Treating ICK in a tank full of tetras ???

[rdmpe]

I have a 30g heavily planted tank with about 30 tetras (cardinals, glo-lights, rummy nose). I also have 6 pinapple swords and 3 small silver dollar fish. I also have lots of pond and malaysian trumpet snails which serve to keep the algae at bay.

The silver dollar fish, which I've had for about two weeks, have a few very small white spots on them. There are about 5 or 6 of these spots on each side of each fish. They are salt grain sized. Looks like ick to me, but I've only had it once before, a long time ago, and I'm not completely positive.

I've seen advice to treat at half dosage for twice as long when tetras are in the tank. I have some malachite green based ick medication that says to use one drop per gallon per day. Will half dosage be the best option for dealing with the ick? Will it kill the snails off?

Thanks,
Randy

 

[Davy]

Because only the silver dollars have ich then you could just move them and treat it with the recommended dosage. They will need a bigger tank anyway. I you don't want to move them then you could use half the dosage. Or raise the temp to 80 (slowly) and add 5 or so tablespoons (also slowly) of salt to the tank. Do you have another tank to move any of the fish into? It seems way over stocked to me. The silver dollars get big and the swordtails will get 3-4". I'd move them and you should be okay.

 

[rdmpe]

It's heavily stocked, but it's so heavily planted that I never get detectable nitrAte, nitrIte or ammonia. I know the silver dollars will get big, but everything's fine for now except for the ick...

From what I've read part of the ick lifecycle is in the water and substrate, so that it will probably remain in he tank even if I remove the silver dollars if the tank isn't treated.

 

[Davy]

I forgot it is in the water. So your right, the tank will need to be treated. Why aren't you getting any nitrates? The only way to get rid of them is by a water change.

 

[rdmpe]

The plants suck up the nitrate! At one time I had it heavily stocked with gourami, small bala sharks and other stuff. Nitrates were such a problem that I couldn't keep them below 100 for more than a day or two. So I started giving fish to the lfs and changing over to a planted tank. It took some time, good lights and a co2 bottle, but after getting this tank going, I may actually have to start adding nitrates for the plants. Actually that is why I started adding lots of small tetras, to generate more plant food...

 

[rdmpe]

Here's a good article that describes the life cycle of ICK...
http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/hdwspot.htm

 

[MrMup04]

get some aquari sol or some ich guard