89 degrees....safe?

drgold

drgold

AC Members
Mar 1, 2006
347
0
0
43
Wausau, WI
I have a small ich outbreak in my planted tank. A few platys have some spots on their fins and are clamped up. Some of the plecos might have spots, too.

I have been using formalin-3 for 4 days with little improvement. I had the water temp at 85. Can I take the heat up to 89 without killing the fish or melting the plants? I haven't used salt yet because of the sensitivity of my catfish.

Water parameters are 0,0,10, ph = 7.6. Tank is 65 usg and has a 30" bubble wall and 4 AC70 filters. Plants are many anubias and java ferns.

Fish are 2 bristlenose, 6 small rainbows, 10 platys, and a syno cat.

I'm leaving on vacation in a week and need this cleared up before then. Thanks for any help!
 
Once you heat the tank up to 90, it will kill ich, dead, gone, won't come back, so why not move the plants out for a while while you do this? I would stop using the formalin, it poisons the fish and heat is much more effective.
 
I personally am not foind of temps that high, But the fish will tell you if it's too much by going to the top for Air. IME the heat is more stressful than salt alone, and less stressful than Formalin. You catfish would like salt much better than Formalin that is for sure. Formalin at full strength properly dosed in a cleqan tank should do the job, but there are a lot of variables.For more information read this

Dave
 
Ideally, I'd move the plants, but they're well established and rooted to pieces of wood and it would be very difficult to house all of them somewhere else. Also, I'd like the plants to receive the "treatment," too, so I know that the parasite will not come back.

Thanks for the advice, though. Do you know if a temp. that high would be very damaging to plants?
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't tank temperatures at 90 degrees for an extended length of time start to kill off beneficial bacteria as well?

I'm in the "heat and salt club" to treat ich, but I wouldn't want the temperature anywhere near that range.
 
Are you sure syno cats are really all that sensitive to salt...? Because adding salt really works wonders. My snails were totally cool with 1.5 teaspoons of salt per gallon when I had an ich breakout in my platy tank, and I would think they'd be more sensitive to the salt than a catfish would be. Besides, I would think the formalin would be just as hard on the catfish, if not harder, than salt. >_o But yeah, the salt got rid of all the visible ich spots on my platies within two days of adding it, without increasing the temperature of the water at all. It's good stuff. *nods*
 
I've done the salt thing, back when I had fancy goldfish and no live plants. Worked wonders, and quickly. But, I had two bristlenose in the tank that bloated up and died. I figured the osmotic pressure wasn't tolerable for them. The goldfish did fine, however. Maybe I should try again and see if it's different this time?
 
drgold said:
I've done the salt thing, back when I had fancy goldfish and no live plants. Worked wonders, and quickly. But, I had two bristlenose in the tank that bloated up and died. I figured the osmotic pressure wasn't tolerable for them. The goldfish did fine, however. Maybe I should try again and see if it's different this time?
Click to expand...

I have bristlenose and clown loaches and never had a problem with the salt and heat, I never went to 90 though.

Read deveedka's article though, everyone that has used that method has had positive results.
 
I did the salt treatment for 2 weeks at 87, everything in my tank did fine but the plants. I had a bad outbreak of blue green alage that covered everything.
Maracyn at 1/3 to 1/2 dose for 3-4 days knocked that out. The plants are doing great again.
If I have to ever treat for ich again in a planted tank, I think I'll try the same treatment at 82 degrees.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom