ick help, please!?

rrkss said:
Get yourself a hydrometer/refractometer (I use the marineland instant ocean one) and raises your specific gravity up to 1.006. That should wipe out the toughest strains of ich safely. My fish have dealt with a specific gravity of 1.011 for 36 hours and I did not have a single loss due to that salt level. I always treat ich at 1.005 specific gravity with no problems but if you have a resistant strain 1.006 is fine.
rrkss,
I took a reading with my refractometer at 2 tsp per and got 1.005. Is that right?

If so, that's pretty much what she has in there now.

Roan
 
Roan Art said:
rrkss,
I took a reading with my refractometer at 2 tsp per and got 1.005. Is that right?

If so, that's pretty much what she has in there now.

Roan


That should kill the ich. The problem with measuring the salt out is different crystal sizes, different measuring techniques and different ideas to what a teaspoon is. Not everyone is a cook and has a calibrated teaspoon measure available to dose their tanks. Some people slightly heap their teaspoons causing the measurement to be off. I remember when I dosed my tank with what I thought was 2 1/2 teaspoons per gallon and got a reading of 1.011 on my refractometer.
 
rrkss said:
That should kill the ich. The problem with measuring the salt out is different crystal sizes, different measuring techniques and different ideas to what a teaspoon is. Not everyone is a cook and has a calibrated teaspoon measure available to dose their tanks. Some people slightly heap their teaspoons causing the measurement to be off. I remember when I dosed my tank with what I thought was 2 1/2 teaspoons per gallon and got a reading of 1.011 on my refractometer.
I never even thought about that. People not using a proper measuring device or salt crystals being different sizes, that is. I always use a proper teaspoon and would never medicate without one. It makes giving advice like this very difficult to do since I really don't know how much salt is in the tank.

Paula,

Did you up the salt?

Roan
 
I agree with the salt thing. Many different brands or types of salt that is safe, comes in different size crystals. I wish people would give the advice based on weight, not spoon size...I think that would be a very good step in the right direction.
 
If you have treated non-stop for three weeks without lowering the salt levels at any time, and You are using NaCl not a saltwater mix or some other mineral salt. Then you definately want to increase levels now. Just to verify everything, it would be good to know what brand and or type of salt you are using. I'd start by raising it to 3 teaspoons per gallon. and maybe even go as high as 3.5 at this point. watch your fish closely. There are very few strains of ich that can live through 2 teaspoons per gallon, but there are some. 3 teaspoons per gallon is a different story as far as any research I have done. I have personally not had to deal with a strain that lived through 2 teaspoons per gallon though.

As far as volume versus weight, there is a serious margin of error with almost any dry substance. For the article and dosage reccomendations, I personally wieghed a teaspoon of Mortons table salt ten times and averaged it. I would have to look to see if I really touched on that well in the article though. Most table salt is consistant enough in grain size to measure with a teaspoon and get the job done. Most folks do not have scales, but virtually everyone has a set of measuring spoons. Volumetric measurement of dry substances does give some error, but the reccomended dosages should still do the job.

For anyone who does have a scale and can weigh their dosages instead of measuring volume. Here is some information.
1 mg/l per liter = 1 ppm,
As far as I know ich hasn't been found to withstand greater than 5 ppt (Parts per thousand) of salt.

So 1 gram per liter is 1000ppm or 1 ppt So if we want 6ppt to make sure ich has no chance whatsoever then we need 6 grams per liter.
1 Gallon = 3.7854118 liters so if we multiply 6 grams by 3.7854118 we need 22.7 grams per gallon to achieve 6 ppt of salt in the tank. If you have a scale that reads other than grams, just google the conversion you want and you will instantly be presented with a conversion calculator. For instance, my scale reads grains, so I type " Grains to grams conversion " into Google and it gives me a link for a calculator.
Just for the record, based on my average, 1 teaspoon of salt eqals 2.124 ppm in a gallon of water. 3 teaspoons per gallon will give you6.372
HTH
Dave
 
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