Molly cured?

[guns286]

One of my black mollies started showing all the signs of ich. Small white spots; inactivity, etc.. I read that high temps and sea salt could help. So I cleared my fry out of their 5g nano, put him in, turned the temp up to 80 degrees and added 1 tablespoon of salt. By the next morning the spots were gone. The following morning he was as active as active as he could be in a 5g tank. Does that sound right? Could the healing have begun so quickly? If so, when is he considered "cured"? I want to put him back in the community.

 

[Zagz]

If it was ich, it will not heal in one day. Keep an eye out for any flashing or any more spots. The general rule of thumb is to keep the heat above 87 for 2 weeks AFTER the last spot of ich is gone.

 

[guns286]

Is there anything else it could have been? I just checked him again and no spots. Just to be safe I guess I should wait another week before I put him back in the big tank?
By the way, should I put some salt and turn the heat up in the main tank for awhile, just to be safe?

 

[Etunes]

Why salt. Why does everyone want to put salt in there aquariums? No, don't use salt. Just do what Zagz said. Keep the temp up for 2 weeks or so and that should be enough.

 

[guns286]

Tell you the truth, I saw info that said salt was good, and that it was bad. I really just tried it out of desperation and it seemed to work. But, I really dont know what happened. Maby it did nothing. I'll crank the heat up to 85-87 degrees for a couple of weeks and get things back to normal after that. I'm assuming I'm going to keep the molly out until I turn the temp back down in the main tank.
Thanks for the advice guys.

 

[Etunes]

Tell you the truth, I saw info that said salt was good, and that it was bad. I really just tried it out of desperation and it seemed to work. But, I really dont know what happened. Maby it did nothing. I'll crank the heat up to 85-87 degrees for a couple of weeks and get things back to normal after that. I'm assuming I'm going to keep the molly out until I turn the temp back down in the main tank.
Thanks for the advice guys.

That is good. Sorry if i snapped a little bit. Did not mean to sound rude. I keep the temp at 86 when i have ich issues. But i hop it goes well. Always better to be safe then sorry.

 

[tlkng1]

I will chime in here on the salt issue

Using salt depends on the fish you have. Mollies are brackish water fish and do better with some salt in their tank, so using salt for the ich in a quarrantine tank is not necessarily a bad thing. The salt combined with the higher temp will help the ich issue. Frm what I have read, been told, Mollies are prone to fundgus and ich issues. The added salt for them helps guard against these issues.

Now, if your main tank has fish that dont' like salt, or you are running a community or have live plants, then just increasing the temp is the better way to go.

While I have a Molly species tank set-up, I still prefer to use the API ich cure. I have found in the past that this works better than the rise in temps and doesn't seem to stress the fish quite as much. Granted, you have to put up with the greensh colored water for a couple of weeks until water changes and the carbon take it out (if you use the ich cure, remove the carbon media before treatment).

There is debate as to whether or not the ich cure hurts the bacteria colonies, but, I have yet to have to recylce a tank, or suffer an ammonia spike, after using it.