Thinking of nuking the tank cuz of ich

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fishnasty

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Oct 14, 2008
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I've been doing the heat treatment set at 87 for the past 3 dayz and havent really seen an improvement. I've also been medicating the water with kordon's organic ich attack as well. I'm thinking if the condition of the tank doesnt get better I might have to use QuICk cure which contains Formalin and Malachite Green. Is it true that Malachite Green weakens the silicone in glass tanks? My current stock is a flordia gar, oscars, ck, channel cat, plecos, walking perch, jd. Any input or comments aremore then welcome.
Thanks
 
lol, you have only given it 3 days, give it a chance to work. most treatments have a treatment schedule of a week and leave another week before adding carbon and/or doing water changes.

when the ich doesnt go after a few weeks of treatment then look for alternatives. i bought from a fish shop when i first moved to norfolk, before i knew which lfs were good, and i got the worst case of ich ive seen. it took 4 weeks worth of treatment to go. i have heard of some getting more resiliant to meds so you have to treat longer.
 
3 days isnt enough time. i have fought ick before and i always turn the heat up like you did, and add aquarium salt.. wait a week. ick is a single celled protazoan critter-by turning up the temp you are accelerating the life cycle of the ick-when you see the white spots on your fish, that is the ick feeding off your fish. they will eventually drop off and become free floating in the water column.

In a few hours after that, they form a cyst and drop down into your gravel or sand. these multiply, and have to find a host (your fish) within 24 hours or they die off.

ick is present in almost every tank-and is opportunistic and takes over on sick fish, or lack of good water (not doing waterchanges) poor diet, or just weak, sick or stressed fish.

i would keep the temp up, wait a few days and look for improvement (make sure you have aquarium salt in there), and once you see the fish looking better you need to do a good waterchange and syphon your gravel REALLY well. take all rocks or ornaments out and i would soak them in a bucket with a tiny amount of bleach and scrub them good.. keep rinsing til you cant smell any bleach at all!

syphon your gravel really well about every week for a while..
 
It often gets worse before you start to see improvement, give the treatment a chance to work before adding more meds that will stress your fish further.
 
Like everyone says..give it a chance to work (at least a week)

But DON"T use the salt treatment with cats & plecos in there. If you have to, treat them separately.

Dr Joe
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