to treat for ick, or not to treat

allecb

AC Members
Feb 6, 2008
450
0
0
55g.
10 tiger barb
2 german blue ram
4 rummynose.

water is prestine. levels are all 0 so thats clear! :D

my ram has ick on its tail, and on its body. 2 barbs have some ick spots. should i go ahead and treat my tank, or wait?

also, if i am gonna treat.. im gonna try salt again (unless i should just use my jungle ick tablet things?) but last time i did it, this is what i did:

raised temp.
took out 5 gallons of water (i got a 5 gallon bucket) put 2 teaspoons per gallon (55 gallons) into the 5 gallon container. every 2 hours, i'd put 1/4th of the bucket of water, into my tank. i believe my fish got poisoned, and they all died. so i wanna try to do the salt thing RIGHT this time.. i cant have 5 gallons of water gone from my tank, and hear that loud *** filter trinkling water down ALL DAY long.. so what should i do? just put 1-2 teaspoons of salt directly into the tank, every like 20 minutes or what?


on a side note; i cant find my other GBR..where the hell has he gone!?!? i hope he isnt dead from ick hidden in trees somewhere.. **goes to look**

EDIT: AHH. I FOUND MY RAM DEAD. OMG !! :[ i remeber seeing a weird red blotchy/veiny patch near the back end of its body..and a little red lump/bump right under its motuh..maybe he had some sort of infection.
 
Why would you wait?
Treat it now, before it gets out of control!


You’ll need a concentration of 0.3% salt (3 teaspoons per gallon) to eradicate the Ich. To reach 0.3% salt you would add 1 teaspoon of salt per gallon of water to your tank 3 times, each 12 hours apart. Predissolve the salt in tank water and then add slowly to a high water flow area.
 
You could wait, but then you might not have any fish left

treat it asap
 
I don't get why you would take out all that water. You could mix the salt into a cup of (hot) water and put that in, or drop the salt into your HOB filter.
 
I agree. No reason not to start the treatment right away. Just remember that while it's urgent to get it treated, it's also urgent to do it slowly. I agree with the course of action proposed by Zig. Also remember to raise the temperature slowly. Good luck! Sorry 'bout the GBR, they are awesome fish. They are pretty delicate though. =(
 
okay, im gonna treat ick today. im scared to do 3 teaspoons per gallon, so im gonna go more with 1 1/2- 2 teaspoons.

i have a few more q's..

how much water should i take out? like i said, i dont wanna take out 5 gallons this time..maybe a gallon or less, would that be ok? so i put all the salt i need, into that container..and im gonna dose it by putting one cup of salted water, into my tank..so if i were to put 1 cup (as in measuring cup) of salted water into the tank, how long should i wait till i add another cup? i just wanna make sure i do it right and slowly cause i dont want a mass death like what happened last time.
 
ok i put about 100 teaspoons of salt into a 2 gallon container.. im gonna put 1/2-1 full cup of it into my tank every 40 minutes.. i hope that is ok.
 
that seems like a lot of salt. i've treated ick a few times and have never used more than 1 tsp/g
 
AquariaCentral.com