Ick looks like tiny sugar crystals. They can be anywhere on the body.
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Good pictures of ICK here:
http://cichlidresearch.com/gifs/disease ... C_9878.jpg
http://www.cureforich.com/images/poorfish.jpg
http://www.reefs.org/library/aquarium_n ... mg0078.jpg
There are many ick cures.
Whatever you do, DO IT NOW.
Ick is easy to kill, but will wipe out your tank if ignored.
If I were you:
I would take out the live plants and leave them in another tank or just a bucket of fresh water (change water occasionally, or add an airstone.)
Put in 2 teaspoons of salt
per 1 gallon of water,
into the ick infested fish tank.
Turn up heat to 81 degrees F.
Optionally, you can use another medicine
instead of OR in addition to the sodium chloride...
I like to use salt with one of the above because there are more than one species of ick.
Copper based medicines will kill shrimp AND snails AND ick.
Malachite green & formaldhyde medicines will only kill ick,
but need to be re-dosed every 12 - 24 hours
(the dye breaks down with light, or gets locked up with filter carbon... the formaldehyde evaporates faster than water.)
(if you use salt , put it in only ONE TIME...
the salt only comes out of the tank when you take water out of the tank)
As the medicine starts working, it will look as if the ick is getting "worse",
but it will be getting better.
The marks will go from white to sort of greyer, and bigger.
What you will be seeing is the damage to the flesh.
As the ick leaves the body, it makes a tear in the fish's skin.
If you water is not clean sometimes these small wounds can get infected.
Ick is water born, so use different equipment so that you don't bring it from tank to tank.
Freshwater ick can't stand saltwater.
Saltwater ick can't stand freshwater.
Any type of Sodium Chloride will work against freshwater ick.
2 TEAspoons of salt per 1 gallon of water is the MOST salt you can use on freshwater fish.
Ick won't survive out of water for long
(it will dry & die.)
Ick won't survive in a tank with zero fish
(it will starve to death in about 2 weeks,
it feeds on the juice of live fish only....
kind of like a tick on a mammal.)