the Ick isn't going away! please help!

[Mindy]

There was ick that killed all but my 2 balloon mollies. I've been trying to do the salt treatment (around 80°) for a week. I tried the Jungle Ick Clear and that did nothing but stain the silicone on my tank. I removed my plants and rocks as well. I'm fairly new to the aquarium thing. I don't know what to do!! Please help!

 

[Lotus]

The salt and heat treatment can take some time to fully work.

The article here describes ich fully and will help you beat it. Follow the salt/heat treatment method and you should be OK: http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/ich.php

 

[sony]

It has been 10 days I am doing salt bath for my cichlids. How many days is the maximum for salt bath? I still see sometimes fishes are scratching. It seems Ick is not going away!

I am using about 2-tablespoon table salt per 5gal water, and raised water temperature to 86.

Any suggestion?

Sony

 

[Gentle Ben]

Have you cleaned/replaced the substrate at all?

Ich feeds off the fish and the eggs drop into the substrate.

 

[sony]

yes, I cleaned substrate and changed 20% of water weekly. Everytime After changing water, some of them started to scratch against rock when tempture was lower than 82, . The tempture now is 84-86.

Sony

 

[NoDeltaH2O]

intense gravel vacuuming is essential when treating ich as the ich cysts fall into the gravel before they burst. I had ich once about 2 years ago and the salt and high temp worked after about 2 weeks of it. I am very glad to hear that you removed your plants, but a word of caution. If you put the plants in a bucket or empty tank or something, ich may very likely be on them. Ich cannot survive through a complete life cycle without a host, but at lower temps the cycle lasts much longer, so I would keep the plants in their other home significantly longer than the amount of time that you treat the tank. High temp speeds up the cycle, which is why we do that to treat it. Heat doesn't kill the ich, but if speeds up the time so that ich becomes vulnerable to the salt quicker.

 

[freshyyf]

I do have the same problem now. Every time I change water, the fish scratch their bodies against the gravel and deco. Some of them show a couple of white spots but they are still very active and eat like a pig!!! Should I start to take a more drastic action? By the way, I am using the malachite green every 2 days now and the temp is about 80 F.