Ichy cichlid

[adamatic]

I have a cichlid that I've diagnosed as suffering from Ich. I've removed him (or her!) from the community tank and placed him in a 3 gallon 'hospital tank' on his own. There's no filter, but I am salting and aerating the small tank and heating it to ~85 degrees (I used water from the community tank). My questions are:
1. Is this a safe/suitable therapy?
2. Am I better off presuming the community is infested and treating the whole tank?
3. How long should I keep him in the 'hospital' AFTER the symptoms have subsided?

Thanks for the help!

 

[Jchillin]

There's no filter, but I am salting and aerating the small tank and heating it to ~85 degrees (I used water from the community tank). My questions are:

1. Is this a safe/suitable therapy?

Yes, though you may want to hike it up to 86d.

2. Am I better off presuming the community is infested and treating the whole tank?

I would treat the whole tank since the fact that the parasite came from in the first place.

3. How long should I keep him in the 'hospital' AFTER the symptoms have subsided?

If you are treating the whole tank (and I would), you could put him back in the community tank and treat the whole tank. An additional two weeks is good after all the ich spots are gone from all the fish.

HTH.

 

[Menagerie]

I agree with Jchillin. Best to treat everyone and there is a wonderful article on treating ich with heat and salt in the Articles Section.

 

[DirgeDevil]

it seems like if it's ich, that treatment should work fine. But make sure it's ich and not velvet, because you need copper sulfate meds for that. I made the same mistake (thought it was ich, but it was really velvet) and have lost 9 lyretil albino mollies to it. here's a good page on velvet if you want to compare.
http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/disease/p/velvet.htm

 

[FawnN]

I unfortunately experienced Ich this week when our power went out. I believe mine is already gone, but I am still treating for the next week to make sure.

I would have to agree with everyone and treat the entire tank.

1. If your carbon is new (less then 7 days old) I would remove it so the medicine is affective.

2. Turn your heat up to at least 86.

3. If you have an HOB, lower the level of water to make a bigger splash. This will give your fish more oxygen.

I find that doing small water changes every other day for a week with a gravel vac, will speed up the recover process and get rid of the ich that falls to the gravel.

Just remember not too over medicate and follow the instructions when doing your water changes.

Hope that helps.