Treating Ich With Proform-C

[TheHamsterFish]

Hi all, yesterday I noticed typical ich symptoms (salt spots and cloudy eyes) and started treatment by raising the temp to 88 gradually (2 degrees per day) and adding ich guard. I have Proform-C which is a malachite green and formulin treatment. I'm not using hyposalinity because of using malachite green and formulin. Since proform is made for ponds, I adjusted the dosage level to 15ml per 150 gallons based on their reccomendation of 100ml per 1000 gallons. The sales point of proform is that you dose everyday instead of every three days like most meds. Doing it that way, should it take three days for the tropite ich to be killed off or should I medicate longer? Should I remove carbon from my canisters or no?
Should I continue to do a 25% WC before dosing again the next day?

Tank size:150g
pH:7.0
ammonia:0.0
nitrite:.2 ppm
nitrate:10ppm
kH:100ppm
gH:80ppm
tank temp:78 (88 to speed up ich cycle)

Fish Symptoms: ich salt spots and cloudy eyes, rubbing on Deco, darting

Volume and Frequency of water changes: 10% weekly, 25% bimonthly

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: activated carbon, bio cylinders, salt, seachem prime, seachem stability, seachem clarity, stress coat, proform C

Tank inhabitants: 2 Bala Sharks, 4 Angel Fish, 6 Denison, 2 Pictus Cats, Bristlenose Pleco. Both cats, two Denison and both sharks have died.

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration): new fake rock Deco (chlorine and sodium thiosulphate soak before addition), Java Moss, Bristlenose Pleco

 

[the_lock_man]

With Ich (whitespot) treatments, follow the instructions on the bottle to the letter. Does for however long it says, remember that the protozoans inside the white cysts are protected from the medication, you have to wait for them to reach the free-swimming stage before they'll be treated.

You should remove the carbon, yes. This will remove malachite green and I would suspect the formulin as well. If the carbon has been in the filter for more than 6 weeks or so, I would suggest getting a new carbon filter.
 
Only do the water change if the instructions say you can.
 
You also have a nitrite problem.

 

[TheHamsterFish]

Nitrite is .2ppm not 2ppm so it's within acceptable levels.

The instructions don't say anything about WC and treatment length so I wanted to see if anybody had used Proform to treat before.

 

[the_lock_man]

Nitrite is .2ppm not 2ppm so it's within acceptable levels.

The instructions don't say anything about WC and treatment length so I wanted to see if anybody had used Proform to treat before.

 
That's annoying. I would suggest not to do the water change, then, as this will only dilute the treatment. With regard to how long to treat, I would say you would probably want to treat for a week to ten days. My logic behind this is, as I said before, the protozoa are only susceptible when they are in the free swimming stage, not when they are in the cysts on the fish's skin. Dosing every day would not alter the life cycle speed, although increasing the water temperature will, so you might want to go for a week, rather than 10 days. 
 
With regard to the nitrite, most of us on this forum would say that the only acceptable level of nitrite is 0ppm. Whilst 0.2 is better than 2.0, the fish are still suffocating to some degree, and it may well be this stress that has allowed the ich to take hold. Any idea why you've got a level showing?

 

[TheHamsterFish]

Thanks for the tips. I'm going to call the company that manufacturers proform and see what they say. The protozoa has already fallen off the fish as they are now spotless so the protozoa are either free swimming or the spores are in the gravel now. Hopefully I'll get this taken care of.

As to the nitrite, I'm not exactly sure why I am getting a number back there. I used a different test today and got back double zeros so it may have just been the tester. First test was done using the api master kit whilst the second was done using the tetra strips.

Thanks for all your help in this matter by the way!
The only source of stress I can think of is possibly moving decor around. Like I said in the original post, I got some new decor and moved it all around a few times before I was happy. That may have caused the stress that made them susceptible to infection.

 

[Asteria]

The api mayer kit has more reliable readings than test strips. So I would test again with the master kit.

 

[TheHamsterFish]

Really? I always heard the liquid testers were a little more unreliable than the strips. I heard they mess with the readings.

 

[the_lock_man]

Really? I always heard the liquid testers were a little more unreliable than the strips. I heard they mess with the readings.

 
You heard wrong . If your API test is old, then the chemicals may be out of date, and that may have skewed the reading. Other than that, I'd always back a liquid kit over a paper strip.
 
The source of the stress would be the presence of nitrite (if it turns out that the API was right). Nitrite enters the bloodstream, and attaches itself to the haemoglobin, preventing oxygen from doing so. Therefore the fish doesn't get as much oxygen as it wants, and that's your stress right there.
 
I'd be interested to hear what the manufacturers say.