oto with ich

[archan]

Hi everyone!

I am currently in a battle with ich. I had one pleco and 3 oto cat fishes in the tank. Right now im only left with one oto catfish, and it still has ich. When the outbreak started it was March 20. I have been dosing API super ich cure which uses malachite green. I have been dosing 8 ml for my 8 gallon tank every 24 hours. current tank temperature is 28 degrees celsius or 82.4 fahrenheit.


I really want to raise my temperature to 86 fahrenheit but I have utricularia graminifolia, so im not sure if they can handle the temperature, im also not sure if my last oto catfish can survive the temp.


Should i use aquarium salt? should I change a medication? PLEASE HELP ME

 

[Cecibella123]

Have you tried removing the oto to quarantine? If you don't have a separate quarantine tank, a small plastic tote or bucket would work for so small a fish. A small heater and an air pump should be all you need. Then you can raise water temp without worry. No idea on the aquarium salt though. I don't use it much, but have never had much trouble curing ich.

 

[Laeris]

Raising temp only seems to quicken the metabolism of ich on the fish, which is helpful. Not required for treatment. Bummer about your other fish. Ich treatments don't tend to kill plants, so if you don't have a bare tank, don't worry about it. Understand you'll have free floating ich until it dies off.

Apparently there is a medication that does kill all stages of ich but I've unhelpfully forgotten what it is.

 

[archan]

Well the problem is that my tank is heavily planted and I don't have an air stone or another heater

 

[archan]

I wanted to quarantine but, it seems ich has already infected my main tank, so even if I remove the fish, the ich is still inside

 

[Cecibella123]

I'm not sure with a heavily planted tank, but have you tried straight Malachite Green? I know you said your med had it as an ingredient, but perhaps a stronger concentration would work. Do you have activated carbon in your filter media? Carbon will filter out meds before they have a chance to become effective.

 

[archan]

i removed the carbon, right now i have the seachem purigen in its place since i heard it dosnt absorb the chemicals. does anyone have experience with UG? can it handle high temperature? can it handle salinity? (UG stands for utricularia graminifolia)

 

[Delapool]

Pretty sure Purigen will be similar to carbon and should be removed for med treatments. Organic dyes and antibiotics if memory on a late night is correct.

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...nes.html#/forumsite/20597/topics/89748?page=1

If you are using an ich med, you don't need salt. To make a difference using salt I'd be wary as it could be a problem for planted tanks. Can't comment on that plant directly though.

Ich meds of malachite green and formalin I've found will seem to wilt plants after maybe a week. Don't treat ich very often however.

 

[archan]

since it says that purigen removes organic compounds question is if malachite green an organic compound, i dont really want to remove it because its my only type of filtration at the time......

 

[Delapool]

since it says that purigen removes organic compounds question is if malachite green an organic compound, i dont really want to remove it because its my only type of filtration at the time......

You will need to do some research to check but last time I looked at this the Purigen will remove the dyes like MG as well.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malachite_green

What do have left in your filter for biomedia or sponge?

 

[archan]

i only have like a micron mechanical filter. By the way. my tank at the same time is experiencing an algae outbreak...... i just starting my blackout today...

 

[Delapool]

Seachem support servers are down for some reason so haven't been able to find out much more.

I'd do a water change between each ich treatment. This will remove dead algae and other organic material which will soak up the med before it can be effective.

Something to look into would be a few ceramic bio-media rings or noodles for your filter where the bacteria can live (assuming I have your filter media list correct of originally carbon and micron filter).

If the carbon was getting regularly changed every few weeks then may not be much bacteria in the filter. If you have an ammonia test, you could just keep an eye on ammonia during treatment. There may be enough bacteria elsewhere in the tank that you are ok.

 

[archan]

I test my parameters every two days, all looks fine. So far