Question on ich...

[SuckerLove86]

Hey all. When I started this hobby, about November 04, I had a pretty bad outbreak of ich in my mollies.... it wiped out a pretty fair portion of my stock but I finally got it down with temp raises, salt, and colloidal silver.

However, one of my mollies still to hsi day has quite a bit of a "salted" look to her. I've directly fed her colloidal silver, given her two salt baths (each upwards of ten minutes) with a concentration of 4 tbl spoons in one gallon and kept the temp fairly upwards. She lives in a species tank with the rest of the mollies, and I haven't seen any signs of ich on any of the other mollies since Nov. She doesn't scratch, she eats well and seems to be doing very well. I was wondering....

can the ich signs remain even after ich has been eliminated? i.e., the cysts are still there but the virus is dead?

 

[WILDER]

Does it look like a salty patch on the fish instead of the spot.

 

[isu_guy]

I'm fairly new, so if anyone more knowlegable comes allong feel free to correct me.

The life cycle for ich is a couple of weeks to a month. So I would assume that youre probably pretty safe from ich if you can last that long without any. I would still keep on eye on things though.

 

[SuckerLove86]

Nah, it's not a patch. It looks exactly like ich.... I'd read about the patches but the dots on her are just the salt sprinklings.

 

[WILDER]

Just keep giving her a salt dip that should help.

 

[SuckerLove86]

I'll keep doing that. Is there a different concentration of salt I should be using? I thought ich couldn't tolerate salt on any level....

poor molly probably hates me so much right now...

"...so I says to her I say, well Gretchen popped out 25 babies last night and she said that..... whoa, whoa, hey!!!! what're you doin with that net? hey hey hey.... aaaaaaah. Can't breathe can't breathe. *plop* Phew. that was exciting. Gee it's baren in here... don't you have a designer?"

 

[WILDER]

http/www.kenliz.plus.com/Salt_use.html

 

[SuckerLove86]

20mg/l

Ok, so if 1 gallon = 3.78 L, then I need to be using roughly 70 mg of salt? Anyone know how many tbl spoons that is? I dropped Algebra.

 

[WILDER]

Maths is not my thing, try two tablespoons of salt to a gallon for a salt bath.

 

[Bignose]

There is a rare variation of the ich parasite that never drops off the host. From http/www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/ich.shtml:

In Oklahoma, university researchers studied a closely-related ciliate, identified as a "strain of Ich," in which the reproducing stage doesn't drop away but remains under the fishes' epidermis and releases the tomites from that secure position. This is a one-shot deal for the trophont, which dies in the process. The free-swimming tomites/theronts are still the only stage vulnerable to medication. In this close relation of Ich, the lesions are larger, looking like carp pox, flattened and waxy appearing

If it is this never dropping off ich, you must make sure to never share nets and never move fish around from this tank. Ich is a troublesome enough parasite as it is, the less distribution these more dangerous strains get, the better.

 

[CathyG]

1 tablespoon is approximately 25 grams, or 25,000 mg. It wasn't my knowledge of maths that helped here, but remembering my cookery lessons!

I have never used salt in an aquarium, but a table spoon sounds a lot to me in a small amount of water - especially considering two tablespoons (ingested) is enough to send a child into a coma. Maybe aquarium salt is different in that respect to table salt...I will let one of our more knowledgeable answer regarding dosing...