ICH/salt/temp question

Hi Dave, sorry about that! Directions on the package and on Skeptical Aquarist are 2 table spoons of salt per gallon. So when I did the water change I put in 2 tblsp of the aquarium salt thinking that I was not going to over do it. I lost one of the rainbows overnight and the other is not doing well at all. Temp is 86.
In every article I read some say teaspoon and some say tablespoon.

Should I do another water change and vacuum? Should I keep the temp up?

:sick:
 
Ok, just did about a 5 gal water change and vacuumed good. Should I add a teaspoon of table salt now? Rainbow and sword are not well, others are just a bit sluggish, I assume the others are from the temp being 86.
 
I'd go ahead and slowly add the salt. my method is to add 1/4 teaspoon per gallon every 2-3 hours until I reach a level of 2 teaspoon per gallon total. The heat has two effects the first of which does the most to help your fish. 1st effect is that elevated temps speed up the life cycle of ich. since it can only hurt your fish while it is on them, and it cannot be killed while on your fish the higher the temp the sooner you can help your fish. it will hatch off of your fish sooner in warm water. with this in mind, 78 is better than 76 and 80 is better than 78 so on and so forth.
2nd effect at 86* F Ich cannot survive therefore getting the temp up to that point is most desireable. however ich cannot survive the salt either way so if you can only achieve 82* but the salt is there you will kill the ich. it is better to give it the double whammy of salt + 86 * but salt plus *2* will work.

The big important fact in all of this is that ICH can only be killed during the free swimming stage while it is out looking for a host. the stage when it is on your fish is stage one, feeding stage (continuos cycle of three stages so one is an arbitrary number), then it goes into the substrate and multiplies (stage two) then hatches out ( multiplied in numbers) and goes freeswimming (Stage three) to find your fish again and feed (back to stage one). if the temp is high and the salt is in the water it dies as soon as it hatches into freeswimmers. The sooner you can raise the temp and get the salt in place the faster the ich will die, but be sure to treat for at least 1 full week after all signs of ich are gone from your fish. many people stop treatment as soon as the fish look good, and by the time the ich hatches, there is nothing in the tank to kill them and they go on reproducing and living in the tank. if your fish are healthy the may only attach and grow on the gills, and thus go unnoticed until something stresses your fish again and boom you have a big ich outbreak. This is the source of the myth that ICH is always n the tank and can't be irradicated. Let me know if you have any other questons.
HTH
Dave
 
My loaches now have it. This is at 7 days since I raised the temp and added salt. 4 days into the treatment the gt was clear. 3 days after that my loaches break out. Im questioning this method.
 
Well I lost both of the Rainbows, my beautiful fish. I am completly devistated . One of the tetras is still showing signs of the Ich. I will keep temp up and treating with salt for the rest of the week. I treat for a week correct?? Water changes with 1 tsp of salt per gal?? :sick:

Once I get this bug out of there, where do I go from here? I live a long way from any good fish stores. My local LFS is 25 miles away and I know now that they have Ich.

Can anyone suggest if there is a good place online to buy healthy fish? I dont know if I will get Rainbows again, I was thinking possibly Dwarf Gouramis.

Thanks for the input......and thanks Dave for your knowledgable advise!
 
I have had good experiences with www.**************** but you can still run the risk of disease. The best way to prevent a catastrophic outbreak of ich is prevention. Quarantine all fish prior to introducing them in your main show tank. I ahve a 10g tank that serves this purpose for me. Unfortunately about 4 weeks ago I was impatient and introduced 12 cardinal tetras without any Q time to my 55g planted tank. In all I lost 10 cardinal tetra, 1 rummy nose tetra, 1 cory, 1 SAE, and 1 otocinclus. It took over 2 weeks to become ich free with an additional week of treatment and water changes before I discontinued therapy. All is well now. I used a combination of heat at 86, salt at 1.5 tsp/gallon and a weak dose of medication. The heat and salt alone was not effective. Its possible that I ws just not patient enough. Plenty of folks with more experience have had success with heat and salt. The take home lesson for me was to exercise patience and Q all fish in the future. I currently have 4 corydoras paleatus and 2 Emerald corys (Brochis splendens) in quarantine with plans to introduce them to my planted tank in about 10 days. This method has never failed for me.

Scott
 
Good news and bad news.....
First the good - The ich "granules" have evidentally been falling off the fish and they have very little on them today.
The bad news - my clown loaches seem to have white spots (like a loss of color, not like a grain of salt(ich)) everywhere they previously had ich spots. AND they are considerably less active today. I'm afraid one of them is in his final hours. :sad
I did a 25% water change with vacuuming today and added salt to the replacement water. Maybe that will remove some of the ich before it has an opportunity to hatch. I also added a dose of Melafix to the tank just to hopefully help with the healing process.
So, I guess I am making some progress with this method - hopefully things will continue to get better.
 
I lost one clown loach. He didn't make it through the night. The good news is that the other loaches look much better and are more active today. The white "spots" have pretty much gone, although they do still have just a few ich spots left on them. The gouramis are all free and clear and seem to be more active than ever. Hopefully the worst is over now.
 
Mine are covered, I have these guys for almost 2 years. It really upsets me to see them covered with ich.I just did a huge water change, removed my snails and added copersafe. I may regret this.
 
While I have found the salt and heat very effective, and the science behind it is good. There is obviously something going on in your tank that doesn't fall within the norms. I personally would never subject my fish to copper, but it may or may not work. Malechite green also works for ich, its just harder on the fish than salt and normally no more effective. The ICH article I linked covers the use of meds as well, not sure if it mentions coppersafe though. either way all you can do is all you can do and hopefully it will work for you and your fish.
Dave
 
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