Brand new fish with ?

[beviking]

Sounds good to me!

Keely, salt and heat are a seperate treatment method but can also be used with some meds. The salt doesn't kill the ich at this low a dose, it makes the fish produce more slime and at the same time, doesn't allow a build up of slime on the fish. This sloughing of slime helps keep other parasites from invading and exposes external parasites to any meds. (Ich is exempt from the latter b/c it encysts under the outer most layer of skin.) Heat speeds up the ich life cycle resulting in a quicker cure and less stress in the long run on the fish.

 

[keely]

I don't think it's good advice to add salt when using Ich Cure on cardinal tetras, but we can agree to disagree

 

[beviking]

Is there a reason you don't agree with it keely? Something in IchCure that doesn't mix with salt? I'm not a chemist (I thought suziq was?) and I'm not trying to egg you on, just curious about your own experience with salt and cardinals. Personally, I have used salt with cardinals and all was o.k.. That isn't to say that this will always be the case though.

 

[suziq]

OOH.! I see we have a controversy in my absence!

I have know idea of how the salt works to cure ich. I am not a chemist just a science major. Chem is actually my biggest weakness (orgo - yuck!) However I did look up the chemical structures of the ingredients in ichcure and don't see how Na and Cl could effect the structures. It might mess with the metabolism of the formalin within the fish.

If the salt does cause a sloughing of the slime coat, I think it may actually be beneficial to the cardinals seeing as though they have been exposed, they show no symptoms of the disease.

PS a 75% survival rate is pretty darn good for wild caught cardinals that are extremely disease ridden when acquired.

PPS Just want to let everyone know I have officially 4.0 my entire last semester of undergrad work. I now get a pretty piece of paper to hang on my " Yeah Me!" wall.

 

[Sumpin'fishy]

One thing I've noticed through my own experiences, and have backed up through reading other's experience, is that my pleco seemed to get distressed only when I added large amounts of salt (In rocksalt form) to the tank at one time and it disolved right next to him. He seemed fine in the water after all the salt was dissolved though! As I understand, salt will burn these sensitive fish (and others if applied directly) when it is not disolved in the water yet. To help dilute the salt you can either add less over a period of time, or dilute in water that you are adding.

My suggestion is to do 1Tbsp of salt per 5 gal water (added gradually), use an ich treatment, raise temp to 80 degrees, and vacuum gravel and do a 75% water change at least every other day! I'm serious about this water change thing! The life-cycle will speed up to about 5 days to a week at that temp and the syphons will remove eggs and free-swimming ich. They multiply by the thousands. I'd treat the tank this way for at least 2 weeks and then check every thing out normally again. Hope the best for you

 

[Serrateeth_2002]

One thing,you shouldn't mix medicene,may be fatal,