Help with ich

[Kaneu]

I know there are alot of forums about ich. But none of them are referenced to fish in planted tanks with shrimp.
I am just now starting to see fish with the sure sign of ich forming on there bodies and wondering what to do to nip it in the but. I have a quarinteen tank cycling. But it is only a 10 gallon.
Any advice on something i can add to help get rid of ich in my display tank? I do have shrimp/plants that i am trying to save as well. So i know salt is out of the question.

[King Fisher]

Personally, I've used a dose of aquarium salt at 1 TEAspoon per 5 gallons of water with plants and shrimp in the past if you want to take the chance.

If it's an early stage of ich, raise the temp to 82 degrees and do a 25% daily water change with a light gravel vacuum. The idea is to bump up heat to speed up the life cycle of ich and as the eggs fall off the fish and onto the substrate prior to free swimming you vacuum them up. Many people just go with this method and leave out the salt.

IME, the heat, salt and vac method takes anywhere from 7-10 days.

[Kaneu]

Ok. I was able to get the fish out of the tank and into a small quarantine i have set up with main tank water. I will do several gravel vacs within the next few days but im really hoping I caught this soon enough. It was a group of black neon tetras i bought from petsmart that showed signs of it. I have salt and seacham's Paragaurd coming in the mail tomorrow so i will dose salt, raise temp and paragaurd my quarentine tank and hope for the best.

[King Fisher]

Now you got ich in both tanks so you'll have to treat both

[Kaneu]

Should i not have moved the fish with signs of ich into quarantine? That is a bare tank with 2 simple decors for fish to hide in. So that tank will be easy.

[Reygan2]

Originally Posted by King Fisher

Now you got ich in both tanks so you'll have to treat both

Yep.

I've done heat/salt with success, but the temp needs to be at least 86. I found that dosing Kordon Rid Ich Plus was much easier and effective.

[shellyx]

When I had ich in my tanks I only ever treated it with heat (I have sensitive fish and inverts) plenty of pwc and lots of added oxygen due to the heat. Never had any losses.

[King Fisher]

Originally Posted by Reygan2

Yep.

I've done heat/salt with success, but the temp needs to be at least 86. I found that dosing Kordon Rid Ich Plus was much easier and effective.

86 speeds up the life cycle of ich but will also hammer his plants. 82 degrees is fine, it will just take a little longer to rid the tank of ich. Kordon's does work good but I've never tried it with live plants to know if it damages them or not.

[King Fisher]

Originally Posted by Kaneu

Should i not have moved the fish with signs of ich into quarantine? That is a bare tank with 2 simple decors for fish to hide in. So that tank will be easy.

I would have just fixed the problem in your main tank. You still have to rid your main tank of ich because the parasite is in it.

[Reygan2]

Originally Posted by King Fisher

86 speeds up the life cycle of ich but will also hammer his plants. 82 degrees is fine, it will just take a little longer to rid the tank of ich. Kordon's does work good but I've never tried it with live plants to know if it damages them or not.

Nah...no damage to plants at all when I used it in my planted goldfish tank.

[King Fisher]

Originally Posted by Reygan2

Nah...no damage to plants at all when I used it in my planted goldfish tank.

Good to know. Thanks!!

[Kaneu]

Originally Posted by King Fisher

86 speeds up the life cycle of ich but will also hammer his plants. 82 degrees is fine, it will just take a little longer to rid the tank of ich. Kordon's does work good but I've never tried it with live plants to know if it damages them or not.

Any problem with using that and having amano shrimp in the tank?

[Kaneu]

Originally Posted by King Fisher

I would have just fixed the problem in your main tank. You still have to rid your main tank of ich because the parasite is in it.

Ok. I moved the fish back and emptied out my quarantine tank. I thought by moving the fish early i was getting ich out. I didnt realize I still had it. But after reasearch i guess its always present.
So it only seems to show on 1 type of fish in my tank, is there any other type of disease that can manifest as white dots on body and fins and not be ich? Or could my other fish in the tank just have better slime coats so they arnt getting targeted?

[King Fisher]

It's not safe with shrimp from what I understand.

Velvet sort of looks like ich. I'd say it's probably ich being it's so common. Can you post pics?

[Kaneu]

Originally Posted by King Fisher

It's not safe with shrimp from what I understand.

Velvet sort of looks like ich. I'd say it's probably ich being it's so common. Can you post pics?

Sure thing. It actually looks like they have less spots this just this morning when i looked. So either they died off or they are reproducing. But the spots are mainly on the dorsal and caudal fins. A dot or 2 on the top of the head

[King Fisher]

Is there anything on the body? Hard to tell in the pic. Not sure what you got going on with the fins is ich.

[Kaneu]

Originally Posted by King Fisher

Is there anything on the body? Hard to tell in the pic. Not sure what you got going on with the fins is ich.

This is not. And weirdly, i had 7 of those black neon tetras. Since i have last posted on thos thread, all but 2 have died. I'm not sure if it was because of the white spots on them, or something else. My rainbows show zero sign of anything ich or disease related as of today when i last looked. It is just these neons.
The 2 that are left still only ever have 1 or 2 spots on them at any time that i look. This makes me wonder if it really is ich. I still have the temp up to around 80, and doseing pimafix and metafix according to directions given. Maybe that is helping?