't want them to die for nothing when I can do something about it.

Thanks!

I read over this, seems like you should remove turtles with or without treatment so that the Ich won't use the turtles as host. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=30008

I read through the post you linked. Thanks so much, iEZTech! I think what I'll do is remove all of the fish, put those guys in a quarantine tank, empty out my main tank and let it dry completely, like mentioned. Just not sure for how long. I don't have a UV sterilizer, so thinking maybe for a few hours at least, bone dry. My turt can chill with me out of tank for awhile while we wait and then I'll refill it. Do you think I should replace all of my filter media? Or would a thorough rinsing do? I have an Aquaclear 70 filter, so I have 1 sponge, 2 bags of bio, and 1 carbon bag in it. If Ich is in the water, I'd think the filter media would harbor them...I would just hate to throw away media that I just replaced.

Were those fish intended to be turtle food?

Yes, but Rio never ate the first 4 small fish I put in there when I first got him, so they kind of became his friends. He only eats any new fish I put in the tank! He never even looks at the old ones. Silly little guy