ICK & THE HEAVILY PLANTED TANK

If you are seeing spots on everything, looks like grains of salt, then yes it it ich. I cant say whether your shrimp and fry will live, but I can say that if you dont treat them with something they will almost certainly die. Now with that being said what you have to determine is which med is the lesser evil. I highly reccomend the salt heat method. IMO, it is the least stressful of all the med choices out there, and the most highly effective (at least of the meds I would even consider putting in my tank).

Read this: http://aquafacts.net/wiki/index.php/Ich

Blue
 
Your shrimp and fry should do fine. You may wish to keep the temp lower than the usual 86F. Try around 80F. The salt will work, just take a little longer as the life cycle of the ich isn't sped up quite as much.

Add the salt in slowly so they get adjusted to it. Say 1/3 the amount to start with during a water change, then over the next day to the full amount.
 
Well, I use Rid-Ich+, and my fish and my plants all fare very well with it. And it's effective against ich and a few other things, like fungus.

My fish had problems with the salt/heat treatment.
 
TKOS said:
Your shrimp and fry should do fine. You may wish to keep the temp lower than the usual 86F. Try around 80F. The salt will work, just take a little longer as the life cycle of the ich isn't sped up quite as much.

Add the salt in slowly so they get adjusted to it. Say 1/3 the amount to start with during a water change, then over the next day to the full amount.
Click to expand...

Ive had ich twice...didnt raise the temperature either time, but I did treat for 1 week longer than directions said to and just removed the salt with regular 20 percent weekly water changes..

Blue
 
starting stuff

thank you guys so much!
i took this info with me to the fish store today (strangely enough called "the fish store") and combined with their additional info, i think i'm going to try a temp increase to 80 and a medicated treatment.

i'll let you know how fry+shrimp+snails+plants did after this mess is all over!

thanks again :) i feel much more hopeful now.
 
this is probably the best thread on ich. Just to confirm a couple points from my experience:

temperature at 86F, 1 tsp per gallon salt, 6 days in, oto and ture sae are all ok with no sign of severe stress. Cardinals(all arrived covered in ich) fared terribly, with many losses.

This is another word of caution against cardinal tetra, they are very susceptible to ich, sensitive to water conditions, and are usually wild caught (low survive rate). This combo makes it a difficult fish to keep.

I wish i did my research on cardinal, just assumed it's similar to neon tetra but they are not and much more difficult in my experience. A combination of poor sick stock, bad shipping, and stress during ich treatment has killed off 75% of my newly bought cardinals.

I plan to take the rest to a lfs, and replace with glofish(zebra danio aka robot fish) instead. So sick of dealing with this fish, and my plants (which is what's important!) are getting unhealthy because of it!
 
I just successfully treated my (planted) tank for ich using heat only. Raised the temp to about 87 (had to buy a second heater). I have kuhli loaches, so preferred not to use salt.

I had 4 cories with visible symptoms. I lost 1- the worst- but all the others cleared up fine, and all my other fish, including cardinal tetras, came through fine as well.

Also, as far as cardinal tetras, I kept having them die until I QT-ed them. All the ones I QTed are still alive months later, and nice and fat and happy. They're gorgeous fish when they get big!
 
This is really great information. Ich (shudder)! I don't know what I would do if I came down with a tank full of it. I have so many baby snails in my main tank, it'd be easier to retank all the fish and treat them there.

I didn't click on all the links but has anyone referenced this one in particular? http://www.aquamaniacs.net/forum/cms_view_article.php?aid=27

Had some really interesting data on what exactly ICH is and how they reccomend treating it. Just another source unless it's been sited already, if so, sorry for the double.
 
"Also, as far as cardinal tetras, I kept having them die until I QT-ed them. All the ones I QTed are still alive months later, and nice and fat and happy."

Curious...CLB, when you QT the cardinals, do you prophylactically treat them or just observe them and treat as clinically indicated? Do you have an elaborate set-up? I too am going to take a stab at cardinals in my 55g/with plants, and would like to avoid the whole ICH/disease fiasco. I know one can buy the cardinals raised in Europe, but they are pricier and involve shipments. I have not seen any LFS advertise "locally raised cardinals"...what a shame. This was a great thread and timely for me...thanks for all the great info.
 
great thread! thankfully i've only ever had to deal with ich once, on one fish in it's own tank. used a med (ich guard if i remember right), no heat increase at all, and cleared in about 5 days, maybe 6, i can't recall exactly, but i know it wasn't a week. wasn't a bad case though, thank goodness.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom