quick response please

[Toam]

noticed a few white spots on one of my silver dollar tetra's tail, well, two of their tails. now here's the thing, they are the oldest in the tank, having been around 8months or so. I recently added 6 more to the group for a total of 8 in my 70 gallon.
Should I immediately move these fish to my smaller 15gallon to isolate them? or would it already be too late? it's also not positively ick, I'd have to wait and see if it spreads before I would know 100%
I've already started to raise my tanks temp to I think it is 85? where the ick spores are no good. any advice? just keep a close eye on them I guess?
edit-wanted to add that not another fish in the tank has a single spot of any sort on them. I spent about 30 mins eyeing everything just to be sure.

 

[FishGeek]

Well I think that because 2 fish in your tank are showing the same signs then I think that its already too late. I would keep a very close eye on your tank. I am not sure if treating before your sure is ok or not. Maybe someone else can help there. Good Luck!!

 

[FroggyFox]

I agree with guppy. There's only one stage of the life cycle of ick that it is actually visible to your eye as those white spots...its invisible to you the rest of the time so all your other fish could already have it or are already exposed to it. Best thing you can do right now is like you said, keep a close eye on all of them, and I'd do some extra water changes just to keep that water quality as high as possible (just be sure to not shock or stress the fish out anymore than possible, maybe some extra smaller changes paying special attention to the temperature etc before adding water to the tank etc)

Good luck! Hope its just a false alarm

 

[Toam]

unfortunately not
it is ick fer sure so now I'm gonna have to figure a method to deal with it. got a lot of young plants I'm trying to get to grow into it. Here goes froggy, I'll give ya all the specs, it's a 70gallon tank, I got a aquaclear 110 (500) running on it along with a powerhead in the corner to create current. My substrate is fairly small gravel, and right now I'm running two heaters on it to get it up to temp. Plants inside the tank include java moss, java ferns, amazon swords, melon swords, senegal tea, and some unknown plant. The fish in the tank are listed below in my signature. Now the tank is fairly new, but it was cycled as it's ammon, nit, and nat were at nil before I added my fish to the tank. The levels are still the same, and I've only gone through maybe a week and a few days since moving the fish from my other tanks into it.
What kind of water changes am I going to need? and I know that ick is a 7 day virus, so 8 days of 85 should get rid of it?
and will that temp be okay with the fish I have listed? I had ick once in my 29 gallon a long time ago, and got rid of it by turning my tank up, and most of the fish in my 70 gallon survived that original ordeal, it's the gourami's and the shrimp that I'm wondering about...

 

[FroggyFox]

eek...ya might want to get Lotus' opinion cuz I'm definitely not the expert on this...BUT In my experience the ghosties dont do well with high temperatures at all.

Generally two weeks is better than 8 days because if its a 7 day virus and some multiply on the 4th day then you have 7 days after that....I dont know about the 7 day thing, I think the reason you heat the tank up is to speed up their cycle to get them to the point where they can be killed (salt). I dont think that the heat alone will kill them, will it? ...maybe extreme like over 86?

Not sure how the loaches, adf and snails are gonna do with added salt to the tank??

 

[Toam]

I had it once before a long time ago, and I'm almost positive I got rid of it with just raising the temp to 85, because what that does is prevent the ick parasite to go past a stage of it's cycle, so effectively, it will die out in that temp. I might have possibly used pimafix last time, but I'm not sure the effect that would have on the plants?(I know pimafix is one of the softer meds)

ps. thanks for the quick response

 

[Seleya]

I've treated a tank with apple snails and dojos before with the heat and salt treatment with no ill effects. I made sure to aim away from them but they stayed in the tank with the rest of them. My ghost shrimp are in with my mollies in a 80ish degree tank with no ill effects (more salt than the ich tx too) The one concern in that tank might be the ADF. I've always found the salt tx to be very effective amd more safe both for the fish and the biofilter than most medications.

Most of the plants should also fare well. The heat accelerates the ich life cycle, the salt kills one stage of the cycle. I would treat for one week past the last spots seen.

 

[Toam]

I've treated a tank with apple snails and dojos before with the heat and salt treatment with no ill effects. I made sure to aim away from them but they stayed in the tank with the rest of them. My ghost shrimp are in with my mollies in a 80ish degree tank with no ill effects (more salt than the ich tx too) The one concern in that tank might be the ADF. I've always found the salt tx to be very effective amd more safe both for the fish and the biofilter than most medications.

Most of the plants should also fare well. The heat accelerates the ich life cycle, the salt kills one stage of the cycle. I would treat for one week past the last spots seen.

okay, the one part I'm unsure of is the salt tx treatment? I was only aware of the heat portion, could you please explain the salt tx part so that I know?