question about curing ich please help fish could die soon

[coolkidthatlike]

hi, my 20 gal tank is infested with ich. Today i lost a pictus cat. One of my clown loaches has the specs on him, and is acting strange, and i just barely noticed that some of my tiger barbs were doing to scratching thing too. I am getting very worried now. I am treating with quick cure, i raised temp to max my heater will go (around 84 degrees) and i added 4 tablespoons of aquarium salt. One of my dilimmas is that on the quick cure bottle, it sais to remove carbon. Now i have the penguin 125, which the filters are sold premade with the carbon in, no way to remove it. I have been leaving my filter out, but i dont think this is very good. So what should i do, out or in??? please help, my fish could die at any minute.

 

[saberry]

How old is the carbon? If it has been in for awhile, it won't be as effective and may not hinder you results as much. Good luck with those loaches - scaless fish are very susceptible - I think they are pretty sensative to the salt too so you may want to do some more checking before adding any more.

 

[Scottw68TN]

Cut a slit in the top of the filter and dump the carbon out. You will be able to reuse one for a long time that way or fill with your own carbon later. If its over a month old it wont effect your meds much anyway.

 

[myriam]

Are you sure your heater can't go up any higher? I took a bunch of advice here for my ich problem, esp. from Allivymar, and I've turned up my heater over the last 2 days to get to 87. I added just a bit of salt (4 Tbsp - 20gallon tank), because I know my Cories would be sensitive to it. Then I also did a 25% water change. Just in the last 24 hrs I noticed my fish a LOT happier, and the Black Mollies that had the tiny ich spots on them only have a few spots left (they had a lot on their backs and tails before).

 

[cindywindy]

Hi, Cool !

First, it is true that scaleless fish aren't tolerant of salt, so I would recommend discontinuation of that and just keep up with the medication regimen. If there is some way you could get your temp up just a bit higher, that will also help enormously. I always recommend temps from 86-88* in the treatment of ich, raised slowly and carefully over the course of a few hours. You may also want to make sure you are keeping up with your water changes, taking care to change 40-50% of your water every 2-3 days and vacuuming your substrate completely to eliminate debris and decaying food where disease-causing bacteria are found.

In terms of the carbon, Scott had a good idea to cut open the cartridge to eliminate the carbon, and still be able keep the quality of filtration that you need during this time.

If your fish are still eating, be sure to feed them a healthy and varied diet to keep their immune systems strong and healthy, sometimes this makes all the difference between a healthy fish and a sick fish !

 

[Scottw68TN]

Concur on the heels of cindy again. vacuum good the fall to the bottom after they fall off but are free swimming soon after that. so water change as well. Scaleless fish tolerate some salt just not the amount needed for this process and half of what most meds suggest for scaled fish.