Please help, Ich... what meds?

[cajungirl0487]

I just bought a new pictus catfish from Walmart (I should have known better ugh). And now all of my other fish are sick. I don't have the money or room for a quarantine tank. What kind of Ich medicine can I put in my tank to get rid of this & save my fish that will NOT stain my aquarium or decorations? Almost all of my fish have tiny white spots all over them, literally over night.

 

[Toney]

I use jungle ick clear, one dose has always worked.

I haven't ever used it on scaleless fish.

It does stain everything blue...

 

[Byron]

It would help to know the fish species. The safest remedy is raising the heat, and adding aquarium salt (not table salt). The heat speeds up the life cycle of ich, thus ensuring faster cure, and at very high temperatures the ich can be killed outright.

If the fish can manage, raising the temperature to 32C or 90F alone may deal with it, but if there are fish that cannot handle this high a temperature, raising it to around 29-30C/84-86F and adding 2 grams per litre of aquarium salt is effective. On the advice of Neale Monks I used this in tanks with catfish (corys, whiptails, Farlowella) and loaches with no problem. Maintain the elevated temperature for at least a week, preferably two if it is as bad as it seems to be here.

Do a major water change before adding the salt; you can raise the temp some with the water change, then turn ujp the heater to increase it to where you want it. Add the salt in stages over say half a day. Measure the salt for the actual volume of water in the tank (substrate, decor, etc displaces water so the tank will not actually hold the full volume). One level teaspoon of aquarium salt is approximately 6 grams and this will treat 3 liters.

Many of the preparations contain copper, which is considerably more harmful to fish and other aquatic life (plants, invertebrates) than salt.

Byron.

 

[cajungirl0487]

I have cory cats, BN pleco, pictus cat, black skirt tetras, pearl gourami, rainbow fish, & angelfish. I usually keep my temp at around 78 degrees. Would Melafix and/or Pimafix work on ich? I have used these meds before for other diseases & they don't seem to bother my fish or tank.

 

[Byron]

Melafix or Primafix will not be effective against parasites, external or internal. Ich is a parasite. It goes through several stages, and is only vulnerable during the free swimming stage.

Given the fish, I would raise the temp to 85-86F and use the aquarium salt as I set out previously.

 

[Steve H.]

You don't need meds. Freshwater ich is easily managed.
Raise the temp to speed up the lifecycle as mentioned.
Ich will feed on the host and then drop off to multiply before hatching, becoming free swimming, and looking for another host fish to start the cycle all over again.

It is during the 2nd stage, the tomont stage, where it is in your substrate. That's where you want to get it out by vacuuming your substrate and any decorations they can fall into.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[cajungirl0487]

I have a 46 gallon bow front aquarium. How many tablespoons of aquarium salt do I need to add? And can I keep the filter pads in the filter or do I need to take them out while I'm doing the salt/high temps?

 

[Byron]

I have a 46 gallon bow front aquarium. How many tablespoons of aquarium salt do I need to add? And can I keep the filter pads in the filter or do I need to take them out while I'm doing the salt/high temps?

I'd rather you worked this out; when I figure this I go through all sorts of "tests" to make sure I am as accurate as I can get, and then I stay on the minimal side just in case (meaning, slightly less salt than my calculations might suggest).

But some guidelines...your 46g tank with substrate and decor is more likely 30 gallons or less. The bowfront makes it a bit more complicated than a rectangular tank. If 30 gallons is accurate, this is 113 liters, so one level teaspoon [note teaspoon, not tablespoon] being 6 grams, at 2 grams per liter, you divide 113 by 3 and get 37. I might consider the volume as closer to 25 gallons, and that calculates out to 95 liters, so divided by 3 means 32 level teaspoons.

This is a good site for converting imperial to metric and reverse:
http://www.worldwidemetric.com/measurements.html
When dealing with gallons, you need to discern US from UK gallons. As you are in the USA, your tank would be 46 US gallons, but less when filled as I said.

I have not read anywhere that salt and heat affect the filtration/bacteria. Obviously higher temperatures do mean less oxygen in the water, so adding more surface disturbance from the filter, or additional airstones or similar, is advisable.

 

[NickAu]

When my tanks had ICH ( My fault ) all I did was raise the water temp to 31 deg c for 4 days, no salt needed.