Which Is Better?

[fishman1981]

ive delt with ick b4 and it always came back, ive always used the drops today i went to petland and got the api super ick cure powder.

My question is, is this ick cure better then the drops?
Ive noticed that my fish kept rubbing them selves on rock and the gravel like crazy actually hurting themselves to a point i would see like a black and blue on there skin.

i removed the active carbon and the filter and im letting it run for awhile how long should i wait to put everything back like the filtration and all?

 

[rdd1952]

I've never had to treat for it but the treatment takes a couple weeks. Because there are different stages to the disease and it is only susceptible to treatment at certain times during that cycle, you have to treat for the full time or it will always come back. You can't replace the carbon until you are finished with the full treatment.

On a side note, you should look at replacing the carbon with some other type media. While carbon works as a biological filter media, there are better ones out there that don't need to be replaced. Every time you change carbon, you are throwing a large portion of your beneficial bacteria away.

 

[fishman1981]

I've never had to treat for it but the treatment takes a couple weeks. Because there are different stages to the disease and it is only susceptible to treatment at certain times during that cycle, you have to treat for the full time or it will always come back. You can't replace the carbon until you are finished with the full treatment.

On a side note, you should look at replacing the carbon with some other type media. While carbon works as a biological filter media, there are better ones out there that don't need to be replaced. Every time you change carbon, you are throwing a large portion of your beneficial bacteria away.

Well im running a marineland 125 with bio-wheel and i removed everything, i have never replaced the media since i got it which was like 6 months ago.
whats good to replace with the carbon?
Ive noticed that i did the ick cure (drops) and in like 3 days it was gone, but now im using the powder which has my tank looking blue which i hope my fish arent getting hurt by this there is 4 jack dempseys,1 pleco and 1 red devil all under 4in in a 55Gallon u.s.

 

[OldMan47]

You are wrong about the ich being gone in 3 days fishman. I know it looked like the parasites were gone in 3 days but they were not. That is exactly why the ich keeps coming back. When your fish look like they are completely cured is the time when you start a clock. After 5 to 7 days of treatment on that clock, the ich parasite is actually gone and it will not come back. After that you can safely stop treatment and not before. There is a link in my signature called ich info that will take you to a good description of the ich life cycle and suggest what that means in terms of treating the disease. I used the simple salt treatment that they recommend the only time that I had any ich in one of my tanks and it never came back, period.

 

[fishman1981]

You are wrong about the ich being gone in 3 days fishman. I know it looked like the parasites were gone in 3 days but they were not. That is exactly why the ich keeps coming back. When your fish look like they are completely cured is the time when you start a clock. After 5 to 7 days of treatment on that clock, the ich parasite is actually gone and it will not come back. After that you can safely stop treatment and not before. There is a link in my signature called ich info that will take you to a good description of the ich life cycle and suggest what that means in terms of treating the disease. I used the simple salt treatment that they recommend the only time that I had any ich in one of my tanks and it never came back, period.

thanx oldman, ill check the link.