Ichy Angel, catfish and salt???

[jakeandwendy]

okay per the sticky at the top of forum: tanks been up with fish in it since 2/11/11, cycling with fish(da##it!),amm between <.25 >.50, nitrite and nitrate 0ppm, ph 6.8 temp 79 F. Using Amquel in pwc's because my source water is amm 1.0. 40% pwcs daily. have an api master kit (liquid). Noticed that the larger Angel was sulking by the uptake tube of the ugf and not eating. Water parameters were acceptable so got curious. Usually hes really active, chasing the smaller angel, eating algae, playing in the flow of the hob, etc. Noticed a white spot above his eye, looks like a cotton ball the size of a grain of salt...! Just the one spot and he eats a little, but not as much and still sulks. It looks like all the pictures of Ich i've found on the internet. Been feeding flakes, sinking pellets for the cats and half a block of frozen bloodworms once a week. only been feeding the tank once a day, about half to a quarter rations, to help keep the ammonia down while cycling. I have increased the tanks temp to 82F and will increase it to 86F over the course of the morning. I have read that salt is used in Ich treatment along with raising the temp and pwc's. Only problem is i have two raphael cats and a gold claw crab. Won't the salt hurt them? Possibly kill them? i haven't used any medicine yet, read that the temp raising was the way to go, but i'm willing to follow sound advice. Any thoughts? "My tanks" is update. Thank you guys SOOOO much! this site is AWESOME!!

 

[dkpate]

I would just go with the heat, and add an airstone or lower the water level (warmer water has less oxygen). It will still get rid of ich, since the ich can't reproduce in that high of temps. Leave the temp up for at least 10 days.

 

[jakeandwendy]

thats what i did. raised the tank temp 1 degree every two hours to 86F. thanks on the length though, wasn't sure about that. was pretty bummed when i noticed it until i read its pretty common in new tanks that are cycling and it wasn't the result of some huge error on my part. just gonna keep an eye on it and go from there.

 

[dkpate]

If the spot starts getting bigger though, it could be a fungus, and higher temps will make it worse. If it IS ich, it will look worse all over his body too, so be prepared.

 

[jakeandwendy]

okay think i'm wrong on the ich but temps already up... was trying to take a picture when i noticed a long cottony streamer coming off of him, too thick to be a hair. have no idea what to do but the angel i thought had ich is definitely dying. i don't have a qt tank and he's pretty bad. the other angel is showing the same symptoms but the cats appear to be doing fine.

 

[dkpate]

Ok, well if you don't think it's ich, I would take the temp back down. If possible, get some Ich-Attack by Kordon. It treats a variety of things, not just ich, and it won't kill your beneficial bacteria.

 

[jakeandwendy]

okay thanks. yeah i'm leaning towards fungus. i don't think the angels gonna make it through the night though

 

[jakeandwendy]

the angel died and now the other one is acting the same way...

 

[dkpate]

Well, the hig heat won't bother them as much as the other fish, angels prefer 82* anyway, so there has to be something else going on. If you google Kordon Ich-Attack, it will tell you all the things it treats.