How do YOU get the ick out of your planted tank?

[Raimeiken]

I know raising the temp is harmful to your plants and also adding salt. How do you get rid of it? do you just do water changes?

 

[TheNewGuy]

I never heard that salt was bad for a planted tank. OH NO! I better do a bunch of water changes in my 10g thriving planted tank ... JK you can use salt in your planted tank. Just keep it in the recomended dose.

 

[Raimeiken]

:|

 

[brotherd]

I use NOX ICH.Impressive results.No harm to plants or bio filter.Use half strength with scaleless fish,ie:freshwater clowns,plecos,etc. 8)

 

[jsoong]

Depends on the plants you have. Some tolerate salt, some don't. Just check & make sure.

Or, you can remove the fish to a QT tank & treat fish there.

 

[Raimeiken]

yeah i know i can take the fishes out, but won't the parasites stay in the water until you kill them?

 

[malkore]

aqua sol is a relatively mild Ich med...I've been told it can be used in a planted tank...never personally tried it though

 

[Guest]

I know raising the temp is harmful to your plants

Some plants yes, but most could easily take the mid 80s for a couple weeks, even though you don't need that long for ich treatment.

 

[madasafish]

Yeah, it's mostly Crypts, sometimes cabombas, and sometimes vals that are affected negatively by high temps. BUT, I'm very gradually increasing the temp of my tank to combat ich and have gotten up to about 81 degrees with no fatalities, and I have cabomba and crypts.

I'll repost if they die on me!

 

[Guest]

Some Apons too. I cannot grow Madagascar Lace for the reason that they will not toleerate my 80 degree tank temp for more than maybe a month before croaking. (not going dormant either, the bulb dies, trust me, I made sure)

 

[Raimeiken]

I have

asian ambulia
Baby tears
parrot's feather
water clover
dwarf sag
moneywort
rotala indica
anubias nana
wisteria
water sprite
lobelia cardinalis [cardinal plant]

are any of these sensitive to high temps?

 

[betowess]

I have safely and unsafely used Aquari-sol in a planted tank. If fact I used it safely for a number of times (the stuff in a white bottle with yellow trim - net 4 fl oz. you dose 12 drops to 10 gallons). No problem. Worked great...

Then I bought a large "PRO" pint bottle dosing 1 ml per 18 gallons. Killed EVERY plant except my big strong and healthy anubias nana... didn't phase the snails either and this was a nice established & balanced tank. So BEWARE. Maybe I mis- dosed, but maybe the plants don't like too much of soluble copper salts. For now its an unplanted tank ugh...

 

[TheMadNucleus]

yeah i know i can take the fishes out, but won't the parasites stay in the water until you kill them?

If you leave the tank Fishless for about 14 days it's a good likelihood that the tank will be ick-free (sounds like a walt disney toon name).

Ick requires a host to spawn - it does this in the mucus membrane of fish. It cycles a few days on the fish then leaves the fish to replicate then begins the cycle again. If there is no host the free floating icks will die off after about 7 days - use 14 to be absolutely sure.

Also - if you have a diatom - run that every few days through the 14 day period (I usually rinse it in chlorine mix after each use in this app). The ick cysts are larger than the diatom openings, therefore the diatom will filter many of them out - speeding recovery time.

Just noticed that your question never got addressed (I don't think)

Anyway - HTH

Tom