treating ick in a planted tank with scaleless fish

[NoDeltaH2O]

Hi All,

I have an academic question, thankfully. I had an outbreak of ick a year and a half ago and i basically killed my plants by treating with salt and high temps. If I encounter another outbreak of ick, what is the best way to treat the tank without harming my plants or my scaless fish and shrimp?

 

[Lotus]

I think that's a tough one. Almost everything will kill at least one of those things. The only thing I can think of that is safe for everything is a UV sterilizer.

Quarantine is the best way to prevent ich in your tanks, IME.

 

[lmosness]

I have been dealing w/ the same thing this week. I don't have real plants so all I had to worry about was my shrimp. I separated him/her & am treating the rest w/ a "cocktail". Salt, temp up to 88-90 F, Aquarisol (full dose once per day), a copper treatment, & Quick Cure (1/2 dose twice per day).

 

[dss2004]

That is a lot of medication. Cocktails are usually avoided. Fish don't respond to multiple types of treatments. The higher temps will reduce the dissolved oxygen and the copper, quick cure, and aquarisol will lower it even further. I will be real suprised if all the fish pull through. Copper is an extremely strong medicine in itself, it might actually hurt some of your biological filtration.

IMO that temp is really high. I have had luck with raising it only to about 82-84.

I don't know. Most medications will tell you "not to use in conjunction with other medicince." As a rule I would always follow the directions of the medicine to a tee.

 

[phOOey]

when i had an ich outbreak a while back, i chose not use any medications or salt. i just raised the temperature to 85f and this killed of the ich no problem. the plants were ok, not great, but they recovered.

i have also heard of people using half the recommended doseage for loaches etc.

 

[nicolleen]

hi,

the amount of salt and rise in temperature should not kill the plants.
copper in any way has to be avoided, when you have shrimps in the tank, they die. catfish have problems with salt in the water and a few other fish as well.
the best medication is malachite-green (oxalate), although there are sensitive fish, e.g. neons, who might not tolerate malachite-green.

the idea of raising the temperature is not to kill off the bugs (that's not possible at these temperatures), but to speed up their life cycle, and make treatment act faster. it can only kill one stadium of the bug.

with higher temperature it has to be made sure, that there is enough oxygen in the water, as less oxygen dissolves the higher the temperature.

the ichtyo parasites are normal to be present in a fish tank. stress, bad water quality etc. helps it to explode. therefore the best preventative measure is to look after your tank, keep the water fresh, not too many fish, various diet, not too much food, no social stress,...

if you catch ich right at the first symptoms, it may also prove an efficient treatment to change50-60% water every day for a few days. it stimulates the immune system and reduces the concentration of the bugs (although most of them will be found in the ground, together with useful micro-organisms).

lg
niki

 

[lordroad]

I was in this same boat a month ago.

I had luck with half dosing Quick Cure, a 50/50 of formalin and malachite green. This killed my shrimp, but the plants and fish got through it fine. I began dosing 5 drops in my ten gallon before a 15 percent water change, then 5 hours later another water change and another 5 drop dose, and so on and so forth. Monitor the life in your tank for the first day, and watch if the ich starts to go down (you should see signs of it dying off in 24 hours). I stuck with this regiment for 5 days, but it just wouldn't wipe out the last trace of ich.

I then dosed 5 drops a day, no water changes, and did this straight for 3 days. This finally wiped it out. Again, this was plant friendly with mayaca, rotala, java moss, amazon sword, anubias, and a carpet plant i don't remember.

 

[NoDeltaH2O]

I was in this same boat a month ago. I had luck with half dosing Quick Cure, a 50/50 of formalin and malachite green. This killed my shrimp, but the plants and fish got through it fine.

Can shrimp get ich? I don't know, never thought about it before? In the event of a future outbreak of ich, would removing the shrimp allow for a more robust Ich treatment regimen? I think getting the shrimp out would be easier than the plants or scaless fishes.

 

[Lotus]

My preferred med for ich has always been CopperSafe. I have used it in planted tanks with loaches with no bad effects, although it would wipe out shrimp. I think if you need to treat, taking the shrimp out will give you many more options.

Quarantining really is your best bet to avoid getting ich in your main tank. I haven't had to treat for ich in any of my main tanks since I set up a Q-tank, although I have had to treat for ich in the Q-tank.

 

[Leopardess]

Salt and heat are incredibly effective and generally are the safest on scaleless fish. Coppersafe is good, but not if there are ever going to be inverts in the tank. Copper has a residual effect, you will never get it all out and it is highly, highly toxic to fish and plants. Nothing beats salt and heat in my eyes. It is cheaper, it is stable in water (no constant dosing of meds) and tends to be less toxic.

If I had to choose a med to use, other than salt/heat, it would be methylene blue. Coppersafe has some issues and malachite green is really nasty (effective, though) stuff that causes cancer and you don't want to be touching.

That said, quaranting is the most effective method. If you properly treat fish in quarantine, you will *never, ever* need to worry about getting ich in a main tank where there are plants and sensitive critters.

I have successfully treated a horrid outbreak of ich on Brochis splendens (like cories) with salt and heat (86F) and numerous rainbowfish.

Cocktails are a poor choice, IMO, and are just asking for stressed/dead fish as a result. The more stressed a fish is due to treatment, the more susceptible it will be to secondary infections which can be tremendously difficult to cure while simultaneously needing to treat for ich. For instance, fungus likes high temperatures - but ich hates it. It's not a good situation to be in.

While a UV sterilizer can be good, you run the risk of sudden illnesses popping up if it ever fails and they must constantly have their bulbs changed to be effective. It also limits the microfauna in the tank and some types of bacteria.

You could also just remove the plants if you ever need to treat the main tank again (although really, a qtine is more than worth its weight and gold and everyone should have one), by placing them in a 5g bucket or tub and sticking them infront of a window with an airstone. The ich will starve off in 3-4 weeks with no host. You could also give them a potassium permangenate or bleach dilution bath.

 

[revfred]

I've had excellent results with Kordon's Rid-Ich+ in heavily planted tanks and with "scaleless" fish. I don't have crustaceans and there seems to be no caveat on the label for such. No temp changes, no copper, no harm to the biofilter. 4-6 days, and it is gone. Just follow the directions to the letter.

 

[lmosness]

I had never tried a cocktail before. My only other experience w/ ick was about a year ago. I tried the Quick Cure & it didn't help at all. I suspected it did kill my neon tetras though. Coppersafe is what worked. I was in the process of buying it for this time & a guy at the pet store (from which I have historically gotten very good advise) told me to try this. Sadly, my pictus cat died in the night last night. He/she was the one w/ the problem to begin with though. I never have seen any signs if ick on any of the others. Do you think it's safe to just stop all treatment now?

One other thing .. I had never had a pictus catfish before. I read somewhere on the internet that it is a scaleless fish, does anyone know if that is true?

 

[nicolleen]

hi,
yes they have kind of bony scutes instead of scales.

and yes, cocktails suck.
regarding taking shrimps and sensitive fish out while medicating: i think you should not forget, that those kinds of oxidans or antibiotics also damage the filter bacteria a lot.
a quarantine tank is an option. the ichtyo parasites cannot survive more than two weeks without a host.

listen to leopardess.

lg
niki

 

[twoluvcats]

i have yet to run into an ich med that WON'T kill a Pictus...they are very sensative. They are also very prone to ICH. Temp increase and light salt is about the only treatment method that I've found where the Pictus survive.