Ich treatment using salt?

[jessie]

Hey guys,

I posted a few days ago about my situation with an ich outbreak in my tank. I have been reading about a few of the remedies offered to other members and I have some questions. I used a product by API called " Super Ich Cure." I used the full dose recommended. Well, all that happened was 3 days later, I have now lost another cardinal tetra, emperor tetra and cory cat-and not any of the fish that had ich. Here's what I have stocked: cardinal tetras, rummy nose tetras, emperor tetra, 2 german blue rams, and a cory cat. I have determined that since my healthy fish died, they probably didn't tolerate the ich treatment. My fish that have ich still have spots on them. I know that some of the ich treatments are harsh on tetras and corys. I added carbon and did a water change to get rid of the medication. I would like to know if cory cats and tetras can tolerate adding aquarium salt to help with treatment. I have increased my temp to 82, been adding stress coat as others have recommended. (As I mentioned before, ammonia and nitrites have always been zero). Any advice would be great!

Thanks.

[Lady Hobbs]

I used Jungle Labs drop in pellets the time my fish were bought with ick. Some of the scaleless ones don't like the medication but they don't like the salt, either.

If you do go with aquarium salt, I would use half strength which would be about 1 T per gallon. If you go with Jungle Labs, I would also break the tabs in half for those not so tolerate of it.

QuickCure also has a good Ick medication and is said to get rid of it in 2 days.

[Chrona]

Ick treatments should be dosed for a minimum of 2 weeks. Whoever put that label on that product is full of BS. Ick (the parasite) burrows into a fish, where it is virtually immune to all forms of chemicals that would not kill your fish as well. It is ONLY in the free-swimming stage (occurs after the white cyst grows and eventually pops out) that ick can be killed. Many ick medications recommend treatment times of up to a month, since the meds may not kill all of the parasites during the first cycle, and because the time the ick parasite spends growing in it's host before popping out varies dramatically depending on water temp. The risk you run with only treating for 2 days is that:

1) You may miss the free-floating stage completely
2) A strain of ick that is resistant to your meds may prevail and spread
3) If a single parasite infects another fish (ick has to find a host within 2-3 days or die) then you start the whole painful process over again.

I haven't had ick in a long time, so I can't really recommend any particular brands of medications, but you can try it again at a smaller dosage for a prolonged period of time. Ideally, you would isolate the infested fish. And yes, salt does help, but only in preventing the new parasites from burrowing into another fish.

[jessie]

Are the tetras also senstive to salt? If I can move my cory cat to another tank, can I do the full strength salt treatment, or will this harm the tetras?

[Chrona]

I've never tried full strength salt on my cardinals, but half strength has worked fine. The additional salinity apparently also helps them breathe or something.

[crackatinny]

I gave a full recommended dose of aquarium salts to my community tank with neons, black neons, and black skirt tetras, 2 days ago, and they are all fine so far.

[cocoa_pleco]

neons and cories cant take salt, i know cories for sure, but im not sure on tetras.

If its a small chunk of ich, use salt. If its bad, use meds

[Chrona]

Small chunk of ich grows big very quickly. I'd use meds regardless.

[freshwaterfishlover]

You said you added Carbon. Don't most Medicine bottles say remove Carbon.

[Chrona]

You said you added Carbon. Don't most Medicine bottles say remove Carbon.

He said he used carbon after the treatment to remove the meds

[cocoa_pleco]

He said he used carbon after the treatment to remove the meds



ditto:1::1::1::1:


lol

[jessie]

I have about 3 fish who have the small spots in them. I was debating removing these three to my 6 gallon beta tank (after putting my betta into a temporary small bowl for a few weeks) to use as a sick tank. Or with having already 3 with spots, should I treat the whole tank? I am nervous about losing any more fish to the medication.

[cocoa_pleco]

I would go with treating the whole tank

[jessie]

Cocao Pleco-you recommended using salt over ich treatment. Have you had success with this method? The couple of fish who do have ich spots are barely noticable, but definitely do have spots. I was goign to go with this method, along with using stress coat with daily small water changes, increasing the temp, and keeping lights off.

[jessie]

Update: I found another dead cardinal and another dead rummy nose tetra. I am adding up the total loss so far-oh, about half the tank. and none of the ones with the ich spots have died! I guess my water is just WAY too hard for cardinals and rummy nosed. I put the cory cat with my beta so I can use the salt method. I think the ich treatment medication was also too harsh for my little tetras.

[cocoa_pleco]

tetras cannot be in hard water. They need soft water.

I generally only use salt for mild popeye, fin rot, or ich. If its bad, i use melafix and pimafix, if that doesnt work, i use drastic chemicals

[jessie]

Yep, I'm finding that out the hard way. I wonder what else does ok in hard water besides African cichlids. So far my Blue Rams seem to be doing ok. I'll be ticked if they don't survive this ordeal.

[cocoa_pleco]

mollies like hard water

[jessie]

What about puting them with the blue rams? don't they also like salt? I doubt any of the tetras will survive because they are dropping like flies. I could always keep the cory cat in my betta tank.

[Chrona]

Again, let me reiterate that pimafix and melafix doesn't do anything for ick. And salt is only used as a MILD preventative/treatment. Salt by itself sucks compared to the actual meds.