Saltwater Bath For Ich

[webbie]

Hi everyone hope some one can help,bought a pair of blue rams a couple of weeks ago,the female is very thin but eating[bloodworm and brine shrimp,but she now seems to have ich,dont want to dose the tank with chemicals, prob fatal to my amanos,I dont have a hospital tank,so I thought give her a saltwater bath and put her in a 10 ltr water change bucket, with heater obviously,she does seem to be the only one affected by ich,any thoughts or any better ideas much appreciated

 

[hanny93]

If one fish has ich, the rest of the tank will 99% definately have it.

Ich is a parasite that has three life stags.
1 - The living 'hosting' form, where the parasite attaches to the fish and burrows under its skin, eventually killing it. This is when you see the white dots on the fish.

2 - The free swimming stage, this is where the parasite is just in the water, usually in the gravel. This is why you MUST dose a second time even if no fish have the spots.

3 - 'Tromites' - these are essentially, baby ich, that move around looking for a host. Once they find a host they mature and the cycle starts again.

The free swimming stage is the ONLY stage that ich are affected by treatments for some reason.

The tromites can also attach to plants and other organisms within your aquarium. An adult ich parasite will realease anything from 200-1000 tromites. And those will release 200-1000 more of their own. Do you see what I'm getting at?

Treat your full tank, if you didnt you'd be forever making up new salt baths because it would keep coming back.

It's very easy to treat though, just start now!

 

[webbie]

Thanks Hanny,thats what I thought,but with shrimps, amanos, in the tank I dont know of any ich treatment which is safe to use with them,just thought, I could move the shrimps to a 10 ltr container whilst I treat the main tank, am I right in thinking the carbon should be removed from the filter?

 

[hanny93]

Yes I suppose you could if you move them now and start treating immediately. And yes remove the carbon

 

[Davo86]

might be worth trying to treat with just heat and darkness (not sure how much heat shrimp can tolerate though)