How long do I treat?

enrique4jc

enrique4jc

AC Members
Oct 17, 2006
615
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18
Russell Springs, KY
Real Name
Eric
Hey guys! I have 4 neon tetras in a QT tank waiting to go into my 29 gallon. When I went left for 2 days last week, I came home to find them with a bad case of Ich. I used the salt treatment method, and the white spots are all gone. I know there is probably still some of the parasite in the water, and so I don't want to rush getting them into the main tank. I have two questions:

1) How long do I need to treat after all the spots are gone?
2) How long should I wait before adding these fish to my main tank?
 
I would wait at least two weeks until after the last spots are seen. Ich has a habit of coming back in weird ways - one of which is that your neons might have developed resistance to this strain, but that doesn't mean the fish in your main tank have. So you see there can still be ich present for a while even if your fish are no longer affected by it. And that ich, once introduced to your main tank, will begin attacking new hosts.

Hopefully your QT tank doesn't have substrate. With that the ich has nowhere to go but open water - therefore when you're doing frequent water changes during treatment, you'll be removing lots of nasties at the same time as killing off what's left.
 
echoofformless said:
Hopefully your QT tank doesn't have substrate. With that the ich has nowhere to go but open water - therefore when you're doing frequent water changes during treatment, you'll be removing lots of nasties at the same time as killing off what's left.
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Unfortunately, it has gravel in it. I put it in there from my main take when I first set up the QT tank to help seed the bacteria colony. I'll keep up with the water changes and hopefullly get it all cleared up. A couple of weeks from now when I move the neons to the main tank, I'll get rid of the gravel. Thanks for pointing that out. It will help me in the future.
 
When all the spots are gone you dont have to do it anymore.
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actually ... the white spots may disappear but the encysted stages remain for several weeks more and may re-infect weak or poorly conditioned fish.

having gravel is NOT a problem. just continue to do gravel vacuuming 'during' the treatment and add salt back to that level of water you've removed in the process.
 
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