Pictus cats & ICH... HELP?! :(

okay, i keep alot of different catfish and botias and eels in my tank... i just noticed, after about a month from the introduction of our most recent fish, that we have ich... this is about the 3rd time, and every time i have no choice but to treat with the conventional med's that are sold at pet stores. now i know im not supposed to use any of these with pictus cats especially, but what else can i use? anyone ever been able to cure ich on pictus cats?

right now, i have removed all the meds from the water after a 24 hour treatment. i did about a 75% water change, and as always, my pictus cats are still acting strange and their wiskers seem to be dying.

i also set up a small tank and put my 9 botias and one tiretrack eel (who all seem to have at least one ich spot on them) and bombed them with a mixture of ich and fungus treatment that seems to be working, but i still fear for their health.

one pictus cat still in general population still shows a couple spots, even after last nights medication and water change... is there ANYTHING i can do/use to save my fish

every time this sutff gets my fish, i end up with the same thing: everything dies but the tinfoil barbs, gouramis and angel fish... and of course the more sturdy of the catfish (pleco, banjos, raph's and whiptails).

please help

i know there is special meds for scaleless fish to treat ich, but i have had no luck at all with them.

also... my pair of sun cats seem to be itching at the gravel, but do not show any spots yet... could they just be itching to itch, or could they be infected w/o showing signs yet?

if anyone could possibly help, please contact me on AIM or reply here, or email me. i would greatly appriciate it!

EMAIL: foof@horrorcore.com
AIM: REELIFEPRODUCT

well, after reading some information from the boards here, im now trying to bring my temp up around 90. i dont THINK i have anything that will be affected by this, but im going to watch things very carefully while bringing the temp up.

im also adding salt a little at a time, trying to reach 1tsp per/gal.

anybody? advice?

indeed, im just really tired of losing fish... guess i need to stop giving in to the temptation of new fish

if i can bring it up to 90 w/o harming anything, im going to do it.... if i get any odd reactions, i will obviously lower it, pronto.

now from what i read, ich is pretty much safe while it is actually on the fish... does this mean the temp change will not effect it at this stage as well?

how long should i leave the temp up?

daveedka said:

Just a note for FooF, I do not pretend to be an all knowing expert, but well over 90% of my ich experiences in 16 years have been with pictus cats in particular. They seem to be the first thing to get an outbreak no matter what fish are in the tank. I can tell you straight up that they will not tolerate meds if the ich is bad at all the combined stresses are almost always fatal. I have successfully treated them with salt and heat but no other method I've ever used seemed to work. Check out the article, if you have additional questions post back, and I'll try to keep an eye out for your posts.
dave

Click to expand...

thanks very much, the article was extremely informative for me, but im wondering.... i believe you said (i may have some info wrong, correct me if i do) ich cant live in 85-90 deg water... but also, that ich is pretty much invincible while in the 'on fish' stage.... so will raising the temp to 88 or so kill the ich living on the fish, or not?
thanks again for all the information.
~KM

indeed you could be... it kills off my pictus cats.

also, i dont know that silver dollars are scaleless....