Help! Ich medication and Rummy Nose Tetra

[Joe Khul]

I have noticed a white spot on some of my white clouds. I am afraid that I have an ich infestation in my tank. I have read that Ich mediction is particularly fetal to rummy nose tetras. I have read the Ich sticky.

How do I proceed in this case?

[loachmom]

When I first got my seven rummynose tetras, I gave them a salt treatment as a preventative against ich. They did fine. Then about a month ago, I introduced ich to their tank by being too hasty about quarantining a BN pleco. I did the salt treatment again, and they are all healthy now. There are kubotai loaches in the tank with them.
I've also used salt with kuhli loaches with no problems.

Here is a great article about using salt for ich treatment. I was introduced to this article by chefkeith.
http://www.aquariumboard.com/forums/articles/25.htm

If you choose to use this method, be very careful about gradually removing the salt through water changes. I would only remove 1/10th of the water at each change. If you remove the salt too quickly, your fish could be subject to osmotic shock.

Hope your fish come through this OK.

[Joe Khul]

Thank you Loachmom, I will review the link at home. I have read that salt is not good for most laoches. Does anyone know if this will affect my new sids or my kuhli's?

[loachmom]

I've used salt as a treatment on clown loaches, kubotai loaches, and kuhlis. As a treatment it is fine, but I would not recommend keeping loaches in salt water as a general practice.
I can understand your concern over this. I was a little concerned about it, too.
I hope others will chime in, either to set your mind at ease about the salt or to offer other ways to treat your loaches and rummynose. I'm sure there are other ways; I just don't know of any.

[chefkeith]

The salt treatment should only be done if you have the patience to do the complete treatment, which usually takes 2-3 weeks. Most people screw up salt treatments by either not using enough salt, by quitting the treatment too early, or by adding or removing the salt too quickly. I usually don't recommend the salt treatment because it's very easy to panic and screw up the treatment. When a fish dies, the natural reaction is to do large water changes, but if you do that during a salt treatment, it will probably kill the rest of the fish.

All ich medications have some element of risk. Large water changes, even if salt isn't added to the water, can cause osmotic shock if regular water changes weren't done frequently enough.

good luck with which ever treatment you decide on.

Prevention is the best cure.

[Joe Khul]

An update -

I have lost two of my white clouds to ick. I used tank buddies ick tablets, which seems to have prevented a further outbreak with only a minimal temperature raise. The instructions were one tablet per 10 gallons. I only used one, which would be approximately 20% of my tank.
I did a 30% water change, and will be doing another tomorrow evening. My 4 remaining white clouds are in a q tank for now. Tuesday or wednesday, if I see no other issues with the white clouds, I may return them to the comm. Other then a depressed P. Kuhli ( still sad after the loss of Joe) everyone appears to be happy and healthy.

Thank you to everyone who provided me with advice during this crisis and at any other time I have asked for it. It has all be greatly appreciated

Mr. & Mrs. Joe Kuhli