Best ich treatment? Urgent, pls help me.

[siva]

This is just part of the link of the article that I posted. The part about white spots is not actually the ich but a biological response to the parasite...

Yeah I was just reading that. Good info. Those fish look just like my fish. I just started salt and heat. Sigh.

 

[siva]

i'm sorry today wasn't my best day in fish land either... (long story)

i would say bleach.... use a dilution of bleach and rinse extremely well after

I'm sorry too, mommytron. Hope your fishies are okay. It sure is stressful isn't it

 

[roydooms]

Check out the thread that I started "is this ich? help". Tim Whitley gave great advice on how to treat ich with salt and high temp. It didn't work for me but it might work for you. It was working at first but the salt was killing my plants. So I stopped. I ended up using "ich cure". Check outthe thread and feel free to ask me questions.

Edit: tim's advice on salt and high-temp worked really well for him.

 

[Rosenweiss]

Just so you know, siva, ich DOES affect inverts. And the cysts can be found in the gravel too, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were also on the walls.

Also, the white spots are excesses of slime coat made by the fish in order to fight the irritation from the parasites, which are themselves microscopic.

 

[roydooms]

Ich can be anywhere in your tank but you will only see them(white spots) when they are attached to the host.

 

[siva]

Check out the thread that I started "is this ich? help". Tim Whitley gave great advice on how to treat ich with salt and high temp. It didn't work for me but it might work for you. It was working at first but the salt was killing my plants. So I stopped. I ended up using "ich cure". Check outthe thread and feel free to ask me questions.

Edit: tim's advice on salt and high-temp worked really well for him.

Good thread, thank you. I'm really hoping salt and heat will work.

I can't believe your discus had it. That would really be stressful!

 

[siva]

Just so you know, siva, ich DOES affect inverts. And the cysts can be found in the gravel too, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were also on the walls.

Also, the white spots are excesses of slime coat made by the fish in order to fight the irritation from the parasites, which are themselves microscopic.

Ok. My initial concern was if I would be able to treat with them in the tank, but the salt and heat they should be OK with...hopefully. I know meds aren't always invert safe and I had initially thought I be using one of those products.

 

[roydooms]

Yea. That was stressful. I'm used to doing PWC twice a week anyway. So it wasn't really a big deal. I did a PWC every 3 days when I used "ich cure". Twice a week also when I was treating with salt and high temp but it doesn't have to be every 3 days. Make sure to add the total salt needed in two-days time to not shock your fish. When you do a PWC just add salt depending on how much water you replaced.

 

[roydooms]

I have discus that's why it's ok for me raise the temp up to 86-87F. I'm not sure with the fish that you have though.

 

[Rosenweiss]

Ok. My initial concern was if I would be able to treat with them in the tank, but the salt and heat they should be OK with...hopefully. I know meds aren't always invert safe and I had initially thought I be using one of those products.

Yeah, you're right, any meds with copper will destroy inverts.

 

[siva]

Yes I read that thread thoroughly and I do have a hydrometer so that'll help me not over-do the salt. I added an airstone as well. I've been meaning to do that anyway. I'm working on trying to figure out the max temp I should go to with these fish.

I finally figured out what these purple striped fish are really called, so I found info on them for the first time. They are dadios. There isn't a whole lot of info on them but the best I can find says their max temp is 75, so that's just spendid.

 

[roydooms]

You can try raising the temp over 75. Just watch your fish if they'll start acting weird. I have corydoras in my discus tank and they prefer temps around 78F but when I got the ich I slowly increased the temp to 86-87F (2-3 degrees a day) and it didn't seem to bother them. That's not always the case though that's why increase the temp slowly and observe your fishes.

 

[siva]

Yeah the temp was over 75 to begin with lol. It was 78 and it's at 80 now. I plan to keep bumping it up slowly. Everyone is acting fine right now except for one dadio that has the spots and is swimming like he's trying to shake it off. Poor thing.

 

[roydooms]

Did you already add some salt?

 

[siva]

So far I have added salt 3 times, and have the heat at about 83. I need to bust out the hydrometer and see where the SG is at but I had company all day today and things have been too crazy...tomorrow. The more salt goes in and the more heat goes up the better the platties seem to feel. The neons had some rapid gill movement but I switched air pumps with a more powerful one and I think that helped. There are no new white spots. So far I'm hopeful.

 

[lucavicini]

Hi Siva,

Now that you started with salt you probably should continue with the treatment.
I am not a great fan of treatment with salt. If the fishes are already weakened by the infection the salt might act like the last nail in the coffin.

Two months ago I got an ich outbreak in the quarantine tank and I treated it. successfully with metronidazole.
Metronidazole is sold in many countries in pharmacies off the counter (at least in Spain). It is sold in Europe under the brand name Flagyl. It's a medicine specifically targeted against protozoa.

You should put 250mg for every 25 liters of water every 24h. The tablets should be smashed and then dissolved into the tank. You should also remove the carbon filter during the treatment.

After a week of treatment I got totally rid of the infection.

Hope it will help
Cheers
Luca

 

[lucavicini]

I forgot... I don't know if metronidazole is invertebrates friendly.

Metrodinazole, is nothing as heavy as Malachite Green, Copper Sulfate or Potassium Permanganate. It act specifically on anaerobic cells, like protozoa, amoebas and many bacteria and it has little effect on fishes.

Nevertheless it will harm the nitrifying bacteria and will brake the nitrogen cycle in the aquarium, therefore its usage should be confined to an hospital tank.

 

[roydooms]

Salt and high temp didn't work for me. It didn't bother my corydoras and didn't kill my snails but my plants new growth was bad. So i switched to "ich cure" which is malachite green. It is safe for plants. Since I have corydoras and snails, I cut the dosage. It's supposedly 1 drop per gallon but I dosed 80 drops in a 125g. I dosed every 3 days after large PWC. Total of 6. Even if I didn't see any white spots. You'd want to continue to treat even if there is no white spots for a few days to kill the free-floating cysts and in the substrate. That's why huge PWC are required to flush them out and also to dilute the medicine before dosing again. I'm not sure about having to move the infected fish in a "hospital tank" for if you've see an Ich spot, it is in the whole tank. So, you should treat the whole tank.

As for the metrodinazole, this is what I use for my discus if I suspect they have parasites. I moved the infected to a separate tank. It's a great stuff.

 

[siva]

Well I'm hoping I caught it early enough that they weren't too weakened by infection. I usually avoid salt at all costs, but in my paticular scenario, I think it's my best bet, atleast as my first try. Another factor, I had salt and heat in the house when I discovered the the ich, where as in my small town I don't know if I could have found a decent ich killing product, if I had it probably wouldn't have been invert safe, and I certainly couldn't wait for something to be shipped. Everyone seems to be feeling better since I've been adding salt, so that's eased my concerns about using the salt to some extent.

I will definitely keep treating for atleast a few days after the spots are gone.

 

[mommytron]

I forgot... I don't know if metronidazole is invertebrates friendly.

Metrodinazole, is nothing as heavy as Malachite Green, Copper Sulfate or Potassium Permanganate. It act specifically on anaerobic cells, like protozoa, amoebas and many bacteria and it has little effect on fishes.

Nevertheless it will harm the nitrifying bacteria and will brake the nitrogen cycle in the aquarium, therefore its usage should be confined to an hospital tank.

Copper will kill inverts and scaleless fish