HELP!

[walls]

I have a 135 with three large Clown Loaches, 4 large Red Hooks, 2 large Pictus cats, and a Bristle Nose pleco. Well about two weeks ago I picked up three more large Clown loaches and since then I have lost one of the new clowns and now my 6 year old fish are showing tiny white spots!!!

WTF!!

I should also add that I moved the fish from a 75 about a month ago. All the water parameters are fine so what the hell is going on??

What should I treat with??

Im worried that I may lose all the fish or use medication that will harm some of them.

 

[FishHeadSoup]

do a water change, add some salt, and increase the temp.

 

[Vitaliy]

Kind of sounds like Ick, which is very common. The best treatment seems to be raising the tank temperature a couple of degrees and adding aquarium salt.

Sorry to tell you but from the stories Loachs do not handle it too well, so try to act fast.

 

[walls]

Thanks.

WTH would cause this all of a sudden?? The original three loaches and red hooks have been problem free for over six years.

Could it be the new loaches??

 

[guppy]

It is almost certainly ick, It looks like grains of salt on the skin and it is the most common parasite run into in keeping fish. It would have come in as a subclinical infection on one of the new fish. It is fairly easy to cure. there are several meds available but my old standby treatment works well. Add 2 teaspoons of aquarium salt per gallon of water to your tank, I know it seems like a lot. in a 135g that is 270 teaspoons, which is 90 tablespoons, and that is 5 2/3 cups, dissolve it in a pitcher of water and pour into the tank. turn up hte heat slowly over the day until the temp is 86-88 degrees F. If you have one add a powerhead or5 airstone to increase surface motion as the warm salted water holds a bit less O2 than normal. Now you need patience as the appearance of your fish will get worse in the first couple days, this is normal. Here is why, the parasite is only vulnerable to the salt and heat in the mobile stage so the mature parasites that leave yur fish willhatch releasing 100s of new parasires that will be damaged by the treatment but will attatch before dieing. 4 days into treatment you will see a marked improvemnt and 6-7 days into it you will see no spots but doe not stop treatment until a full 10 days have passed. You do this to make sure to kill any unhatched parasites in the substrate or it comes back. I have never had this treatment fail and have used it with clown loaches before. With loaches it is safer then most meds as they are sensitive to many medications.

 

[walls]

Do I have to add salt every day or just the first day? I ask cause you stated to let the treatment run for ten days.

Also do I use marine salt like Instant Ocean?

 

[dr_sudz]

you want to use aquarium salt, i believe it is differnt, you should be able to pick some up at your lfs

 

[guppy]

Just use aquarium salt, it is cheaper and doesn't contain all the other trace elements and buffers. Just add the salt at the begining of the treatment and leave it in there, only add more if you do a partial water change before the end of treatment and then only add 2 teaspoons salt for each gallon of new water that you add. If you do not change any water during the ten days then do not add more salt.

 

[walls]

Thank you so much. Right now ive got the temp at about 82 and I am going to add the salt tomorrow. Ill keep you guys posted.

Oh one more thing, will the salt harm my Pictus Cats?

 

[Jason_S]

2 teaspoons per gallon sounds like an aweful lot imo, especially for scaleless fish. I always used 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons and the temp increase and the ich always goes away.


like the others said, make sure you get Freshwater Aquarium Salt. Jungle makes some that is very cheap and can be found at about any lfs and sometimes even WalMart.

oh and like Guppy said, only add salt if you remove water during a water change. if the water level in the tank lowers a little due to evaporation and you add more water to top it off then don't add more salt. salt doesn't evaporate but water of course does. the only way to remove the salt is to remove the water with a water change.