Yellow perch and Ich

[Owain4]

I just noticed tonight that one of my perch has two dots on his side, he stratched himself against the tank thats what gained my attention. im using Malachite green right now to hopefully get rid of the ich. my fish tank is an all native tank without heater so im wondering what other precautions i should take. Its heavily planted so im worried some of the malachite green may attach to plants instead of the fish. Should i also use salt to treat them since a temperature increase will most likely kill them all.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

 

[Lupin]

How big is the tank?
How many fish do you have and how big are they?
What exactly is the temperature?
How can you be sure this is ich? Are the spots the size of salt grains and completely white?

Even salt will destroy some of your plants although the plants will recover eventually after treatment. Since the tank is heavily planted, then you really have to go along with the treatment and still risk killing or sickening some of your plants or move all your fish to another tank and leave the planted tank fishless for a week.

I'm not a fan of malachite green. It's far too strong for a lot of fish in general. Were I you, the first step I would have done is add salt. Read how to dose salt in one of the sticky threads about ich.

Ideal temperature when treating temperate and coldwater species should be 76-80 degrees range. 78 degrees is pretty much safe but you also need to ensure your water is well aerated with bubblers at this point. Ich attacks the gill tissues and can worsen the situation at night when plants undergo respiration period thereby competing with fish for oxygen supply.

If you need to remove the plants instead, you need to dip them in potassium permanganate and leave in a fishless container for a week to destroy the parasites by starving them. The PP should eliminate them anyway.

 

[Owain4]

I have a 56Gallon Column tank. with 4 Yellow perch about 4" in size. the temperature is room temperature in the tank which is 67F.

I have a good idea its ich, ive seen one of them scratch a few times and on his side there is two small white salt grain sized particles.
I've had a bubbler on for 24hours since i noticed it.
The fish dont seem to mind the malachite green, but im unsure about the salt technique since i dont want to kill anyplants. and i also dont have a tank heater.
I believe i caught the ich in its first stages.
the tank has probably 30 individual plants in it so removing them would take alot of time.
how do you think the salt would react with the plants? can i give them a low dosage without raising the temperature???
i plan on changing 20 out of the 56gallons of water tomorrow and then adding some more malachite green but not too much to stress them. should i do otherwise??

im just very unsure about what to do regarding salt because i have no heater and also a ton of plants in the tank.

 

[Lupin]

That's very cold. Get a heater. At that temp, your treatment will take too long for your fish. Slowly adjust to 76 degrees neutral when you have the heater.

Since you already started MG, then, we'll have to stick to that stuff for now. If by 10 days there is no improvement, ditch it and start with salt. The ich should start diminishing in at least 4-5 days.

Do a water change again tomorrow and redose MG as per water volume changed. Better do a large water change. 60% at least. Keep lights off as well.

 

[Owain4]

awesome looks like i will go buy a heater. thanks for the suggestions.