please ich help...

[Olga]

I have 2 pictus catfish and 1 Stripped catfish. 2 days ago my 2 pictus catfishes have got ich. I think so...they have white spots like grains of salt. I put salt several times with intervals with 4 hours to make it 1 t. spoon per gallon of water and raised the temperature to 81F. now it seems like the areas around fins of pictus became red. what is wrong and how to change it...
the amonia and nitrire are 0, the nitrate level is 4

 

[FroggyFox]

Hi Olga...the salt and heat treatment needs to be done over a few week period. Ick will not go away instantly.

Some fish do not react well to salt...you should do some research and make sure that your catfish will be ok with salt. If you find out that they aren't tolerant of it you should be sure to lower your temperature back to 78-79 and do some water changes, and then use and ick medication that is ok for sensitive fish. THen you need to medicate for about twice as long as the medication says to, because even if the spots go away the ick may not be gone, it may still be free swimming in your tank.

What size tank is this?

 

[Olga]

thank you for replying. I have 10 gallons. why do you think the fins turned red?

 

[FroggyFox]

fins could turn red from irritation from the salt or any number of things. One being that a 10G is way too small for two pictus catfish because they're so active. I'm not sure what the other kind of catfish you're describing is...

 

[Olga]

my other catfish is Striped raphael catfish. I am going to perchase a bigger tank, just now i do not know what to do. i have asked at petstore and the gay said it is ok to use salt method for pictus, but he could be wrong...

 

[FroggyFox]

In general its not a good idea to listen for advice at the petstore, better to do your own research on a forum like this or other resources like books etc.

the Raphael gets pretty big too if memory serves...I'd just make sure that you're getting a nice big tank (say over 55 gallons) and do your research on these guys. Pictus cats are easily susceptible to ick, but even moreso when they're stressed out...so you probably want to do some more research on the best ways to cure them since keeping them in a 10 is going to stress them out it'll probably have a reoccurance.

 

[Olga]

i have read topics and it is different in each case. Number of people used salt/temp method, some medications and fish died or servived. I am panic(know i shoud not), because fell so helpless about the situation.