Messed up Ich treatement

This forum is for all health-related questions on Loaches and other freshwater fish.

Moderator: LoachForumModerators

Post Reply
tower
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat May 02, 2009 3:22 pm

Messed up Ich treatement

Post by tower » Wed May 06, 2009 10:08 am

Hello Everyone,

First, thanks to everyone here that has helped me before! I really appreciate it!

So here is what's going on:

I had a pretty bad case of ich with my clowns (no other fish showed symptoms of having ich) It is a 60 gallon tank with a few neons, glowlights, 6 clown loached, 2 small angel fish.
I started treatment with Rid Ich as directed in the bottle (5ml for every 10 gallon) every 24 hours and doing a 20% water change before adding more.
Everything was fine for the first 3 days, after that 2 clown loaches died with signs of flaky skin, so I did a massive 50% water changed, and didnt dose that afternoon. Next day loaches were happy and swimming around....
I reduced treatment to half and they seem to be doing ok. They do have signs of stress, their skin is not as bright as it should be, but they are ok in general. The Ich has been reduced dramatically but it's still not gone on them.
Any suggestions on what I should do? The treatment has been going on for 1 week now.
Any suggestions? shall I continue at 1/2 dose?

Diana
Posts: 4675
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2006 1:35 am
Location: Near San Franciso

Post by Diana » Wed May 06, 2009 10:51 am

Either continue @ 1/2 dose, or switch to salt.

In the normal course of treatment it is fine to see a few new spots showing up for a few days after you start treatment. These are Ich trophonts that got on the fish before you started treatment, and were too small to see for a couple of days. The ones that were the last to land on the fish will be the last to fall off, so seeing a few spots a week after starting treatment is not unknown.

Mostly the Ich is falling off the fish, though, so you should see fewer and fewer spots. These are tomonts, once they fall off, and they are landing on the bottom of the tank to breed. Thorough and frequent gravel vacs will remove a lot of them, and the medicine will be killing the babies, so you should not still be seeing new spots.

If you want to switch to salt I would go ahead and add salt at the rate of 1 teaspoon per 10 gallons the first day, without removing the Rid Ich, and let your gravel-vacuuming water changes remove the Rid Ich over the next few days. Second day add another 1 teaspoon of salt per 10 gallons of water. Third day, another 1 teaspoon salt per 10 gallons.
Dissolve the salt in water and add it to the tank slowly, taking all day to do it.
From here on out keep up the water changes (gravel vacs, actually) and add salt to the replacement water @ 1 tablespoon per 10 gallons.

After you have seen that the fish have no more spots keep up the treatment for another 3 days. Then gradually allow water changes to remove the salt. For example, once a week 25% water change will reduce the salt over a period of a month. This is fine. If you need to do more frequent or larger water changes then add a little salt, perhaps half as much for a couple of water changes, then 1/4 as much for a few more.
38 tanks, 2 ponds over 4000 liters of water to keep clean and fresh.

Happy fish keeping!

User avatar
chefkeith
Posts: 2646
Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2006 9:37 pm
Location: Detroit

Post by chefkeith » Wed May 06, 2009 8:14 pm

I wrote a dosage calculator and short tutorial on using salt.

http://www.geocities.com/chefkeithallen ... lator.html

Diana
Posts: 4675
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2006 1:35 am
Location: Near San Franciso

Post by Diana » Wed May 06, 2009 10:41 pm

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FA041#TABLE_1

Here is where I got the treatment levels of salt for Ich. Read about Ich (one of the upper paragraphs) then click on Table 1 or scroll to the bottom.

.02% salt is .76 grams per gallon. TDS = 200 ppm
.20% salt is 7.6 grams per gallon. TDS = 2000ppm

Much better to weigh the salt, not measure a volume.
however, those numbers, measuring table salt come out to
1 teaspoon per 10 gallons
up to
1 teaspoon per gallon.

This is a very wide range of treatment. Surely a salt sensitive species should be treated at the low end of this dosing.
The TDS note is not the total TDS in your tank, but the amount of change in TDS when you add that much salt. If your TDS is already 300 ppm, and you add salt to dose .02% then your TDS will read 500 ppm.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/VM007

More info about salt in fresh water aquaculture.
38 tanks, 2 ponds over 4000 liters of water to keep clean and fresh.

Happy fish keeping!

User avatar
chefkeith
Posts: 2646
Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2006 9:37 pm
Location: Detroit

Post by chefkeith » Thu May 07, 2009 2:23 am

Diana- I have a few questions about the articles you posted.

I'm not sure, but I think the .01 - .2 concentration is for permanent treatments, not for the 1-2 week treatments that it takes to eradicate full blown cases of ich.

"Finally, a light solution of 0.01 to 0.2 percent salt may be used as a permanent treatment in recirculating systems. Such levels are quite effective in eliminating single-cell protozoans. Most fish can tolerate prolonged exposure to salt at these concentrations; however, tetras and fish that navigate by electrical field (e.g., elephant nose) should not be maintained in salt."

It also says:

"Used in proper amounts, salt effectively controls protozoans on the gills and skin of fish. In many instances, however, too little salt is used, rendering the treatment ineffective. The duration of treatment is used to determine the appropriate salt concentration."

Too little salt is my worry here. I have a book written by Drs. Gerald Bassler ("Colorguide of tropical fish diseases") that says the dosage of salt for most parasites is 5 grams/per liter for 5-7 days. That's about 3.15 teaspoons per gallon. Most articles that I've read for treating ich have the salt dosage anywhere from 1 to 3 teaspoons per gallon. The general consensus is that about 2 teaspoons per gallon will cure most cases of ich. That's the dosage that has worked for me in the past also.

The only other question I have is much a teaspoon of salt really weights. Most sources have it at 5-6 grams per teaspoon. I have a scale that I just re-calibrated and get about 6 grams per teaspoon for Canning Salt.
*I updated my calculator to 6 grams per teaspoon, it was at 5 grams before.

Diana
Posts: 4675
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2006 1:35 am
Location: Near San Franciso

Post by Diana » Thu May 07, 2009 10:22 am

My conversions were done by a round-about way. I will remember 6 grams per teaspoon.

My take on the chart "Table 1" is that the lowest level (.02-.2%) was the 1-2 week treatment dose, to be cleared from the water when the parasites were gone. The high end of this is within your 1-3 teaspoon per gallon dose.
The higher dosing in different parts of the chart is not appropriate for Ich (Though it works for exposed parasites) (bath for a few minutes to an hour at various salt concentrations).
38 tanks, 2 ponds over 4000 liters of water to keep clean and fresh.

Happy fish keeping!

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 69 guests