Treating Ick

[FishSticks]

I found a link on another topic in this forum to a web site that says the following...

...a long-term salt bath, building up over the first eight hours to a strength of one level teaspoon of common table salt per net gallon of water (and for some salt-tolerant freshwater fishes as much as a tablespoon, the equivalent of three teaspoons), at a temperature that is raised over 86oF. Plain table salt won't affect the pH of the water, but it must be strong enough...

I don't understand some of this hopefully someone in here can word it a bit better? So on my 10 gallon aquarium I would slowly add 10 teaspoons of salt in my aquarium and every time I make my 2 gallon water changes I would add 2 more teaspoons? Am I right? How long would you guys recommend I give my fish "salt baths" 2, 3 weeks?

 

[sylvia]

Yes but it says salt-tolerant freshwater fish. That means you need to count out any scaless fish like cory cats and keep in mind that some fish can be very sensitive to added salt.

As for how long. I think the link actualy answers that a bit further down. I read it earlier. I would say to keep the salt baths up until some days after the last spot of ick has dissapeared off the fish.

I'd actualy go for one of the commercial medications. It's much simpler than stressing fish with salt. (unless you have livebearers only or something that likes salt)

 

[BobK]

I'm not positive but I think you want to use uniodized table salt. Most table salt has iodine added because people don't get enough in their diet and can actually get a disease (scurvy I think) if they are deficient. However, I don't think it's good for the fish. Also, as time goes by and water is lost through evaporation your salt concentration can go up so be careful. There is a way of measuring the salinity but I'm not too familiar with it.

 

[corykitty516]

Salt sold specificaly for the aquarium would be your safest bet. It is pretty cheap and for a freshwater aquarium a box lasts a long time

oh .... some random useless knowlege

scurvy= lack of vitamins C (malnutrition) bones weaken

goiter= lack of iodine, the reason iodized salt was invented