# Ick Questions again.



## Jeff232 (Nov 4, 2006)

I brought in ick with my newest batch of fish, perhaps ill get around to setting up that quarantine tank for future purchases...

Anyway, i have oto's, snails, shrimp and tetras. My temp is about 80 all the time as it is with the lights running so i upped my heater to 86. I noticed the first spot yesterday and today I see another fish with a spot on a fin...thats two spots on about 25 fish so i hope i am catching it early, the fish show no signs of stress.

NOw comes my question...HOW MUCH SALT?

Ive read 1TBS per 5 gallons, 1-3 tsp per gallon, and that salt does'nt work unless its in high enough concentration to also kill the plants. I really dont want to use medication yet since i dont want to stress out my fat little oto's and of course I dont want to kill my plants either(hygrophila polysperma, crypts, some anacharis, wisteria, and a couple others that I cant name)

quick suggestions would be appreciated since im thinking of doing the 2 tsp per gallon thing ASAP. My temp is rising as i type this.


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## Jeff232 (Nov 4, 2006)

I have the 1 tablespoon to 5 gallon solution slowly dripping in via a knotted section of airline tubing. 

I have approx. 85 gallons of water in my 100 gallon tank so i used 17 tablespoons of salt.

if I go up to 1 tsp. per gallon I will need to use a total of 28 tablespoons. and 56 for 2 tbs. a gallon(or approx. 17 a day for 3 days)

Am i on the right track here?


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## mkeevil (Oct 22, 2006)

On the back of the aquarium salt there should be directions, I have always followed those... and I have never had my plants seriously affected by adding such low amounts of salt.


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## bigtroutz (Nov 17, 2006)

Supposedly you want the temps to be ABOVE 86F for about 2 weeks to control Ick. 

When I got my first tank, I used AP Cure-Ick (to knock the Ick back because the fish came in with an advanced case) as well as temperature and salt. It stained air-line tubing but that never bothered me. Almost all the fish survived my not so gentle treatment, hehe.

Try to make sure you get complete control. Fish develop a certain amount of resistance to Ick and will continue to have a low level infection which will 'reappear' when the fish become stressed later.


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## Isthan (Feb 27, 2006)

I have encountered ick multiple times and in each case I did not need to use salt. I hear that salt is not a bad solution because the fish actually enjoy some levels of salt in their water naturally. 

I know that keeping temperature at 86 will create an environment that will not allow the parasite to reproduce itself during the life cycle after it "lyses" or bursts from the swelling white affected skin on the fish. While some of your affected stock may die, you will remember next time to quarantine and observe the fish you buy. My point is while you may suffer loss, the best thing you can do now is keep it from spreading to your other fish. 

In my experience the best treatment was Malachite Green. While it is a heavy metal, fish can tolerate it during the treatment without too much stress. It will turn your water a blue-green for the next few days while you treat the tank. It has a good success rate in overcoming these parasites when combined with high temperatures. 

Whether you use Malachite Green or Salt to inhibit the parasite, I would reccomend the temperature be the LAST thing you return to normal. While the active parasites that latch themselves to fish MAY be dead after treatment, there are offspring of that relationship that are incubating in the substrate. Once they are developed, they will become the same dangerous parasite that you have now. If the temperature does not suppress these offspring, you will be having a second bout with this infection.


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## Jeff232 (Nov 4, 2006)

I am on day number two of increased temps and about 1.5 tsp a gallon of salt per gallon. My fish seem to really like the increased temps or the salt, i am not sure which but they are still showing no signs of stress and they seem like a little school of piranha at feeding time(they are very active). They are however showing a much larger outbreak of white spots, i have about 5 fish with visible ich now, and one has it pretty bad on the base of his little tail. My temps are actually about 88-90 in the tank. I special ordered these columbian tetras so im guessing they came infected from the distributor or they picked up the swimmers in the LFS tanks while they were stressed from transport. 

I think ill leave some amount of salt in the tank form now on and probably keep the temp around 80-82 after this little episode passes simply because my fish seem to enjoy it.


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## Jeff232 (Nov 4, 2006)

Week one is over and The ick is definitely decreasing. The only negative is im finding dead glass shrimp in the bottom of the tank now. 

They are a shade of pink that strongly resembles boiled shrimp. I guess its better to lose a few shrimp to the heat than all of them to some sort of medication


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## Do78521 (Dec 15, 2006)

I just found out all of my fish have ick except my pleco, SAEs and bristlenose(the clear white dot on their fins and body). I was just wondering, what kind of salt do you guys use? does it necessarily be aquarium salt or salt the salt you have at home? Should I move the plecos and the SAE


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## furballi (Feb 2, 2007)

Raise the tank to 85F. Add 1 teaspoon per gal on 1st day. Add another teaspoon/gal on the 2nd day and gradually build up to a concentration of 5 teaspoon/gal is the fish shows no sign of stress. You should see improvement by the 4th or 5th day. Use de-ionized salt at the grocery store (about 30 to 50 cents per lb).


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## cmax916 (May 21, 2005)

Well, if you have plant in your tank. Salt might do some harm to them. That happened to me once. Ever since then I don't use salt in my plant tank. I use Kordon Ich-Attack. It is 100% organic and it is safe with plants. I followed the instructions on the back and 3 days later, no more ich on my fish and the ich never come back.


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## rich311k (Jun 24, 2006)

Raise the tank temperature to over 86F 88 is a good spot to allow for fluctuations. The plants may not like it but they will survive. The important thing is the ich will die. Leave the temperature elevated for two weeks after the last signs of ich.


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## bigtroutz (Nov 17, 2006)

Do78521 said:


> I just found out all of my fish have ick except my pleco, SAEs and bristlenose(the clear white dot on their fins and body). I was just wondering, what kind of salt do you guys use? does it necessarily be aquarium salt or salt the salt you have at home? Should I move the plecos and the SAE


You can use table salt if you want to or if you are paranoid, you can use kosher or pickling salt that does not contain the iodine.

The amount of Iodine you will be adding is so small, it can't be very toxic and Iodine is a necessary nutrient for almost all animals and many plants.


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## tkos (Oct 30, 2006)

http://aquafacts.net/wiki/index.php/Ich

That is a link to a great article on ich.

Make sure to treat for at least 1 week after the last signs are shown. Salt or meds can only attack the ich when they are free swimming, so you have to make sure that the life cycle is completed or else you will just have a reoccurance.

3 days with meds will not fully kill off ich.

I agree that iodized salt is not a concern. You would have to pickle the fish before those levels of iodide (not iodine) would harm a fish.

I would avoid putting salt in the tank long term. Just kill the ich now with a full treatment of 2-3 weeks and then don't worry about it. Long term NaCl in a tank will probably not be great for your plants.


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## ryzilla (Feb 3, 2007)

some people do not even use salt in their treatment for ich. From my experience Any temp over 82 degrees will slowly kill off the ich over the course of 2 weeks by speeding up the life cycle. My last batch of ich was killed by *slowly* raising my temp from 77f to 84f over the course of 4 days. I kept it at 84 for 2 weeks. No salt was added and the ich never came back.


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## Mad Dog (Mar 3, 2007)

This salt and heat method is really a two pronged attack and both are needed to fully rid your tank of ich...yes, it is possible to have a completely 'ich free' tank which I know is against the common myth in the hobby that states Ich is always present.

First, the heat...by raising the temperature of the tank, you are effectively making a better environment for the Ich (and benificial bacteria by the way) so that it lives its life with less problems. This speeds things up and the while reason for using this tactic is to get Ich, when in its white spot form, to drop off of the fish sooner rather than later. After it drops off, it falls to the substrate and/or decor in the tank and at that time it reproduces....

This is when the salt is needed. Like was already mentioned, you cannot kill ich when it is in its very protected white spot form. Once the heat helps promote those white spots to fall off, then the protozoa becomes less protected and highly vulnerable to treatments. Salt will kill it with high success in almost any case. The very very very important thing to remember is that you cannot see this form of Ich and so this is why everyone, including the directions on medicines like malachite green, says that you have to treat for ich well beyond the time in which the last white spot falls off. Even if you kill every last ich protozoa just short of the very last white spot, when it falls off your fish and reproduces, you could have just as stong of an outbreak as you initially had. This is because they can reproduce in vast numbers.

Generally, the dosage for salt is one tablespoon (three teaspoons) per every 5 gallons of actual water in your tank. Keep in mind that a 80 gallon tank does not hold 80 gallons of water since substrates, decor, and the fish themselves displace some of that 80 gallon capacity. HOWEVER, and this is a big however, many fish cannot handle a lot of salt....those fish are generally scaleless fish (catfish, loaches, plecos, "eels", etc...) and most, if not all, tetras. If you have these types of fish, then you should cut the salt dosage in half or one tablespoon (three teaspoons) of salt per every 10 gallons of water. The salt you want to use should always be sodium chloride, or in other words table salt, aquarium salt (not marine salt), kosher salt, etc... I agree that the iodine levels in table salts are minimal and so it can be used for short periods of time. Iodine will help out a lot with your fish, especially inverts like shrimp which need to molt, however too much of a good thing is bad for any life, iodine is not the exception.

Also, when adding salt, you should always dissolve it in a cup of the tank's water before adding it. This will help to reduce the the 'burning' sensation of the salt. It is also best to add the dissolved salt slowly for the same reasons...I have heard and read that adding it over the course of two or three hours will suffice.

The salinity you are looking to create is approx .05% in order for the ich to be most affected. This is a relatively small amount of salt, and in fact, still qualifies as freshwater by any definition. From my understanding, this salinity should have no effect on any life in an aquarium since this amount of salt can be commonly found in nature due to run off, decaying matter, and because of human impacts.

The odds are that if a person was to treat Ich with only heat, the fish he or she has in the tank got ich beause of stress or a lack of a stress/slime coat on the fish at the time it was exposed to Ich. The primary reason Ich is able to spread so quickly is becasue the fish are stressed, lose some slime/stress coat protection and the ich can host more easily. Once the situation changes and the fish are less stressed out, they can generally fight off Ich themselves...which is also why there is the appearance of an immunity to ich after fish have had it once, just like humans and the chicken pox. This is a good example of where 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure', although keeping fish unstressed when you buy them and bring them home is nearly impossible and so that is when ich is most likely to occur.


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