SALT or MEDS? Which do you prefer?

[Red_Terror]

Hi there, i was just curious to how many people uses salt/heat over meds/heat or vice versa? i have an ick infestation(1 inch baby cichlids) and i wanted to know which one is more commonly use and which method is both more effective and have more percentage of success when use... i am using salt and heat for about two days now after i spotted the sign of ick (82 degrees, approximately 2 tspn/gal of salt), but i am worried, what if the salt/heat doesn't do the trick... i wanted to get rid of them ASAP... i did a water change BTW and replaced the salt that were lost... i do not want to lose any of my prized cichlids(3 in total)... I have cured ick on my bigger fish(salt/heat/meds) but i haven't encountered ick that were on baby fishes... they looked so fragile and the infestation per fish looked pretty bad. :sad: Any help would be appreciated...

P.S. They still looked pretty healthy and still eating alot like normal minus the ick spots... :help: Thanks alot!!!

[ashdavid]

I prefer salt and heat and as a last resort I will use meds. There are some things that cannot be cured by salt ,so in those circumstances I use meds. If it is a case of ick I would say go with the salt method. Read Daveedkas article on ich in the article section.

[JinxXx0085]

I'm the same as ashdavid. He said it all! :dance:

[Red_Terror]

Thank you!!! I was just curious to what people uses on ICK infestations... its going to be the 3rd day tomorrow since i started the salt/heat combo(meaning:when i first saw the visible sign of ICK)... the ICK right now are in pretty good size... they should fall off by the 3rd or 4th day right? i was hoping they would because it's very stressful looking at sick fishes, especially when this small... :sad: temperature right now is at 82 degrees, and salt level is still about 2 tspn/gal... any suggestions guys? BTW, my heaters' max temp is only up to 82 degrees... all the fish are still eating but one of them has a secondary infection on its tail... i will be using melafix as soon as i eradicate the ICK population because i wouldn't want to put anymore stress on them...

[Red_Terror]

I'm really mad at myself right now because i think that im the one who introduced ICK in my tank... i bought a pleco at my LFS 5 days ago with some white spots on it and with some shredded fins(the other fishes looked really healthy that is why i assumed that it was nothing), 2 days later it died... i hate things that were avoidable... only if i could have been more careful :mad:

[YuccaPatrol]

If 2 tspn/gallon = 2 teaspoons/gallon, you may need MORE salt.

I typically use 2-3 TABLE-spoons per gallon to fight ick.

[daveedka]

3 teaspoons per gallon of common table salt will put you slightly above 6 ppt. I have yet to see a reputable study that found ich to survive above 5 ppt.

The only case I could think of to go above 3 teaspoons per gallon would be a situation where ich had been exposed long term to low levels of salt and had built a tolerance to it. I do not know if this is even possible, but it seems very unlikely. If you get salt levels too high, you can add unnecessary risk to your bio-filter as well as some types of fish. It certainly would kill ich but would not be needed and does add risk. I definately would not see a need to go above 3 teaspoons per gallon on initial treatment. if by some miracle some ich somehow survived I might bump to 4 teaspoons per gallon on secondary treatment.
Dave

[Sully]

i prefer meds to salt. even with fry.

[sumthin fishy]

I recently treated my 55 with a 2 day old batch of convict fry, with no apparent losses. I think the salt/heat is less stressful than meds.

[bubbles42151]

The meds never worked for me. So i tried the salt and heat method it worked quickly and was more effective to me. But it there was a liitle more to it than just throwing in a couple drops of meds. To me it was worth the work though.