Ick treatment in nursery aquarium

[BBfishes]

I have a 20 gallon aquarium of platys that have a bunch of babies of various stages of development. My fish came down with ick. Is it safe to do the full dosage of api ick treatment or should I do a half dose? I already did a half dose because I ran out of meds yesterday. Should I do a full dose or continue with half a dose tomorrow?

 

[Colin_T]

Don't use chemicals on baby fish unless you absolutely have to.

You can use heat to treat white spot and it's safe for baby fish. Just raise the water temperature to 30C (86F) and keep it there for 2 weeks, or at least 1 week after all the white dots have gone.

Before raising the temperature, do a huge water change and gravel clean the substrate. And clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Increase aeration/ surface turbulence when you use chemicals, salt or raise the water temperature.

 

[BBfishes]

Alright. Which brand of water conditioner works best? I did the api one and followed directions but it hasn’t seemed to remove the chlorine when I test.

 

[anewbie]

You might try salt - 1 tablespoon per 2 gallons. Live bearers can tolerate salt well and at least for me salt was an effective treatment for ick.

 

[GaryE]

All it takes is one parasite on a fry, and it can be a goner. Every treatment gets the Ich after it has fed and the cyst has burst. The freeswimming ich is vulnerable to the meds. In its white cyst, it feeds undisturbed and armoured.

We often disagree here about ich, but this is the only situation where I'd try heat. At least it speeds up the parasite's life cycle, giving it less time to feed on a very young victim. I would also use the malachite green treatment, as it's a desperate situation.

I have never gotten a batch of fry through ich. I don't see the parasite often any more, but I used to and it was deadly to fry, sadly.

 

[Colin_T]

Alright. Which brand of water conditioner works best? I did the api one and followed directions but it hasn’t seemed to remove the chlorine when I test.

Contact your water supply company by phone or website and find out if they add chlorine or chloramine to the drinking water. Chloramine usually requires a double dose to break the chlorine ammonia bond and neutralise the chlorine part of it.

I used Wardley's Tri Start but only have chlorine in the water. Most brands of dechlorinator are fine and you can normally use whatever is available.