please help my pictus catfish with ich...

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Olga

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I have 2 pictus catfish and 1 Stripped catfish. 2 days ago my 2 pictus catfishes have got ich. I think so...they have white spots like grains of salt. I put salt several times with intervals with 4 hours to make it 1 t. spoon per gallon of water and raised the temperature to 81F. now it seems like the areas around fins of pictus became red. what is wrong and how to change it...
the amonia and nitrire are 0, the nitrate level is 4.
I do not know what to do....I am trying to help them, but maybe I do it wrong.
i have read topics and it is so different in each case. Number of people used salt/temp method, some medications and fish died or servived.

Thank you :sad:
 

Sully

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Jan 24, 2003
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salt and 81ºF is rarely going to "cure" your fish of ich. It my knock it back, but it rarely elinimates it totally from your fish. temps need to get up to 91ºF to kill ick and salt needs to be at a tsp/gallon to kill ich. obviosly temp and salt will work together--but medications on the market will work far more effectively far more uickly.

the redness around the gills may be the ich--it attacks the gill membranes. It may also be a function of gill membrane irritation created by excessive salt in your tank.

i would do a large volume (50%-60%) water change. Reduce the temp to about 78ºF if the cats are juveniles or very young adults (50% or less of full size).

I would then fo to an lfs and buy an OTC ich med like Ich Guard, Rid Ich, Nox ich or any formulation containing Malachite Green/Formalin, Victoria Green/formalin/Acriflavin. Then treat according to label directions.

Continue treatment for 3-5 days after last visible ich symptom has vanished.

I would also continue with the water changes and gravel vacs prior to every dosing of medication--especially with those meds containing formalin. Also, see if you can increase surface agitation to facilitate gas exchange.
 

ele

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Nov 27, 2005
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this is me, Olga. I could not log in using my password, so I registered one more time.

Thank you very much for replying!

How do you think, should I use the exact amount of medication that stated on instruction or it should be less due to sensitivity of catfishes?
 

daveedka

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Jan 30, 2004
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salt and 81ºF is rarely going to "cure" your fish of ich. It my knock it back, but it rarely elinimates it totally from your fish. temps need to get up to 91ºF to kill ick and salt needs to be at a tsp/gallon to kill ich. obviosly temp and salt will work together--but medications on the market will work far more effectively far more uickly.
This is incorrect information. Salt will kill ich, and do so quite nicely at any temperature. Temperatures above 86* F will also kill ich, but it's a bit riskier to count on temp alone. 91*F is largely unnecessary. As a general rule the increases in temp are used to speed up the life cycle and get the ich off of your fish quicker so that it can be killed. Ich cannot be killed while on the fish. it must grow and fall off first. Meds are no faster than salt because you still have to wait for the ich to grow and fall off your fish. the only thing that will speed up the process is the temperature elevations, and that works equally for meds and salt both.
Pictus cats in particular seldom survive meds even at half dosage. Half dosage of most meds is seldom highly effective on ich (usually inneffective and dangerous really). so using meds for sensative fish is really not something I would ever reccomend. If you were dealing with a hardy fish that didn't mind the meds, and you could use full dosage in a clean tank. they are probably O.K., With anything sensative, salt is really the safest method by far. The crux of the matter is salt or meds either one will kill the ich if used properly, but since meds are much more irritating and dangerous it makes no sense whatsoever to use medications for ich.
Remember that whatever you use will need to be kept in place for a good bit of time. Once all ich is gone from your fish you need to continue treatment long enough to kill the ich when it hatches. It is usually reccomended to continue treatment for a week after the last ich cyst is gone. Read the article I linked in the other post for more detail.
If I were a betting man, you'd never get me to bet a pictus can survive full dose meds for more than about 3 days.

BTW you might request one of the Mods combine your double post. double posting seldom if ever helps, and will usually scatter information far and wide and add confusion to your situation.


Dave
 

ele

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Nov 27, 2005
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the 3 days are gone, but nothing changed. Is it too fast to expect that ich gone?
Also, I am worry about my Stripped catfish, if it is ok for him to live in salt?

Olga
 

daveedka

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Jan 30, 2004
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Read the article I linked.

3 days is not nearly long enough to expect anything,

At this point you had better hope your striped catfish can live through the salt, because ich will kill him if he can't, and if he can't handle salt he darn sure can't handle meds. So your best option is salt for long enough to treat ich. The only part of the treatment that is adjustable is the temp. you can treat at normal tank temps. but the life cycle of ich takes longer at normal tank temps, so it will be on your fish longer, and therefore it will be damaging your fish longer. additionally at lower temps you will need to treat for longer periods thus subjecting your fish to salt and meds for longer amounts of time.

Read the article, it's all in there. And make sure you follow both of your posts since you double posted and the information is scattered.
dave
 

ele

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Nov 27, 2005
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Thank you for your advice. I have read the article and I think it is great. I have raised the temperature to 82F. Should I raise more?
I will follow the directions and hope everything will be ok.
 

sardesign

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Sep 28, 2005
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If you feel comfortable raise it to about 84 (slowly). I run my tank at 87 when I have a case of Ich... with NO deaths. I use 2 tsp/gallon of salt and keep it that way for 2 weeks. After that... NO Ich!!! :)
 

ele

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Nov 27, 2005
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For how long does your fish had spots? Mine have it for 3 days ( already 4 actually) and it looks like the number of spots is increasing. On the second day it looked like the spots are melted(a little bit), but today...there are twice as much of them.
 

ele

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Nov 27, 2005
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I have raised the temperature to 84. The fish is swimming on the top and trying to catch some air. I think it is due to lack of oxigen. I have an air pupm. What do you think should be better, to lower the temperature or jost leave alone and maybe do water changes more frequently?
 
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