Another ick outbreak

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imppy25rs

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Oct 3, 2009
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A few days ago, I noticed that one of my oranda's had some ick spots on him so I removed my dojo's and peppered cory's and began medicating with rid-ich+. Its been about 4 days and another oranda seems to be taking it pretty rough, he lays on the tank floor 90% of the day. So I've been thinking about switching to aquarium salt for treatment. I've never done the treatment with salt before so any advice would be great. Also I just noticed some ick on my dojo's in my quarantine tank now :irked:. I know rid-ich+ isn't good for scaleless fish, but can I put them back in my main tank while i treat the goldfish with salt? or should I just treat them individually with salt and continue with my Rid-ich treatments on my goldfish. Thank you

-Tony
 

Lupin

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A few days ago, I noticed that one of my oranda's had some ick spots on him so I removed my dojo's and peppered cory's and began medicating with rid-ich+. Its been about 4 days and another oranda seems to be taking it pretty rough, he lays on the tank floor 90% of the day. So I've been thinking about switching to aquarium salt for treatment. I've never done the treatment with salt before so any advice would be great. Also I just noticed some ick on my dojo's in my quarantine tank now :irked:. I know rid-ich+ isn't good for scaleless fish, but can I put them back in my main tank while i treat the goldfish with salt? or should I just treat them individually with salt and continue with my Rid-ich treatments on my goldfish. Thank you

-Tony
Hi Tony,

When one of your fish in the main tank is infested with ich, please treat all your fish, no exceptions. All fish must be treated since chances are already excellent that every fish has been infested with ich which can go as a low lying infection residing in gill tissues.

What I do with my own fish regardless of the species is treat with table salt. Avoid the ones containing yellow prussiate. Increase temperature by as much as 78 degrees only to help the ich produce much faster thereby killed by presence of salt in the process while temperature is kept at that minimum to allow your "coldwater" fish to tolerate their environment much better without unnecessary stress added. Maximize oxygen levels.

I do a 0.3% solution of salt treatment equivalent to 3 teaspoons per gallon. Multiply 3 teaspoons to the total water volume you have. Divide it by three and plan out the number of teaspoons divided by dosing each batch every 12 hours in 3 intervals. Be sure to dissolve the salt thoroughly or until most of the grains have dissolved.

Hope this helps.
 

imppy25rs

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Thanks lupin, do you think I should just put all the fish back in the main tank and treat the main tank with salt since rid-ich+ isn't safe for the dojos or keep the dojos and corys in the quarantine and treat them individually with salt and continue my rid-ich+ treatment on the main tank?

also with my current treatment, Im doing 25% pwc's everyday. If I switch to a salt treatment, do I still have to do PWC's everyday? The tank is completely cycled and before the ick I was doing weeky 25% pwc's.
 

sushiray

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I guess you shouldn't use rid-ich with your dojos.

but I was successful in using a combo salt + rid-ich + higher temps to take care of 2 tanks (a discus & an angel tank). I would recommend you do the same in the main tank. but you have to find out how hi you should raise your temps for goldfish.
 

imppy25rs

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I just checked on my fish today and things seem to be getting worse :(. some of their tails are "cloudier" than usual and are displaying a red vein or two, the inactive fish seems to have a shredded tail which i'm assuming is tail rot. I did an immediate test of my parameters and got:

PH - 6-6.5(Lower than usual, I'm not sure as to why and should I correct this?)
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0 (I believe the plants I have absorb the excess nitrates)

I'm worried its ick, tail rot, and septicemia, but lately I've been doing daily 25% pwc's because of the ick treatment, and 25% pwc weekly prior to the ick infestation so I don`t think my water quality is that bad. Please help, I'm getting more and more worried and want everyone to come out of this alive.
 

Lupin

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I do not think it is septicemia. They do tend to have a more obvious set of red veins when you add salt. I had encountered that but my fish were unfazed by it. Give them time as they adjust to the presence of salt. As for tail rot, maintaining clean water is one way to prevent it from worsening although redosing of salt per the water volume replaced should be done if you opt to try doing water changes to maintain the salinity to destroy ich.
 

imppy25rs

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I haven't been using salt in the treatment, I'm still medicating with rid-ich+, do you think I should switch to medicating with salt? they seem to be stressed at the moment with 3 fish just laying on the bottom. :cry:
 

Lupin

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I was hoping you'd simply go with salt to battle ich. I see now Rid Ich contains malachite green and formaldehyde. Did you maximize your oxygen levels? Did you check your KH and GH? If so, what are they? I'd switch to salt and get rid of the med if you suspect the fish are reacting very badly to it.
 

imppy25rs

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the tap water here is very soft, so GH is around on the lower end of 0-30 ppm and KH is also on the lower end of 0-40 ppm. There is a lot of surface agitation with with HOB along with an air stone. I believe I will be switching salt because I can't stand to see them like this. They tend to move around a lot when I'm around, but they're usually just laying around now when there is no human interaction. Now, upon switching to salt, I figure I should put the carbon filter back in my hob and do a major water change and wait a couple days before I can put my dojo's back in and just treat them all once or should I just continue treating them in the hospital tank?
 

imppy25rs

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Oct 3, 2009
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just an update on the situation, for the past week, I have switched to treating with salt and a constant temp. of 76 degrees. I lost 1 goldfish 2 days after the change to salt :( the rest of the fish looked great again after the switch. two days ago, all signs of ich have disappeared, but I lost another fish (both fish came from a notorious bad LFS I had purchased while on vacation if you guys have read my other post about transporting fish 300+ miles, so I don't know if this has to do with the ich or not.) 2 other fish look stressed again, and are clamped at the bottom. I really want to continue with the treatment for a few more days to make sure I get 100% kill with the ich, but I really don't want to lose any more fish :( . If I need to stop medicating, should I do a huge (maybe 75%) pwc or something slower like 25% over a few days? Thanks all for the advice!
 
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