Ich?

[simtommy]

As above. Just got this little perch home from LFS and noticed some white spots on the fins. Apart from the spots, the fish is acting perfectly normal. Did a water param check and everything is in check. Just did a 50% water change and added salt to the tank. Any advise?

I’m keeping it with some other fishes in a 600gallon tank. Isolate and treat separately?

Apologies for unclear pic, this fellow is constantly moving looking to be fed!

 

[kno4te]

Does look like a few ich spots. Increase the temps (86 degrees) since adding salt.

 

[simtommy]

Isolate and treat separately since other species is all ok? Or should I treat the whole tank?

Advise on heater size for 600gallon?

 

[duanes]

You will now need to treat the entire 600 gal tank, because by not quarantining, be assured some ick cysts will have dropped off the perch, and although they may not become visible for months, they are there looking for hosts.
I would imagine trying to raise the temp in 600 gallons will be tough, but I treat ick with salt without bothering with raising temp.
To do any damage to the ick population, you will need to add at least 20lbs of salt by weight.
I'd just buy a 20 lb bag of rock salt or water softener salt and dump it in.



The fish below arrived with this severe case of ick.

Here it is a couple weeks later, after that ratio of salt per gallon.

I also maintained that salinity (3ppt) for another couple weeks to help kill any latent unhatched ick spores.

 

[kno4te]

Isolate and treat separately since other species is all ok? Or should I treat the whole tank?

Advise on heater size for 600gallon?

What Duanes said!

 

[simtommy]

20lb seems a lot to me! I will try that! Glad to hear that it can be treated without raising the temperature. But I guess it will just take longer? How long will the whole treatment take?

Should I be concerned about it’s tankmates? I have together with the perch, 2 nigers and 1 payara, all juveniles.

And how about WC day? Add in 10lb for 50% WC?

 

[duanes]

20 lbs is not a lot of salt for 600 gallons, it will only bring the salinity to 3ppt (the ocean averages 35 ppt (parts per thousand) a salt water marine tank of 600 gallons would need over 200lbs of salt), and unless you get the salinity up to, or slightly higher than 3ppt, ick shrugs it off.
The problem often when using salt, is that the average aquarist wimps out using too little, thinking they are helping the fish, when in actuality its a problem because the salinity must be high enough to crush the newly emerging icks cell brane with osmotic shock (this is also how metals like malachite work to cure ick).
It is also why I use the" by weight" method with salt.
Differing grain sizes of salt crystals, have differing weights, so to me, weight is the only accurate method.
35 lbs of rock salt crystals may be a different volume of table salt grains, but 35 lbs is 35 lbs.
Using salt in your 600 gallon tank, if using simply NaCl should cost less than $10.
If you use a pet store med like Nox-Ich, the volume you need, may cost 10 times that amount.

 

[FINWIN]

20 lbs is not a lot of salt for 600 gallons, it will only bring the salinity to 3ppt (the ocean averages 35 ppt (parts per thousand) a salt water marine tank of 600 gallons would need over 200lbs of salt), and unless you get the salinity up to, or slightly higher than 3ppt, ick shrugs it off.
The problem often when using salt, is that the average aquarist wimps out using too little, thinking they are helping the fish, when in actuality its a problem because the salinity must be high enough to crush the newly emerging icks cell brane with osmotic shock (this is also how metals like malachite work to cure ick).
It is also why I use the" by weight" method with salt.
Differing grain sizes of salt crystals, have differing weights, so to me, weight is the only accurate method.
35 lbs of rock salt crystals may be a different volume of table salt grains, but 35 lbs is 35 lbs.
Using salt in your 600 gallon tank, if using simply NaCl should cost less than $10.
If you use a pet store med like Nox-Ich, the volume you need, may cost 10 times that amount.

@ Duanes, curious here. Can you use salt used for snow? Not sure if there are additives or not.

 

[duanes]

@ Duanes, curious here. Can you use salt used for snow? Not sure if there are additives or not.

As long as its just Nacl, salt.
Some snow melt products are not just salt, so I would not use them, unless (like my photo above) it says at least 99.7 % pure salt on the bag ''(or something close to that amount of purity).

 

[simtommy]

Thanks duanes!

Any advice for WC day? And how long should the whole treatment take?