Loaches Online Forum

Hi I am new to this forum and wonder if you could give me some advise as to how to treat ich in the clown loaches! I have been online for an hour looking up info and now am more confused than ever! Some say yes to salt and higher temp, some say no salt. I have 3 loaches left in the QT tank, the smallest one died a couple of days ago, before I realized there was a problem. I observe the fish daily and just today while doing water change, saw one of the clowns with the ich. The other 2 show no visible signs yet. Of course its Sunday and I dont have the aquarium salt handy and the store is out of it, so I resorted to getting the only thing they had which is Ick Guard tablets by Tetra. It said is safe for scaless fish at half the dose, so thought I would give it a try. After doing a vacume and water change added half the dose and have begun to raise the temp. (normally its kept at about 80, its up to 81.2 right now will raise a little more tomorrow) Keeping the lights off to try and reduce stress. I normally do water changes and vacume 2x week on all my tanks (I have 2 other tanks, both 75G), but I am guessing with the 30G QT now having the ich I should do a water change maybe every day to everyother day and add more medication? The active ing. of this med is Victoia Green, Acriflavine which I know nothing about if you could enlighten me on that too I would appreciate any advise you could give me and let me know if there is anything else I should be doing? Thanks for reading and hope to hear back from you soon!

Sorry, seems I jumed the gun in writing to you regarding the ich in my QT, as now I look there is excellent advise by Garame Robeson on the subject, very informative and much appreciated! Thanks and sorry for being too quick to post before reading other post, still new to the forum thing and learning!!! LOL

Not sure if anyone even reads these postings, but just wanted to give an update on the clowns with ich. I started using the ick Guard by Tetra as its the only one I could find on Sunday night. One of the clown loaches was covered pretty bad, the other 2 showed only slight visible signs, I did a 50% water change and added half the recommended dose which was 1 1/2 tablets that dissolve in the tank. The next day the more infected loach had almost no ich visible! The next day did another water change and vacume and added another half dose, I am now on the same schedule of water change,vacume and medicate and it has been 5 days and the fish all look great, but Im going to continue tx for a few more days to make sure its gone. Oh and I also raised the temp from the normal 80 to 85, even though the instructions said it wasnt necessary. So Im very happy with the way the ick guard worked and just wanted to pass it on to anyone who may want to hear of my experience with this product and treatment. Thanks for reading!

Good to hear.