Saline treatment for treating ich with inverts and loaches

[Reeffrog]

Unknowingly I recently bought some sick neons from Petco. I noticed ich on them the morning after I purchased them. I quickly removed them from the tank and returned them to the store. Unfortunately a couple days later, ich is showing up on some of my other community tank residents. I cannot use anything copper based because I have a few snails, a whisker shrimp & freshwater clams. I also have a kuli loach so a high salinity treatment is out of the question. I've read that some people with inverts and loaches will raise the tank temp to 82* and add salt at a ratio of 1 tsp/gallon to treat the ich. Has anyone tried this?

 

[siva]

IME heat alone has worked just as well as heat and salt. Your temp may need to go higher than 82. Where's the temp at now? I believe the last time I treated a tank at 78 I brought it up to 84-85, slowly, go for about a degree at a time over a couple days. Reduce your water level a bit to get more surface agitation if you use a HOB filter and add an airstone..the high heat = less oxygen in water. Leave the lights off during the entire treatment. In a very bright room I would go a step further and cover the tank. Leave the heat up for 1 week after symptoms have gone. Do as many water changes as you can over the course of treatment and vac your substrate really well each time to remove as many cysts as you can.

 

[Khuligirl93]

Heat (82-84 degrees) and large 70% water changes daily has worked for me, I am currently using this method at the moment for one of my tanks because I also have salt intolerant fish.

Edit: you should also get more kuhli loaches because they like to be in groups of 6+