Loaches/Plecos w/ ick

[Archangel]

I've just noticed one of my smaller clown loaches has some white spots on his tail i'm pretty sure is ick. Got to looking around and noticed some on my Gold Nugget also. So...

I've already started raising my temp. Also doing a water change before starting any treatment just to be on the safe side.

I'm not too sure about salt treatments or medicine. I already have some medicine called ick away, but it's malachite green based which I heard was hard on loaches and catfish. I was wondering if I should just used salt treatment and if so/ how much? And if I should us both the malachite and salt? or just one or the other.

 

[daveedka]

I definately wouldn't use both, My personal beleif and experience has shown that salt is far less stressful than malechite green and every bit as effective. I would slowly raise the salt level to 1 tsp per gallon, watch the fish for a day and if they don't react too badly raise it on up to 2 teaspoons per gallon. My pictus cats ( very sensative as well) did fine with two teaspoons per gallon and temperature at 86* F. The reccomendation in the article is 1-3 teaspoons per gallon so 2 should give you a good margin of error.
Here is an excellent article on ich and another on Salt.
http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/ich.shtml
http://www.aaquaria.com/aquasource/salt.shtml
HTH
Dave