Arghh!!! ICK!

[emmaS]

Came home and the therms (one top, one bottom) were reading 86! I noticed one neon (two now have the ich) at the top of the tank gasping so I opened the hood. It immediately went down to the bottom where its mates were hanging out. I thought I set the therms at 82, but I had set them for 85. Yikes. I moved it down to 82.

I'm confused whether to do a water change or to wait out the week. Also do I add more salt? And would the salt granules create white spots on my pleco? Or is that ich?

 

[kveeti]

I'm confused whether to do a water change or to wait out the week. Also do I add more salt? And would the salt granules create white spots on my pleco? Or is that ich?

If it's time to do regular water changes, then yes, do them. Only add salt to the new water - mix it up first at the same proportion that's in your tank. Salt should be dissolved first before adding to your tank so there should not be any granules showing up on the fish.

 

[TKOS]

You would have to have an awful lot of salt in the water for it to show up on the scales of a fish. Salt dissolves pretty quickly in water.

Water changes can be done evry day with ich and it can actually help. Gravel vacuums will suck up some of the cysts in the gravel, water changes will also pull out some of the free swimming tomites.

Just add in the amount of salt you took out. So removing 2 gallons of water, if you are at 2 tsp per gallon then add just 4 tsp of salt back since the rest of the salt is still in the tank.

A little more salt added won't hurt things if you accidentally add too much, but keeping it around 2tsp per gallon or so is best.

 

[emmaS]

Ich is hideous. I did dissolve the salt in water first and slowly poured it in over the course of a day so the white spots on the pleco must be ich. He has been hiding out in his cave during the day so I never noticed but he is pretty much covered. He also has a couple of fresh wounds (bleeding) on his side--maybe from trying to rub off the ich.

One of the neons is covered in ich and is now missing it's tail. I don't know if it fell off or was ripped off cause I've seen the neon rubbing up against rocks. I've heard of fin rot disease but it looks like a clean break. None of the other fish's fins look abnormal, but I'm seeing a couple white spots on the other neons on their back fins.

Thanks for all the help. Hopefully this is the worst of it.

 

[jgulecas]

High temps and salt are usually the most effective/economical/safest treatment for ich. If you have some salt sensitive fish and/or plants, you may want to look into alternatives.

High temps are more easily tolerated by fish if you add aeration.