ICK & THE HEAVILY PLANTED TANK

[scottracy]

Introduced 12 cardinal tetras Wed. I know they are highly susceptible to ick. I had watched them for a week at the LFS in order to minimize carrying home diseased fish. Today I noticed that they have a classic case of ick. I have read scores of remedies and used some with success in a non-planted tank. Meds are harmful to many species of fish and plant life. High heat is harmful to many species of fish such as the oto. Salt is harmful to plants and certain fish. I would move them to a hospital tank but the pH in that tank is 8.0. In addition those little guys are hell to catch in the heavy growth of plants. What do you think would be the best treatment. I know this is the most common question on the AC forums but this situation has many variables that I am struggling to sort out. Any help is appreciated.

Scott

[daveedka]

My understanding, and my experience agrees. is that salt won't hurt you plants (short term for treatment anyhow) I treated my ich with salt, and had no problems with my plants at all. I used iodized table salt at 2 tsp per gallon and raised the temp to 86*F for two weeks. then brought the temp back down, and let the salt go away through water changes. I do this in my q-tamk as well which hhas a few plants growing in it also.
HTH
Dave

[aquabillpers]

Hi,

You've read about all of the possible ways to treat ich. All I can add is my personal experience that raising the temperature to the low 90s and keeping it there for a few days cures it without any side affects, but I have never kept otos.

Salt also works against ich and other external parasites. To much of it, or some of it for too long a time, will harm plants and some fish, the "scaleless" fish in particular. But Dave has used 2 tbsp. per gallon without any problems. so . . .

Cardinals are beautiful but they are all wild caught and go through a number of hands before we see them. Acclimating them to an aquarium can be very hard. I've given up on them.

Good luck!

Bill

[scottracy]

I did a 50% water change and added 1 TBSP of salt. I had read that 1 TBSP every 10g over a period of time (every 2 hours until goal). In addition I have increased the temp. It is currently at 84 with a goal of 86. Do to my miser ways the home AC does not run that often and the usual tank temp is between 80-82. One question I still have is after the water changes, which should be at a min. of every other day, do you re-dose ferts as you normally would when doing weekly large water changes?


Scott

[TKOS]

Don't know about the dosing of ferts but make sure that temp is a minimum of 86F, not close to it. And keep it there for a week after all signs of ich have gone or you are just asking for another outburst in the future. And yes, adding the salt over successive water changes is best.

[daveedka]

adding the salt slowly is definately best. In reality anything over 5ppm salt will kill the ich. in other words one tsp per gallon will probably be plenty, but the fish can handle more than that so insurance is good. the reason I do 2 per gallon is that it is the middle of the reccomended dosage and leaves me a big margin in each direction. The temp over 86 will interrupt the life cycle of ich by itself, but it has to be maintained very well at that temp or above. anything below 86* is still a help because it speeds up the life cycle and gets the process over with quicker. The salt will kill the ich either way, but at low temps, it needs to be a long term treatment which is something to be avoided if possible. either way maintain treatment for at least 1 full week (two is better imo) after the last sign of ich on your fish.

As far as the fert dosing, I'll defer that to the more experienced folks here. I'm still a plant geek in training.
Dave

[scottracy]

Today I lost one of my SAEs. I have had the temp steady at 86 and I have added a total of 1 TBSP/10g. Out of the 12 cardinals I think I have 6 remaining. I have recovered 2 but am hard pressed to find the others. Did another 50% water change today and cleaned the filter. Not sure if the disease or the treatment killed the SAE. Its discouraging. Another lesson learned.

Scott

[daveedka]

Although I've not kept every type of fish out there so I can't say for sure. The salt method has always been less stressful to my delicate fish than anything else I've used. I don't take the temp quite that high personally, but do put it well above 80* during treatment almost everyone reccomends the 86* mark so it is evidently working for many. One thing I should have mentioned is that ethe elevated temps make it harder for the water to carry o2. Make sure you ripple the surface a little extra during the treatment.
Mst importantly, don't get too discouraged when you are doing the best you can. The fish might not have been able to handle the ich with or without the treatment. and no matter what treatment you use stress is involved. Is the ich still on the fish? or has it fallen off by now? the salt actually kills the ich when it hatches out of the substrate and goes hunting for a new host. once it leaves your fish it should never come back. Also I typically add in 1/4 tsp per gallon increments about every two hours. in other words over the course of 8 hours you should be able to get the level up to 1 tsp per gallon (assuming you are home all day when you start). You definately want to make sure you have enough salt before the ich goes hunting for a host. you don't want the life cycle to repeat in a tank with stressed fish. Roght now you are at less than 1/3 tsp per gallon so you you'll need to bump it on up quite a bit.

[deocder]

Crap! My rubber lipped plec decided to come out of hiding today and is completely covered with white dots....I am assuming it's Ich :sad

This is not good......I have ottos and clown loaches...salt + heat is not good for these fish.....

[RTR]

I have treated loaches and dwarf plecos for Ich by salt and heat (mid-80sF) without any issues, ditto Cory cats, ditto Otos. Rubberlips are cooler water fishm but so are many cory cats - watch the fish's respiration and boost oxygenation if needed. Salt is not harmful short term if dosed carefully and properly. This is not a chronic use situation.

[scottracy]

I have been treating ick now for 6 days. My temp is 86/87 and I have 1tsp per gallon. Despite the one SAE and 6 cardinals the remaining appear active.

Scott

[deocder]

Ok, I just started the treatment.

Raising the temp to 86
Slowly adding 1 tbs per 10 gallons

[daveedka]

I just thought I'd add for anyone following this that RTR hit on a very key point. The salt/heat is a short term treatment not to be confused with long term salt addition. Most fish that are said to be intolerrant of salt will get through the treatment period just fine. In all honesty long term salt use is not a good thing for freshwater fish as a whole, but many tolerate it better than cories and loaches. In most cases (not all) the fish that don't like salt are the same fish that don't like ICH meds, and I personally found the salt to be less stressful to them.
Dave

[scottracy]

I spoke too soon. One of my corys died. Its hard for me to say for sure what the best treatment is. A little under a year ago I had a bad outbreak of ick in my non-planted 55g. My clown loaches and tetras were affected. I treated with coppersafe by Mardel at half strength. The ick was cured and all survived including tankmates of emerald corys and common pl*co. They are all still alive with no further outbreaks. One important point is that I have not added new fish to this tank! IMO ick is very preventable. Good tank maintenance aside, you must Q new fish before introducing them to your display tank. Unfortunately I did not follow my own advice this time. One of the keys to this hobby is patience. One problem with this current outbreak in my planted tank is oxygen defeciency due to high temps. RTR pointed this out. I assumed I had enough surface agitation but after discovering the dead cory I guess not. I have added a pump with an air stone. In a brief period of time the fish seem to have responded. The otos have come out of hiding and are active on the glass again. Growing lessons!!

Scott

[RTR]

Second the motion for QT. All my experience w/heat & salt over the last 20 years or so has been with new fish in QT. I am really neurotic about QT, but as a consequence I have not had any outbreak of infectious disease in a display tank in that period and longer.

[daveedka]

I fully agree on the QT as well, But for most of my fishkeeping life, I didn't have room/money for a dedicated qt tank. I use the 10g snail breeder as that now, and when the basement is done, I will have a 20g dedicated to qt only.
The real comparison for me with the salt and ich came with my pictus cats which are highly succeptable, as well as hard to treat. With pictus, Ich can be fatal very quickly and ich meds can be fatal just as quickly. these fish just don't seem to handle stress well at all. My pictus were obviously stressed during the treatment, but continued eating and came through quite well. they didn't show nearly the distress signs that I got when using the ICH method. I haven't tried it with cories myself,, but know several people including my Brother who have successfully cured ich on cories with the salt/heat method.
Dave

[TKOS]

Most ich treatments use copper salts which are considered poisonous to the ich but are also poisonous to all life as well, they are just in small doses. They should definatley be avoided as well if you have shrimp or snails in the tank.

Salt is just such a good system and so easy and cheap to get.

And yes, QT is a good idea. And all you really need is a 5 gallon bucket and a filter of some sort with maybe some floating plants for comfort.

[scottracy]

How do you approach quarantine when dealing with pH sensitive fish as the cardinal and rummynose? My tap water is normally pH 7.8-8.0. My planted tank with CO2 injection has pH of 7.0 and is the ultimate destination for above mentioned fish. The QT I have is a simple non-planted tank and the pH is 7.8-8.0. Do you recommend setting up the 10g tank with DIY CO2 with simple plants to quarantine future pH sensitive fish or will these fish survive temporarily with a higher pH? This is why I did not Q the cardinals.

Scott

[TKOS]

No it is just the same as bringing in any new fish. Once the QT period is over then start to excahneg the water in the QT with water from your main tank. You can even time it with a water change. Take a coupel of hours to do it and voila the new fish are happy. I know it works when I bring home rummy nose.

[scottracy]

Does the salt/heat method take longer than meds? My salt is between 1-1.5 tsp/gallon, the heat has been constant at 86 and I have performed 50% water changes every other day for 8 days now. The fish are still visibly infected.

Scott

[deocder]

Something I am unclear on....am I supposed to do water changes during this treatment?

[scottracy]

Water changes that meticulously remove detritus do lower the level of organics in the aquarium, and heat does speed up the metabolism of the organism, thus forcing it more rapidly through its one vulnerable stage.

http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/ich.shtml

[deocder]

Here's my most important advice: Continue the salt bath or medication three days after you can find no Ich encysted on any fish, not even the least bit of maybe a possible one. You want to eliminate every encysted tomont and especially that last stray swarmer. It only takes one successfully lodged in a gill to start the whole Ich cycle again and convince you that Ich is always "lurking" in the water. Afterwards do several good big water changes, and then put fresh carbon in the filter to adsorb any residual drugs.

So thats a no on water changes until the spots are gone for over 3 days....

Did I read that right or ..... I'm a confused by the last post....the lower the organics and the higher the heat, the faster the thing hatches? And then its kilt? :thud:

[daveedka]

I personally reccomend water changes to continue during treatment. vaccuming will remove many of the ich tomites from the gravel, and reduce the number to be killed when they hatch. Just add in additional salt (or meds if you go that route) to compensate for changed water. The fish are under some stress at all times during treatment so excellent water will make things a little easier on them. The 3 day reccomendation IMO is risky, I would go a full week minimum after there is no ich visible on any fish. 3 days may be enough, but As that excerpt said, it only takes one survivor to re-populate the tank. The large water changes at the end are an effective way to rapidly reduce meds and/or salt. With salt, I stick to my normal weekly routine and just let it slowly get removed. with meds I would probably do a big water change and then add carbon for a week or so as well.
dave

[beavertayl1]

otos do ok in high temps as far as i know. they are recommended as the #1 algae eater for discus tanks. crank it up

[Bounette]

How long do I need to quarantine the plants that have been in an aquarium with ich to be sure that the ich is dead before I put the plants back in? 2 weeks? 1 month? I have no idea.

Also, do the plants need higher temps to be healthy, or will they do fine at room temp during the qt period?

Thank you very much for your help...

[rrkss]

If you QT your plants, the ich will be 100% dead after 5 full days in the QT tank. This is shorter than the reccommended salt treatment duration so just take them out and treat the fish with salt for the full 14 days. Then remove the salt via waterchanges and add the plants back with almost no chance of getting a recurrence of ich unless you don't QT anything living.

[EcoPit]

I recently treated my planted tank for ich. I added 2 tsp salt per gallon and increased the temp to 86. I had 9 otos, and the only one to die was the one heavily infested by ich, so I don't think the heat or the salt hurt them. The plants were fine, too. The ich, on the other hand, was nicely eradicated by the treatment.

[Mysteria]

Are there other meds you can use with plants to treat ick?

[scampyfan]

i've heard so much good stuff about the heat/salt treatment for ick but i've never tried it myself. i usually am able to get everyone into a Qtank in time and treat with meds (read usually as twice over a loooong time) and it works fine. now, however, i'm in a similar situation - heavily planted tank that i can't remove all the fish from. at this point, i have like 30 guppy fry all about a week old and several rogue ghost shrimp that are proving impossible to net. i'd like to do my best to keep them amongst the living.

yesterday i noticed a spot on one of my female guppies that looked slightly like the ick i'm used to but was really really tiny. now i'm seeing tiny spots on another one, but it looks more like a powder grain, not even as big as salt or sand, which was the size of ick on the goldies i previously had. could this be ick too? is there anything else that can cause such a slight spot of discoloration? and if i treat the tank with the salt and heat method, will my guppy fry (and the ghost shrimp as well) survive?

[Blueiz]

If you are seeing spots on everything, looks like grains of salt, then yes it it ich. I cant say whether your shrimp and fry will live, but I can say that if you dont treat them with something they will almost certainly die. Now with that being said what you have to determine is which med is the lesser evil. I highly reccomend the salt heat method. IMO, it is the least stressful of all the med choices out there, and the most highly effective (at least of the meds I would even consider putting in my tank).

Read this: http://aquafacts.net/wiki/index.php/Ich

Blue

[TKOS]

Your shrimp and fry should do fine. You may wish to keep the temp lower than the usual 86F. Try around 80F. The salt will work, just take a little longer as the life cycle of the ich isn't sped up quite as much.

Add the salt in slowly so they get adjusted to it. Say 1/3 the amount to start with during a water change, then over the next day to the full amount.

[Ulan]

Well, I use Rid-Ich+, and my fish and my plants all fare very well with it. And it's effective against ich and a few other things, like fungus.

My fish had problems with the salt/heat treatment.

[Blueiz]

Your shrimp and fry should do fine. You may wish to keep the temp lower than the usual 86F. Try around 80F. The salt will work, just take a little longer as the life cycle of the ich isn't sped up quite as much.

Add the salt in slowly so they get adjusted to it. Say 1/3 the amount to start with during a water change, then over the next day to the full amount.

Ive had ich twice...didnt raise the temperature either time, but I did treat for 1 week longer than directions said to and just removed the salt with regular 20 percent weekly water changes..

Blue

[scampyfan]

thank you guys so much!
i took this info with me to the fish store today (strangely enough called "the fish store") and combined with their additional info, i think i'm going to try a temp increase to 80 and a medicated treatment.

i'll let you know how fry+shrimp+snails+plants did after this mess is all over!

thanks again :) i feel much more hopeful now.

[gagaliya]

this is probably the best thread on ich. Just to confirm a couple points from my experience:

temperature at 86F, 1 tsp per gallon salt, 6 days in, oto and ture sae are all ok with no sign of severe stress. Cardinals(all arrived covered in ich) fared terribly, with many losses.

This is another word of caution against cardinal tetra, they are very susceptible to ich, sensitive to water conditions, and are usually wild caught (low survive rate). This combo makes it a difficult fish to keep.

I wish i did my research on cardinal, just assumed it's similar to neon tetra but they are not and much more difficult in my experience. A combination of poor sick stock, bad shipping, and stress during ich treatment has killed off 75% of my newly bought cardinals.

I plan to take the rest to a lfs, and replace with glofish(zebra danio aka robot fish) instead. So sick of dealing with this fish, and my plants (which is what's important!) are getting unhealthy because of it!

[clb2196]

I just successfully treated my (planted) tank for ich using heat only. Raised the temp to about 87 (had to buy a second heater). I have kuhli loaches, so preferred not to use salt.

I had 4 cories with visible symptoms. I lost 1- the worst- but all the others cleared up fine, and all my other fish, including cardinal tetras, came through fine as well.

Also, as far as cardinal tetras, I kept having them die until I QT-ed them. All the ones I QTed are still alive months later, and nice and fat and happy. They're gorgeous fish when they get big!

[katana1200]

This is really great information. Ich (shudder)! I don't know what I would do if I came down with a tank full of it. I have so many baby snails in my main tank, it'd be easier to retank all the fish and treat them there.

I didn't click on all the links but has anyone referenced this one in particular? http://www.aquamaniacs.net/forum/cms_view_article.php?aid=27

Had some really interesting data on what exactly ICH is and how they reccomend treating it. Just another source unless it's been sited already, if so, sorry for the double.

[jemanser]

"Also, as far as cardinal tetras, I kept having them die until I QT-ed them. All the ones I QTed are still alive months later, and nice and fat and happy."

Curious...CLB, when you QT the cardinals, do you prophylactically treat them or just observe them and treat as clinically indicated? Do you have an elaborate set-up? I too am going to take a stab at cardinals in my 55g/with plants, and would like to avoid the whole ICH/disease fiasco. I know one can buy the cardinals raised in Europe, but they are pricier and involve shipments. I have not seen any LFS advertise "locally raised cardinals"...what a shame. This was a great thread and timely for me...thanks for all the great info.

[BettaFishMommy]

great thread! thankfully i've only ever had to deal with ich once, on one fish in it's own tank. used a med (ich guard if i remember right), no heat increase at all, and cleared in about 5 days, maybe 6, i can't recall exactly, but i know it wasn't a week. wasn't a bad case though, thank goodness.