Loaches Online Forum

I bought 2 new clown loaches and I believe they have ich(k). Very few spots but I don't want a huge outbreak, so should I treat for ich? If so, I think I would like to try the heat and salt method. Will the corys and live plants handle 1/4 recommended dosage, (1 teaspoon per 5 gallons)? Is this enough to kill the ich? My temp was between 78-80 and recently raised to 82.
My Ammonia is 0, Nitrite is 0, Nitrate is 25ppm, pH is 7.0.

Inhabitants:

2 clown loaches (3.5")
2 clown loaches (1.5")
1 pepper cory (1")
1 spotted cory (2")
3 bolivian rams (2.5")
1 rubber lip pleco (3")
2 zebra danios (1")
1 leopard danio (1")
1 gold severum (2")
1 keyhole cichlid (1.5")
1 rainbow shark (3")
2 SAE's (2.5")
2 apistogrammas (1.5")
2 pearl gouramis (2")



thanks in advance.

don't use salt... it freaks loaches out and they don't deal with it well. go ahead and treat for ich, but only use a 1/2 dose if not a little less. treat it now before it gets worse. if possible QT them. keep temp near 80.

have you heard of or tried cure-ick by Aquarium products?
The 2 ingredients are Malachite Green and Formalin.
If I dose half of the suggested amount, will it work and NOT
kill my plants, cories, gouramis, etc.?

thx.

malachite green and formalin don't generally harm plants. ive used it in my planted with no probs to treat clowns, yoyos, and kubs. imo its best to gradually raise temperature to 86 as that speeds up the parasites life cycle. all fish recovered but the clowns, i took them out and put them in a quarantine tank and treated with cupramine by seachem (ich wonderdrug) and spots were gone in 2-3 days. i wouldnt try cupramine in my planted though

I used malachite green/formaline half dose on yoyos that had ich and it cleared up without raising temperature much. I kept seeing spots until someone told me to turn the tank light off. I did that for three days and didn't see another spot after that. It wasn't a very severe case, just a couple spots on fins, but it sounds like yours isn't bad, either. I dont know if the light thing was a coincidence or not, because I'm not sure why it would help. I just did it because I figured it wouldn't hurt. Someone let me know if I'm just being stupid .