One proven way to treat ich/ick

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By the way I read in another thread you can use table salt. I was wondering can you use the Morton Water Softener Salt. Its cheap 4 bucka a bag at Lowes.

Lupin seems to be the man to anwser this quetion.
 
I went and bought some aquarium salt and I'm going to do a water change before I add the salt. I'm concerned for the pictus catfish. I think I remember someone on this thread mentioning that they are less tolerant of salt. Couldnt find any ich-attack. I would have rather used that with the heat.
 
I think the 3rd post in this thread states do not use water softener salt. Guess you could pm the person who posted that and try to get an answer to that one.
 
I cant get the tank to heat up. I have 3 heaters in it and it still isnt above 80. I added 1 cup of aquarium salt (disolved in water). I know that I should have added more but I'm concerned that I might add too much too fast or kill my pictus cat because of the salt altogether.
 
ssalyers;2442349; said:
By the way I read in another thread you can use table salt. I was wondering can you use the Morton Water Softener Salt. Its cheap 4 bucka a bag at Lowes.
Lupin seems to be the man to anwser this quetion.
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I wouldn't. Water softener salt isn't the same thing, there's actually 3 different kinds. Just go to WalMart and get the Pickling Salt in a green box. It's $1.25/box and dosed at 2 TBS/5 gal will treat a 250 g tank (don't ask me how I know).
 
lighthouse39183;2442060; said:
Ok, so I have read through this entire thread and I now have a few questions. I bought a green severum and placed him in my new 125g tank with my oscar, african cichlid, tiger barbs, pictus catfish, bumblebee cichlids, bala sharks, and pleco. All the fish are small right now. The green severum was looking beautiful until this morning when I got home from work. He developed something all over his body just over night! It looks like ich but I really dont know for sure. I have now quarantined him to a 10g tank and used a med to treat him. I am also raising the temp on both tanks. I keep my 125g at 78. I'm slowly raising the temp now. Do u think this is ich? It looks like crystals covering the severum's entire body. Any suggestions?
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Soundsd like ICH to me, "crystals", or salt, sugar, white sand... ICH.

Now you have two tanks to treat...:nilly:
Since he was in the 125, it is now for a practical consideration infested with whatever the Sev has.

Q U A R A N T I N E! Learn it, live it & love it.

My treatment has been the same for quite some time now.
Temp to at least 88'F.
***90'F won't hurt any of those fish is it is brought up slowly and heavy aeration/surface agitation is used to counter lowered 02 levels.

Since you have the cat/pleco, skip the salt, or half dose and observe for stress.

Kordons 'ICH-Attack', max dosage.

Continue temp/salt/med for at least two weeks after last sign of infestation.
 
Thank you. I will have to make a trip to Jackson and see if I can find the Ich-Attack. Couldn't find it in town.
 
I'd just like to share my experience treating with the heat only method.
I didn't want to remove the plants from my wc heros, and stress them more by taking away cover and rearranging the tank. I also have seen a disturbing variation in the amount of salt recommended by various sources. Not that I don't trust Lupin's numbers or experiences specifically, but from an empirical point of view, I had fears of improper execution or other error on my part.

I chose to implement the strictly extreme heat method, which worked wonders. The heat was increased gradually (over the course of about 1.5 days) to 90 degrees. It seemed to cause no significant distress on the fish, they did seem more energetic though. I added an extra airstone to ensure adequate aeration. Although the symptoms disappeared after about 3 days, the temperature was kept at an even 90 degrees for 10 days, to ensure that the ich parasites were completely clear from the tank. I then lowered the temp back down to 80 over the course of 3-4 days.
I would highly recommend this method as it has the least potential to go wrong and requires the modfication on the most minimal amout of parameters.
 
that sound effective, the only problem would be making sure the heat stays at the necessary level, otherwise you speed up the ich without destroying it
 
You can fool ich into hatching out in a fishless tank, where, because the tomites don't find a host, will die. Just add some water from a tank with fish into the fishless tank. Either pheromones or waste products (don't know for sure which) from the fish trigger the ich cysts into "hatching" into a hostless enviroment.
It is theorized that some cysts may lay dorment for months, maybe years, though, and may survive in dust.
At the end of last summer the fish in my pond were wiped out because of ich.
This spring, before adding fish, whenever I did a water change in the tanks indoors, I would add a few gallons to the pond.(this also aided in cycling the pond)
No problems at all this summer when fish were added @ month later.
 
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