ich in my tank, WHAT TO DO??

[rcl]

i have set up a 120g tank a week ago, there are a lot of fish in it and my ammonia/nitrites are both 0 thanks to a fishless cycle. my nitrates ~10ppm. today i noticed that one of my clown loaches has ICH!!!! they all seem to act fine and i haven't noticed any weird flicking or anything, but this one guy has 3 or 4 white spots on him that look like salt, so...

my problem comes in that I think this is the only fish that has ich in the whole tank, but does that mean that I should treat the entire tank (since theres obviously ich in the tank if this one has it)? or can I remove the fish to another tank and treat it, and not worry about the other ifshes?

this is complicated because my 120g has a couple shrimp and snails, which would all die if i treated. if i removed them to the 10g they'd die too, because my friend that gve me the tank used copper pennies in the substrate

its also complicated because i can't seem to catch this loach, and if the other fish are being exposed to ich then i think its really stupid for me to keep stressing the whole tank out

i need an immediate response from anybody with input here, should I dose this whole tank or try harder to get the loahc?

Thanks a lot,
Robert

 

[Cian McLiam]

You will need to treat the whole tank, but can you give us an idea of what other fish are in there? Usually 3-4 days at 30C or 86F will get rid of Ich, but some fish cant take the heat too well.

Inverts and snails are sensitive to copper, but there are many ich treatments that dont use copper, I have used King British WS3 which contains malachite green and quinine, and my freshwater crabs weren't too fussed about it.

Formailin can be dangerous with some inverts, so be careful if you want to use quick cure or tetra contra spot, I would go with the quinine/malachite green rather than formailn malachite green.

Ken

 

[FMZ]

I would go with CopperSafe by Mardel labs. Yea, it will kill your snails and some plants but its effective against loaches. Malachite green is poison to scaleless fish.

 

[rcl]

maybe i acted a little hastily, i decided to dose my entire tank and I used a malachite green based treatment (quick cure). my sensitive fish include balas, pim pictus, clown loaches, and assorted plecos. I used half the suggested dose and assumed this wouldn't harm the fish. the lfs i bought recommended quick cure and showed me that they used it on all their tanks (sump circulating all the display tanks) and while they didn't have the healthiest fish i've ever seen, it didn't look like they were having any fish poisioned by the treatment...

if my inverts die then so be it, it really doesn't matter to me. i am however extremely concerned about the other fish (specifically my vampire, gold marble bristlenose, and queen arabesque plecos, and also the other sensitive fish).

I have my temperature at 78' normally, and i turned my heaters up to what i think should be about 80 degrees.. past this I think sounds like fish fry temperatures?

its to be noted that i only have white spot on 1 fish in the entire tank, and there are only maybe 5 spots

looking forward to responses,
Robert

 

[FMZ]

hope ur loaches survive. i dont know how the med. will effect the other fish in the tank. and its a good thing you used half the dose.

 

[reg2k2]

I'm wondering if you can't maybe re-house the snails, etc.
1) I'd like to see your critters live, and 2) I've read that dead snails can foul a tank real quick.

I guess the 10gal. won't work...could you pick up another? or perhaps a bucket would work?

 

[Cian McLiam]

Malachite green is poison to scaleless fish.

Malachite green is poison to all fish, in the medications with quinine mix, both do the same job, clogging up lipids in the membranes of parasites. However, because both do the same job, only a fraction of the full dose of either needs to be used in the two products I mentioned.

This makes it extremely effective while keeping toxicity to a minimum.

I have used it often with catfish, tetras etc with no ill effects. The same would apply to scaleless fish such as the clown loach.

I have put my tank to 86F for over a week with various fish, tetras, catfish, cichlids, inverts etc and all survived happily and I did not need to medicate for Ich.

Ken