Treating ICH with salt, have rtbs, live plants & pleco

[fhawk362]

I read online that grocery salt is fine cause the only thing harmful in it, cant remember exactly, the author stated as not being high enough in concentration to cause harm, but you cant always trust google but there were no comments thrashing him. DO some research on google if you like

 

[fhawk362]

I also read that plants dont do so well with salt so quarantine sounds like the right idea

 

[Dark Jester]

White Spot Disease (Ichthyophthirius multifiliis)
Synonyms:
Ich, Ick

^^ Need to make that a specific sticky, since it's one of the most common issues people face. Think it's in one of the disease compilation stickies at the moment.

 

[Lupin]

^^ Need to make that a specific sticky, since it's one of the most common issues people face. Think it's in one of the disease compilation stickies at the moment.

I guess so. Will copy and split it.

 

[sirbin2000]

Sirbin, what species are your shrimps? The frogs and shrimps will be fine.

Are the RTBS and BN pleco your only fish? If so, moving them out is a good move. Treat them there and leave your planted setup fishless for 2 weeks. Maintain temperature there at 80-82 degrees Fahrenheit. Ich cannot survive without fish as host for more than 48 hours. No need to dump meds in a fishless tank.

Please do NOT combine salt with any other meds especially ones containing formalin. Formalin and salt are a toxic combination. Keep water well aerated since the elevated temperature and meds can quickly deplete their oxygen supply and plecos are prone to this issue especially as the ich can attack their gill tissues. Be sure you DISSOLVE salt before adding to the tank.

They are ghost shrimp. I also have an electric yellow lab in addition to the rtbs and pleco, and yeah like I said I moved all of them into the quarantine tank. Good thing I saw this, at this time I haven't added salt yet, I have been using the ick attack so far, I will run that for a few weeks and go from there.

 

[Lupin]

I would have advised you to use salt first but since you already did the Ich Attack, there's no point. We'll just have to wait for two to three weeks before you can discontinue use of the med.

 

[sirbin2000]

Yes I'll just see how it works, the only reason I bought it is because I read about a lot of people using it and saying it was effective, so hopefully it will work.

 

[sirbin2000]

I might decide to do salt treatment next week instead of the Ich Attack medication. I was wondering how often water changes should be done, I read on that sticky that you add salt every 12 hours, does water changing need to be done in the mean time or do I just keep adding salt every 12 hours?

 

[Dark Jester]

If you want to do the 12 hours thing, it's 1 tsp per gallon, then 12 hours later, add another 1 tsp per gallon, then 12 hours after that, add another 1 tsp per gallon. this will bring you to 3 tsp per gallon total. You could go to 3 tsp per gallon right away as well, but with some sensitive species like plecos it's often better to ramp it up slowly.

Don't do water changes til you are at 3 tsp per gallon. You can do changes after that but you will have to re-dose the salt you took out. If you take out 10g water, you will have to re-add 30 teaspoons of salt with the fresh 10 gallons of water. Remember to disolve the salt in water before you add it.

 

[sirbin2000]

got it, thanks