Ich-X Remedy

[This Old Spouse]

I have a female Molly with white spot and she's already starting to swim strangely. The ONLY access to treatment is a feed store and all they have is ICH-X. Here's the ingredients: water, formeldehyde (<5%), methanol (<2%), malachite green chloride (<0.1%).

Here are the cautions! "Do NOT use Ich-X with any other medications. Do NOT use with sulfinate-, or sulfoxylate-based water conditioners. Ich-X may permanently stain silicone tank sealants, rocks, concrete, plastic objects, clothing, laminate counter tops, floors, furniture and carpeting. Ich-X may be harmful to some invertebrates (e.g. filter feeders); use caution and observe carefully when treating aquariums with invertebrates. Immediate 50% or larger water changes should be performed if stress is observed among treated animals."

The directions indicate to treat in a separate q tank, which I don't have. All I could possibly do is move all the guppy fry (71 of them) into the birthing tank and move everything from my 55g into that 10g tank, OR I could treat the 55g tank and leave the fish where they are. I'm very afraid that this treatment will kill off my corys and pleco.

Is there anything else I could use? Should I do half dosing?

Please HELP!!!

 

[Caprichoso]

Do not medicate your tank. Trust me on this. It will do more harm than good. Do a 25% water change. Increase the temperature in your tank by one degree. The next day, do another water change(25%) but make sure the temp is the same as in your tank). Fish get sick because of less than ideal water conditions, so you have to keep up with regular water changes, gravel cleaning and filter maintenance. Meds should only be used as a last resort and only if you have a separate hospital tank.
Good luck

 

[anon02]

Ich is not a disease it is a parasitic infestation, of you leave even one microscopic bug in your tank the infestation will return in time
I`m not familiar with the med you mention but the copper based remedies recommend half doses for fry and sensitive species, have a look for more information on the manufacturers` website

 

[trianglekitty]

I had no luck with the Ich remedies, but found adding salt and raising the tank temp worked much better. I'm not sure, however, about salting with cories in the tank- this is something I would like to know for my own future reference, as I plan to keep cory cats in my bigger tank.

I will say that when I was treating with the Ich remedy, the infection got very very bad- the fish were densely covered. Raising the heat and adding salt reduced it down a vast amount in just twenty four hours. Even with such a bad case, which kept lingering on because the meds weren't working, I didn't lose any fish- I think if you catch it early, the fish will be okay. I did water changes every day too, which I think helped.

 

[This Old Spouse]

Well, the sweet, interactive Molly is now dead. I put her in a separate tank mainly to try to keep the other fish with no symptoms as safe as I could.

Where were you guys Monday

I'm glad I saw your posts today, as I was about to do another dosing of the 55g in the morning, as per the directions on the bottle.

I put a second heater in the tank to raise the temp a bit. Since I did that and did the dosing, honestly you'd never know there was a problem. All the other fish seem fine. Even the corys are more active and feeding more.

I have always had a bit of salt in this tank and it never seemed to have affected the corys until this bout with Ich and the one molly. She only had one fuzzy white spot on her tail, and I haven't seen any evidence of any infestation on any of the other fish left in the 55g. So I guess I'll continue tomorrow with a 25% water change and hope for the best.

At this point I just don't know if the Ich medication worked, or if the temp raise, water change and death of the Molly did it.

 

[karin]

I think you are going to have to pick an approach stick with it to the end and if it doesn't work try another. The worst thing is to keep switching around without follow through. I did a formalin/malachite green ich med, dosed exactly per directions, full strength and that was the end of ICH for me. Temp increases and salt did nothing. But here are two really good resources to read. ICH has a long cycle, part of it is invisible so you need to stick with it even if you don't see whitespots. If not you risk developing resistant strains of the parasite and then it will be really difficult to get rid of. Read these.

http/fins.actwin.com/articles/disease/ick2.php
http/www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/ich.shtml

 

[This Old Spouse]

Before I move on to my water change and re-medication, I'd like your opinion about what was really wrong with my molly. I've done much more research and it appears she may NOT have had Ich! Instead of having a scattering of little white bumps, what she had was a good-sized white bump on the back of her dorsal fin.

Could this have been something else entirely? I'm beginning to think so but could really use some help!