Ich?

[duanes]

Thanks duanes!

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

If you change say 100 gallons, add 3 lbs of salt with the new 100 gallons of water.
I usually keep the salt treatment up for at least 3 weeks.
Each spot on the fish will erupt into a number of new ick (up to 100), and there will be inert dormant stages on the substrate that "hatch".
These two stages are when the salt effectively does its job, they are only vulnerable stages to the osmotic crush of salinity.
And spots erupt, and dormant stages hatch at different times, so treatment must last until all those vulnerable stages have run their course.
Turning up the heat speeds up their life cycle, so if you can it will help.
The only problem I have with increased heat, is warmer water can make secondary bacterial infections more virulent, and the lesions caused by the spots erupting are places bacrteria can easily infect.
As you can see, treating a 600 gal tank is no easy task, and if the disease was something more serious than ick, that required an antibiotic or something more serious than salt, treatment could be even more complicatesd and expensive.
So to me a 2 or 3 month quarantine of any new fish in a smaller hospital tank before putting in the 600 would be advisable.

 

[simtommy]

Ok I’m progressively adding in salt to the 600gallon tank now. Its day 3 and I have added in 7lb so far and my Payara bellied up today! It was fine until I started adding in salt and I realised it stopped feeding.

Is it the salt or something else?

 

[kno4te]

Ok I’m progressively adding in salt to the 600gallon tank now. Its day 3 and I have added in 7lb so far and my Payara bellied up today! It was fine until I started adding in salt and I realised it stopped feeding.

Is it the salt or something else?

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Could be in response to the salt or heat. Payaras can handle the salt briefly. How’d u add the salt? In portions? Or the whole thing dumped in? Lower the water level so the fish can stay upright.

 

[simtommy]

Too late, have just returned home to find the payara gone. I’ve added the salt in small quantities. About a pound+ at a time across 3 days.

The fish looks perfectly fine on the outside, and dissected it to find nothing amiss on the inside as well. It was still feeding a day before I started adding salt, so I would imagine it’s the salt causing the issue.

 

[duanes]

This is the tough thing that results when treating a tank, because a new addition hasn't been quarantined first.
Treatment can be hard on certain species. Salt can be difficult on soft water species.
Commercial treatments such as malachite, and salt can be hard on certain catfish and other scale-less species.
I usually add salt all at once, because of the shock value high salinity has on emerging ick, but it is a double edged sword as that shock value is also hard on some fish.
The thing is, if you wait too long in bringing the salinity to an ick killing concentration, the disease can be lethal as it comes to epidemic proportions, and in the end take more time to eradicate.
When I treat, I admit I have learned to expect some collateral damage.

 

[ECW]

Sad. No fish should die from ich. It’s the most common and basic parasite/disease to deal with. Fish keeping 101. I don’t do salt I hit ich hard with meds. But much more costly ($$$) in such a big tank. Fish deaths happen to the best of us. Rip.

 

[simtommy]

Thanks for all advice. Valuable learning here.
I've since stopped adding salt and will monitor the perch for a few days before further action.

 

[Jakobythebichir]

I have a blue acara suffering pretty bad from ich, looks simillar to that fish in relation to condition at this point (3/11/2020). And now my other fish are starting to show 1 white dots too. I have been treating the whole tank for a week with api super ich (the past 2 days a dose every 12 hours), salt, raised temp and the poor thing has only gotten worse. I'm using half a cup of salt as the tank is a 55. The temp read 84.3 degrees this morning. Everyone is still eating and is active but it kills me knowing they are suffering. What else can I do at this point?

Would removing all the decor and boiling the driftwood and substrate be a good idea?

Flash the plants in a bleach soak?

 

[kno4te]

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I have a blue acara suffering pretty bad from ich, looks simillar to that fish in relation to condition at this point (3/11/2020). And now my other fish are starting to show 1 white dots too. I have been treating the whole tank for a week with api super ich (the past 2 days a dose every 12 hours), salt, raised temp and the poor thing has only gotten worse. I'm using half a cup of salt as the tank is a 55. The temp read 84.3 degrees this morning. Everyone is still eating and is active but it kills me knowing they are suffering. What else can I do at this point?

Would removing all the decor and boiling the driftwood and substrate be a good idea?

Flash the plants in a bleach soak?

I’d go with either meds or salt. Choose one. Wouldn’t do both. Salt needs to be about 3% and u need to add more salt (~3 more cups). The temp kept at 86 and time. More than 14 days. Make sure there’s a powerhead to get the water moving.

 

[Rocksor]

Seachem paraguard is live plant friendly. No need to raise temperature above 80F.

If you are going with the salt route, the plants need to be removed and quarantined for a few weeks with Seachem paraguard.