Did not quarantine long enough I guess

[piao liang yu]

I have an outbreak of ich in my 60 gallon planted.

I first noticed it on my neon tetras and upon closer inspection see it on my cherry barbs also. First saw it Sunday night. Started treating with Kordon ich attack yesterday as I have botia kubotai loaches. My loaches prevent me from doing anything stronger, but I have read plus I spoke to Kordon that if one heats the water up to 82 and treats up to eight weeks with Kordon then it will eradicate the ich. Anyone else have any experiences with it good, bad or otherwise?

The only things done differently is I added an AC70 to complement my AC110 and I added some guppies and two more red wag platies. They were quarantined, but not for a full two weeks. I do a pwc of 30%to50% every Friday. I feed omega one super color color flakes, mysis shrimp flakes on occasion, algae wafers every two or three days and every Tuesday night I give them some tubifex worms as a snack.

15 neon tetras
13 cherry barbs
10 guppies
4 otocinclus
4 red wag platies
3 kubotai botia aka Angelicus Botia aka polka dot loach
1 Dwarf Gourami.

I am raising the heat and added just a few tablespoons of salt and treating 200% dosage with kordon ich attack (100% dosage twice daily) as it says it is safe to do 300% dosage daily. How high is safe to raise the heat for my loaches?

 

[BettaGal]

Personally, I have not had Ich, (knock on wood), but I have had other parasites. The only suggestion I have on top of what you're doing is daily gravel vacuums. This will pick up some of the parasites that detached and remove them. I'm not sure the life cycle of Ich and don't know how fast they reattach, so I'll say it will remove some of them. It's a pain, but will help in the long run.

 

[piao liang yu]

Personally, I have not had Ich, (knock on wood), but I have had other parasites. The only suggestion I have on top of what you're doing is daily gravel vacuums. This will pick up some of the parasites that detached and remove them. I'm not sure the life cycle of Ich and don't know how fast they reattach, so I'll say it will remove some of them. It's a pain, but will help in the long run.

I actually have black sand as opposed to gravel.

As for the salt aspect. I only added about five tbsp of aquarium salt as opposed to the recommended 12 for my size tank. While I like my plants they can be replaced and will not endure suffering if they are harmed by too much salt. My concern is for my loaches. Will they be ok with the increased salt if I added a few more tablespoons? And is it ok to use salt in conjunction with kordon ich attack?

Again, what is the maximum temperature I can raise my tank to that will help eradicate disease and still be safe for my fish including my kubotai botia loaches?

 

[piao liang yu]

So can anyone tell me if it would be safe for my loaches and beneficial in general to add more salt above the five tablespoons I have alrady added to my 60 gallon tank? I am unable to get a concise answer via googling the question.

Reminder, I am also currently using Kordon ich attack all natural formula that is safe for scaleless fish such as loaches. Treating 100% dosage twice daily. Was going to use the double whammy approach and raise salt and temperature as well. Have temp at 83 now and would like to add a little more salt if it is safe.

 

[piao liang yu]

anyone?

 

[Berylla]

I've not had ich in my tanks since using a quarantine, but I the accepted drug free treatment is raising the temps to 87 degrees for 2 weeks, vacuuming substrate thoroughly every 3 days, and water change. If your fish can tolerate salt - 1 tbs/gallon. Some even put more salt (2-3 tbs/gallon) but I'm can't recommend this with pleco/cory cat fish.

 

[piao liang yu]

I've not had ich in my tanks since using a quarantine, but I the accepted drug free treatment is raising the temps to 87 degrees for 2 weeks, vacuuming substrate thoroughly every 3 days, and water change. If your fish can tolerate salt - 1 tbs/gallon. Some even put more salt (2-3 tbs/gallon) but I'm can't recommend this with pleco/cory cat fish.

I don't have any pleco's or cories, but I do have loaches and otocinclus. I am treating with an all natural ich treatment by kordon, but also want to use salt to complement treatment. Just not sure if adding the recommended amount of salt is safe for my loaches.

 

[Berylla]

I wouldn't add salt if you are medicating already. I would also try to find out if you actually need to up the temp with the meds. My worry is that warmer water needs more aeration and with the addition of meds it could be a bad thing.

 

[piao liang yu]

I wouldn't add salt if you are medicating already. I would also try to find out if you actually need to up the temp with the meds. My worry is that warmer water needs more aeration and with the addition of meds it could be a bad thing.

I actually called Kordon and they had one of their doctors call me back. He said he was a doctor. Anyway, he said raising the temperature speeds up the process. He said without raising the temperature it could take up to eight weeks to eradicate, but raising the temperature to 82 will make the ich hatch quicker and be susceptible to the medicine quicker. I have two filters that have the waterfall effect (ac110 and ac70) plus I have a bubble curtain going.

 

[Berylla]

I actually called Kordon and they had one of their doctors call me back. He said he was a doctor. Anyway, he said raising the temperature speeds up the process. He said without raising the temperature it could take up to eight weeks to eradicate, but raising the temperature to 82 will make the ich hatch quicker and be susceptible to the medicine quicker. I have two filters that have the waterfall effect (ac110 and ac70) plus I have a bubble curtain going.

GREAT. I'm glad you did that. I would do exactly as he suggests and skip the salt.

 

[Dreadz]

I'm not familiar with the meds you're using but I personally would avoid the meds and salt completely. With loaches being scaleless fish they can be sensitive to ich meds. Temperature alone is enough to treat ich and it's the method I use should ich sneak in to my tank with any new additions. Raise the temp gradually to 31ºc (88ºf I think) and keep it there for at least a week after the last spot disappears. Keep doing regular pwcs and substrate cleaning throughout the treatment and make sure there's plenty of aeration as the warmer water will carry less oxygen.

 

[piao liang yu]

I'm not familiar with the meds you're using but I personally would avoid the meds and salt completely. With loaches being scaleless fish they can be sensitive to ich meds. Temperature alone is enough to treat ich and it's the method I use should ich sneak in to my tank with any new additions. Raise the temp gradually to 31ºc (88ºf I think) and keep it there for at least a week after the last spot disappears. Keep doing regular pwcs and substrate cleaning throughout the treatment and make sure there's plenty of aeration as the warmer water will carry less oxygen.

Well I have already started treatment. It is said to be 100% natural and completely safe for scaleless fish and inverts. Anyway, right now I am trying to calibrate my heater. Got an eheim jager yesterday and so far it has brought my water temp up to 85, but it is not shutting off even though I had it set to 84. I recalibrated and it still has yet to shut off. Must be doing something wrong. Of course if my temp needs to be as high as 88f then it needs to continue heating, but I am a little concerned that it will continue heating beyond a safe point. Gonna continue to work with it.

 

[Berylla]

I had a jager that stopped working after a month and had to return. There's been some problems with Jagers from what I read in forums.

 

[piao liang yu]

I had a jager that stopped working after a month and had to return. There's been some problems with Jagers from what I read in forums.

well for corn sake. My research concluded the eheim jager's were the best around. I had initially went with a top fin, but it was literally too hot to the touch. Took it out and meant to get the eheim the next day, but just got it yesterday. It is not too hot to the touch like the top fin was. I mean the top fin literally burned my fingers when I was trying to adjust it in the water. This eheim jager is fairly warm, but I can leave a finger on it indefinitely with no problem so I am sure my otocinclus or anyone else that got on it will be fine. I turned the tem guage down below 80 and the light finally went off. I raised it back up to 84 and will wait for it to come back on and try to figure it out from there. At least that indicates to me it will shutoff once I get the calibration right. tank is currently at 86f

 

[Berylla]

Just keep an eye on it. I don't want to give you all the threads of complaints. Just keep your sales slip!