African Brown Knife Has Ich! HELP!!!

[Beacious]

My African Brown Knife Has Ich! He is in a 10 gal and I'm doing the salt treatment, do I add the salt everyday till it is gone?

TIA

 

[Christmasfish]

With salt and heat do a 50% every other day adn make sure the addeed water is already salted for its amount to go back in. the salt can build up if you top off adn be diluted if your changes don't add it.

You already know that 10 galons is small except for QT.....hmmmm...
And that browns are a bit bigger than the albifrons species.
Being one of the scaleless fish you must take care with meds..try salt and heat first.
it wil get worse at first as you have seen by the posts here, ,then start clearing..but always do a couple days past the obvious clear to get hiding yukkies.

This is a bad week for many..even the most careful can mess up and have a disaster on their hands..... hence my mantras on QT ...why INVITE disaster?! It will come soon enough!

 

[Hypostomus]

If you only have a 10g and are not using it for a QT, please take the knife back when the ich issue has been eradicated.

 

[Menagerie]

Beacious, are you still saving money for the larger tank, or did you get a larger tank? I know you posted about many different fish. What made you decide on a knife?

 

[Beacious]

African Brown Knife fish are really cool and they stay small. Can we get back to the ich? Do I put in the salt everyday, every other day, once a week, how much?

 

[Menagerie]

Read the article on FW ich written by Allivymar. She suggests using something to measure the salinity. That way you will know how much salt is already in the water and how much you need to add. Also, you should be doing the heat treatment along with salt. The heat will speed up the life cycle of the ich.

 

[Hypostomus]

African brown knives are small relative to most of the other knives, but not small enough for a 10g.

 

[Beacious]

Thank you Hypostomus, but I didn't make this tread to be gotten on to (I'm saying your mean or anything, but I'm ready for you to say "I'm not trying to get on to you. I'm sorry if it seamed that way"...). I've checked that Ich article written by Allivymar, no help, but thanks anyway.

 

[Allivymar]

And why is the article no help? It states exactly what the specific gravity of the tank water should be; as long as you keep the water at that level it should eradicate ich. Is there information missing?

Oh, and since you state African Knifefish are small, do know they top out around 8 inches long. Certainly smaller then most, but does require a tank larger then a 10g pretty soon (they grow quickly).

 

[glasstapper]

hypostomus,, i know its frustrating and text can be ,,,impersonell, with all the lose of fish this week i believe everyones on edge,, were all tryin to help best of luck very good peeps in here

 

[millipede]

knife ich

Hey Beacious, do you have a heater? Let me know asap because I have one you could use or have... It's been a long time since I've used it so I don't know how well it still works but it's worth a try if you don't already have one...

 

[Beacious]

Allivymar,
it's not that is was no help it's just I can't understand it. And yeah millipede I've got a heater, thanks.

 

[Beacious]

The ICH is gone!

 

[MikeWinLDS]

ABK get only to about 6-8" so if it is by itself it is enough room. They're not super active like Zebra Danios, so they don't need that much leg room.

 

[Hypostomus]

:?

You're kidding, right?

 

[MikeWinLDS]

I'm afraid not, on the kidding part. Standard size 10-gallons are 20x10x12 which is adequate housing for an ABK. Beacious, your ABK should be fine for now in that 10-gallon tank, by himself or with very few other inhabitants.

http://www.aquariumfish.net/catalog_pages/wild/knifefish_african_black.htm
http://www.aquariumfish.net/catalog_pages/wild/wild_imported_fish.htm#africanknife

Size and Life Span. African Black Knife Fish can grow to 12" but rarely grow bigger than 8" in an aquarium. They can live for 10 years and sometimes longer.

Clown Loaches can get pretty darn big too, like 12" or so, but is it typical in home aquaria? No. Plus it takes years and years in the Wild for fish to get that big. I've rarely seen fish at their "max" size in home aquaria.

http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.cfm?genusname=Xenomystus&speciesname=nigri

Max. size: 20.0 cm TL (male/unsexed; Ref. 3516)

20 centimeters is roughly 8 inches (2.54cm in 1 inch, so 20/2.54 ~ 7.87 inches). If you were talking about BGK (Black Ghost Knife), on the other hand, would definately need a larger tank than 10 gallons, as it can get to about a foot and a half.

 

[Hypostomus]

So, please inform me how all of the knives in those videos are inactive and won't care about the fact that they can only swim 2.5x their body length. Nevermind that most knives are *messy* predators and the volume of water in a 10g is insufficient to deal with the amount of waste they produce.

Just because a knife may hang out behind a log or in a cave during the day doesn't mean that it isn't going to come out and swim around at night.

Also, from the exact page you mentioned:

Most types of Knifefish usually hide inside a cave during the day and come out at night to hunt for small fish.

Appropriate Home. An aquarium with at least 29 gallons of water, an exterior power filter with a BIO-Wheel, a maximum of 1/4 inch of gravel, and an aquarium heater adjusted to between 78 and 82 degrees F.

And others:

http://aquaworld.netfirms.com/Other/Xenomystus_nigri.htm
The fish require soft and acidic water, and a dark environment(floating plants, lots of driftwood, dark gravel and reduced light). Some free swimming space should be available, and the tank size should be 1 meter or larger.

http://aquaticadvice.com/level2/profiles_f/a_knife.html
Tank: 45-55 gallons

http://translate.google.com/transla...gri&start=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N (translated from French)
A vat of 200 liters minimum is preferable...

http://216.239.39.104/translate_c?h...gri&start=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N (also translated)
A large-sized aquarium is necessary because open space for the stroke is significant.

I moved my clown knife out when it hit 9" in my 55g and started to look uncomfortable. Putting an 8" fish in anything super-small based simply on the fact that it can physically fit in the tank is cruelty.

 

[MikeWinLDS]

29 gallons, 45-55 gallons, 53 gallons, etc. so many numbers. You know why there are so many numbers? It's probably because they don't even know how much is enough. Even an empty fish tank is crowded compared to a river, a lake, the ocean, etc. If they could, they would even say at least a 1,000 gallon tank at the minimum so the fish have lots and lots of room to move around.

Just because the fish poops alot doesn't mean you shouldn't have it in there. You can perform maintenance on the tank to clean it up. The fact of the matter is that people have kept fish in small quarters for generations. I'm not talking about the morals about it, whether it's right or wrong, just about what happens really.

What are you going to do about it? What can you do about it? Bomb the companies that make small "tanks" like Betta bowls? Go into LPS and LFS and liberate all those fish from such cramped quarters? If these things were deemed so cruel, then they wouldn't be anymore. But, really, I'm with you on wanting more room for fish, I wouldn't like to be stuck in my small room all day long.

Maybe Beacious doesn't have the money right now to upgrade. It's not like he's got some "shark" that's going to grow over 100" so maybe cut him a break. The 10-gallon that the ABK is in is probably a lot bigger than the small tank he got it from some LFS or LPS.

And the movies didn't work for me. I'm not going to pay $15 just to watch some clips. I've seen them IRL and in action before. My Chemistry/Physics teacher had a full-grown ABK in his tank in class. He shared it with two really big Goldfish. I forget how big the tank was, probably a 55-gallon or so.

And can you edit your links and make them shorter? It's stretching my tables.

 

[FMZ]

Dude,


Try this site

http://cichlid-forum.com/articles/ich.php


How did you get rid of ich by the way?? 8)

 

[Hypostomus]

What are you going to do about it?

Correct advice that I think is obviously wrong.


Congrats on getting rid of the ich, Beacious.