So it's definately Ich in my Cichlid tank. Theres been a lot of flashing/rubbing the past 10 or so days and this morning, noticed one lighter colored fish is just covered in white 'salt like' spots and the others are developing them too. The tank has just finished it's 3rd week with fish and I'm still showing around .50 ammonia just prior to a water change. I'm going the heat/aquarium salt route to kill the ich. I have a couple of questions. I've gradually added about 8 full tablespoons of aquarium salt to my 36g tank and have been incrementally increasing the temp throughout the day and my 200w heater seems to be topping out at precisely 86 degrees F which happens to be the recommended temp for killing Ich. But the light keeps coming on and going off faster than it usually does... I dont want to go to bed and wake up to a 95 degree tank full of floaters. How long before I can say the temp is stable at 86? It's been about two hours now at max temp and seems to hold at 86. And another issue I have is that my HOB filter media is letting water over the overflow, even though i just swished it around pretty good in aquarium water to clean it up some.. Should I change the media and risk losing what bacteria I've gained or just let it keep flowing over till the tank is cycled?
Your quick replies would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance,
Evvy
Ok so I have had many severe cases of ich matching that of yours. First off if you have monitored your heater for a couple hours and it hasnt gone above 86 then chances are it will stay there, maybe open a window to keep the room temp down, so it wont keep building up and heating up the tank even more. A salt and heat treatment whould be a good start, start with 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons, introducing slowly over a few hours. After a Day or 2 if all your fish seem to be handling the salt well, but you havnt seen any improvement, I would up the dose to 2 tablespoons per 5 gallons and continue with this treatment for a few days. At 86F the ich should be gone by this time. Im aware your still cycling but during the salt treatment i would also recommend doing daily water changes to physically remove as many of the free swimming stages of the ich and keeping the water paremters the best you can; this will help the fish fight of the parasite naturally. (Remeber when always doing water changes to add the ammount of salt you are dosing only to the water you are going to replace, as salt does not evaporate out of your tank and will continue to build up if you keep adding it.)
As you mentioned your filter is overflowing and leaking dirtier water into your tank, what i do when my HOB's do this is i get some cut-to-fit filter media and shove it in the area where the water is overflowing. this method has always worked for me on all my HOB's making them run more efficiently and for much longer without replacing the cartridge. If after a full week of 1-2tablespoon salt treatment and still have ich, i would try a chemical treatment, there are alot of effective medications out there. Before treating with chemicals do a series of water changes to get rid of the salt(the less medications in the water the better). Personally I have had really good results with Aquari-sol (although only on fish with scales, harmfull to inverts.)
Start with the salt treatment and get back to me in a couple days with some results.
i too am having an ich or whitespot out break...its killed my 3 clown loaches (which i had quarantined as they were covered badly in whit spots)...my red tailed black shark is looking poorly and ive been trating the tank with waterlife protozin....ive raised the temp from 76 to 82 i did a partial water change and vaccumed the gravel yet still the disease clings on !...ive been told by a few people that there has been a surge in bad outbreaks of whitespot...anyone else heard the same ?....protozin states to treat on days 1,2,3 & 6....tomorrow is day 4 of treatment making thursday day 6....if theres no change by thursday im considering using my quarantine tank as a hospital...putting all of my fish in there , emptying my main tank and re-filling...let it run for 10-14 days prior to adding the fish back into the tank....it really seems to have a grip at the mo and its a battle im losing !
stock level
8 guppies
2 sword tails
4 plattys
1 7yr old rtb shark 5"
1 common plec 6"
and there was 3x 3yr old clown loaches until the weekend "rip"
tanks is a juwel vision 180 ...180 litres or 39 gallon
did full shutdown and clean 5 weeks ago and all was well until now !
water tested using nutrfin kit
nitrit 0.1
nitrat 2.5
ammonia 0
ph 7.2
all levels are bottom of the scale or lower ! so i know water quality isnt the issue....2 weeks ago i added the palttys so im assuming that has caused the problem or...after the shutdown and clean i added a large pumice rock with centre hole as decor...maybe it was that as it was previously used ..i did scrub it and leave it in a bucket of ater with protozin added for 4 days before adding it tho ?
The returner, I have had very good results with waterlife protazin on fish with scales, but have noticed scaless fish distressed from the medication even at half dose, this could have been a contributing factor to the death of your clown loaches. Even though nitrite is only 0.1 i would still be wanting to get it to 0. Also in my experiance waterlife protazin is not beneficial bacteria friendly and could defenetly mess with your cycle.
It seems like your tank has not comepletely finished cycling yet and you have a pretty heavy stock for a fish in cycle. Your Nitrate should be higher then 2.5(unless heavily planted) if your tank is completely done cycling, as nitrosomonas bacteria converts nitrites into nitrates being the end result.
Active Ingredients in WaterLife Protazin: Malachite Green, Formalin, and Copper < All are pretty harsh chemicals, especially harmfull to scaleless fish.
Persoanlly I would reccmmend the same as i did above, and start with 1 tablespoon per 5gallons this will be much less harsh on your fish, and will stress them out less, giving them a better chance to fight of the parasite. Keeping the temp at 82 is just speeding up their life cycle but not killing them or making them stop reproducing. Raise the temp to 86, all of you fish should handle this perfectly and the ich parasite wont be able to reproduce. Daily water changes definatly couldnt hurt aswell, because your lowering toxic levels in the aquarium, your making your fish feel more confortable, and your removing tonz of free swimming ich parasites in the process.
