# [Wet Thumb Forum]-salt for ich?



## MyraVan (Feb 13, 2005)

Ich (aka ick) is a nasty problem that many of us have to deal with. I have recently gotten interested in the best way to treat it. Diana mentions great sucess with using her Aquaclear quickfilter and moving fish form one tank to another, here 
If you don't have a spare tank, the recommendation is to raise the temperature and get some anti-ich medication, like formalin or malachite green. Many people recommend adding salt as well.

I'm questioning the use of the salt. I've seen a large number of web pages that suggest using salt, but a few of them, such as this one and this one suggest that the idea of dumping high concentrations of salt into your tank for long periods of time (eg weeks) is completely bogus, although salt dips can be effective in some circumstances

What is the opinion of people here on using salt for ich?

BTW, this may seem like a very strange forum to ask this question: most of us wouldn't even dream of putting salt in our tanks since it would kill the plants! The reason I've put it here is that most of us have read Diana's book, and so, I'd hope, would have some interest in the science behind our tanks. I also expect that people here would be more ready to question the accepted methodologies, whether they be "use salt for ich" or "you must have an expensive substste, 3wpg of lighting, and CO2 injection to grow plants".


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

My article on treating Ich via is in this month's (April 2005, "Transfer Method For Treating Freshwater Ich") issue of 'Tropical Fish Hobbyist'. The article has all the details.

I tried all the medications offered by my aquarium store, and none worked. I doubt that salt would either. The amount you would need to add would probably kill the plants, too.

Here's a way to guage whether a treatment is working or not:

Let's say you add quinine, malachite green, or salt, etc to your tank.

If these medications work, they will kill the ich swarmer, which is the only vulnerable stage of the parasite. Thus, the swarmer will be killed before it can attach to your fish and form a new white pimple.

Thus, whatever chemical or salt that you treat your tank with, watch to see if your fish are getting more spots. You should know by the next day whether the spots are increasing or decreasing.

If the number of spots is increasing, then the medication is not working....period.

That's how I knew the transfer method worked. My fish weren't getting any new spots and the number quickly started to decrease.

The trick is to count spots. Just kidding.


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## TC (Feb 24, 2005)

In my experience, salt in the correct concentration does indeed kill ick. I've done it recently in a tank without plants (Just a rocky biotope). It takes 2 tablespoons per 5 gallons to work. I believe Diana is correct that it would kill live plants. I'm sure some plants are more tolerant than others of salt. Just my 2 cents for what its worth.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

> Originally posted by TC:
> In my experience, salt in the correct concentration does indeed kill ick. I've done it recently in a tank without plants (Just a rocky biotope). It takes 2 tablespoons per 5 gallons to work. I believe Diana is correct that it would kill live plants. I'm sure some plants are more tolerant than others of salt. Just my 2 cents for what its worth.


The salt might kill ich, but its possible that other factors were involved in killing ich.

For example, just moving the fish out of a tank that's filled with Ich swarmers will help.

Also, if the hospital tank was bare and had a high water current, that would also have helped. The parasite cysts (white pimples) that drop off the fish cannot develop into swarmers. This is because the parasite must settle and attach to something in order to develop properly and form the swarmers.

The salt alone may have killed the Ich swarmers but then maybe not.


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## lf11 (Nov 17, 2004)

When my betta got ich I added 2 tsp of salt per gallon to my 5 gallon tank to see if it would help my fish any.
I was not trying to see if it would cure the ich, in my opinion I don't think salt alone would anyway, I had read in an article that it helps with the slime coat. So I thought what the heck I'll try it anyway. Well the ich did go away, but I am sure that was the result of the medication.
Anyway the salt did not seem to have any effect on my plants. At a higher dosage thought I am assuming it would have some negative effects on plants.


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## TC (Feb 24, 2005)

I'd have to believe it did kill the ick. I did not do anything, move fish, raise temp, rain dance. Just the salt. I also had the same experience in a way overcrowded african cichlid tank where the fish had ich. I also admit african are pretty tough and seem to seldom get the parasite though. I can't really prove just what it did but it did go away and no further outbreaks occured. I'm sure there are better ideas and meds though. It worked for me thats about all I can say. Diana, I'd defer to your expertise as your a lot closer to a fish doctor than I


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

TC,

Thanks for the information. It sounds like the salt did work. I misunderstood. I thought you had moved the fish to a quarantine tank. Now in rereading your letter, I see that you simply added salt to the tank. 

I am going to keep your letter should my fish ever get Ich again. 

Thanks for the good input for treating this common but nasty disease.


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## Sandhill (Oct 17, 2004)

Hi, Diana.



> Here's a way to guage whether a treatment is working or not:
> 
> Let's say you add quinine, malachite green, or salt, etc to your tank.
> 
> ...


I have some reservation here. Ich will infect the skin of fish and be protected from treatments long before it can be seen. Suggesting that _"if your fish are getting more spots [...] by the next day [...] then the medication is not working"_ could send people searching for a "working" treatment when they may already have one.

I direct you to the following article:



> *Why does the ich seem to be getting worse after I started treatment?*
> Ich is too small to see with the naked eye through most of it's life. Only after it is embedded on your fish does it grow to a visible size. Even at elevated temps it can take 4-5 days to reach full size and hatch. _*So it is not only possible but likely that you will see more ich for the first several days of treatment.*_ This cannot be stopped helped or changed, so awareness is the best we have.


This espesially concerns me:



> My article on treating Ich via is in this month's (April 2005, "Transfer Method For Treating Freshwater Ich") issue of 'Tropical Fish Hobbyist'. The article has all the details.


If I understand what you have written about your recent battle with Ich, you tried several treatments and possibly found them to be ineffective before you would even be able to make that determination. Don't get me wrong. Tank transfer will work. The swarmers will die off without a host. But hobbyists can be just as successful with a temp/salt or temp/med treatment provided they apply the treatment for two weeks. Two weeks insures that the last swarmer to infest a fish has time to grow and detatch, then divide and swarm where it finally gets killed. Two weeks, though, demands that the temp is increased. If it's not, then treatment needs to be even longer.

Did you make the same 'one day' suggestion in the article as you did here?


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

> Originally posted by Sandhill:
> Hi, Diana.
> 
> 
> ...


I stand by what I wrote in TFH, which is "My advice to hobbyists is that if they don't see traditional treatment methods clearly working within two or three days, that they consider the Transfer Method."

Ich like every pathogen can differ in drug resistance and virulence. Some Ich will be immediately killed by chemicals. Others like the one that my fish had appeared to be more resistant.

The cure I got (without chemicals) was really dramatic!


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## Sandhill (Oct 17, 2004)

I'm glad to here it wasn't one day. 

I'm treating ich in my tank for the first time as we write. I got all the salt in and the temp up as of tuesday night the 14th. On both wednesday and thursday night the amount of additional spots was pronounced. At that point, one could have made the mistake of thinking the treatment was ineffective. Friday night I didn't notice much of a change except that some of the more infected areas of the fish didn't seem to have as many spots. One could still be a little concerned that it wasn't working. Saturday, however, both fish appeared noticably less infected and by sunday night (last night) both had no visable spots at all. Today, monday, is the same. No spots.

When I happened to catch this thread last night the "next day" statement really caught my eye. Even with this being only my first attempt at treating ich, and not even completed at that, I knew from observing my own tank that one cannot tell if their treatment is working by the next day. Understanding the life cycle, having patience, and treating for a long enough period is key to successfully treating ich. Lack of is paramount to the failure of what would otherwise be a successfull treatment.

I want to emphasize that my only concern was the time frame suggested. Additionally, I think the transfer method has an important advantage where temp elevation combined with salt or medication may not be a viable solution with one's tank inhabitants.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

> Originally posted by Sandhill:
> I'm glad to here it wasn't one day.
> 
> I'm treating ich in my tank for the first time as we write. I got all the salt in and the temp up as of tuesday night the 14th. On both wednesday and thursday night the amount of additional spots was pronounced. At that point, one could have made the mistake of thinking the treatment was ineffective. Friday night I didn't notice much of a change except that some of the more infected areas of the fish didn't seem to have as many spots. One could still be a little concerned that it wasn't working. Saturday, however, both fish appeared noticably less infected and by sunday night (last night) both had no visable spots at all. Today, monday, is the same. No spots.
> ...


Good Point! Your observations fit with the Ich development described in my original reference. The Good Doctor say that it takes 4-5 days between parasite attachment and detachment from the fish (at 81F). Within that time period and temperature, you may indeed see pimples formed from pre-treatment Ich.

What was the salt concentration you used. Was it the 2 tsp/gal described by If11?

In any case, that's great that you were able to rid your fish of ick. Should my fish ever get Ich again, I may try the salt treatment (and give it 2-3 days to take effect.


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## imported_russell (Sep 14, 2004)

are low quantities of salt ok for plant growth? i just read that salt hurts plant uptake, but then again, i don't know where i read it.


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## Sandhill (Oct 17, 2004)

> What was the salt concentration you used. Was it the 2 tsp/gal described by If11?


It is at ~2 tsp/gal. That's ~6 cups in my tank.







I first spent one day raising the temperature to 86 degrees. I then spent a day slowly adding the salt solution - two cups of salt to ~5 gallons of tank water, siphoned in through air hose approximately 8 hours apart. There is a reasonable argument for doing it in the reverse order, adding the salt and then raising the temp. It's probably a good idea to arrest the swarmers before you speed up their life cycle, but in the grand scheme of things it probably doesn't matter much.

This salt-temp approach seems to be effective, but I must admit that there is a great deal of tension every time I come to the tank. I'm expecting to find some dead fish from either the high temps or the salt, or both.

The fish sure are active at 86 degrees.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Dear Sandhill,

Your letter and others on salt/ich got me to thinking. One fish veterinarian that gave a seminar to our fish club waxed enthusiastic about salt.

Yesterday I started salt-treating a few of my fish that have very small small sores from Mycobacteriosis. I put them in a hospital tank with 1-2 tsp/gal.

I'm already encouraged by the results. If this works out, I will be _very_ happy (and report back on details).


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

Yea, salt at .3%, increased temp to speed up the lifecycle, and daily partial water changes with gravel vacuuming is used routinely with koi and goldfish to treat for ich.

Saw an interesting article in the journal of fish disease recently where salt was shown to reduce flex's ability to stick to the fish.

Effects of low salinities on Flavobacterium columnare infection of euryhaline and freshwater stenohaline fish, Journal of Fish Diseases 2001, 24, 361-367. After a 1 hour bath in flex, mortality was 66.5% in fresh water and 40.8% in .1% salinity for goldfish. None of the goldies in .3% or .9% salinity died.

Here's info on salt tolerance of various plants.
http://koivet.com/html/articles/articles_results.php?ar...ch_term=salt%20plant


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## Sandhill (Oct 17, 2004)

Hi, Diana.

I hope treating the sores goes well. I'm interested to read how it goes. 

As for my treatment, I have begun cooling the tank today. It's day seven since seeing any spots on the fish and, if effective, all Ich should have hatched into swarmers and been killed. After the temperature reduces I'll begin changing out water to remove the salt. I'll do a 30%, then a 50%, then three or four 70% changes, all on sequential days. From there I'll roll back into my regular water change routine. Hopefully, Ich wont show up anywhere in the process.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

My references say that most aquatic plants don't tolerate salt above 0.1%

One level teaspoon of salt weighs about 5 grams. So if you add 1 teaspoon to a gallon (about 4 liters) that would be 1.3 g/liter or 0.13%.

Moreover, many salt treatments suggest much more salt than 1 teaspoon/gal. The one I have for curing diseases in guppies gradually builds up to 9 teaspoons/gallon!

Bottom line: The salt treatment may be wonderful for curing many fish diseases, but I don't think I would try it in my planted tanks.


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## TC (Feb 24, 2005)

As I've mentioned before, I've had great luck using kosher salt for treating ich. I also have used it in the past to treat fungus on a piranha. You know those boys just can never get along and often wounded each other resulting in infections of various sorts. Did you ever notice that African cichlids seldom get ich? Not sure if they are more immune or because most keepers (Myself included) use kosher/epsom/baking soda (Homemade cichlid salt) mixes to simulate the hard water enviroment.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

In my experience, African cichlids are virtually indestructible. The only deaths I saw were those when the fish killed each other.


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## TC (Feb 24, 2005)

They are Diana except for the dreaded Malawi Bloat. I've had a number of run ins with this problem in the past. I think the necessity of overcrowding to prevent aggression pushes the bio-filtration to the limit. Against conventional wisdom and out of desperation, I added an undergravel filter to a 55 gallon African tank and never had the problem again. OK I guess I'm a little off topic and rambling now


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Rambling- in a short paragraph- is fine.









In tanks without rooted plants, I think undergravel filters greatly contribute to fish health. They keep the a deep gravel substrate safely aerobic.

Keeping cichlids from killing each other while maintaining good water quality are challenges, indeed. Thanks for sharing your experience.


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## TC (Feb 24, 2005)

Well before the internet and access to all this knowledge, I learned about aquarium keeping from the school of hard knocks. The only effective way I ever stopped africans from exterminating each other is with overcrowding and rearanging the rockwork when adding new fish.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

As to salt treatment for the sore on my Rainbowfish that have Mycobacteriosis, I'm sorry to report that it hasn't helped. I've had the fish in water with 1-2 tablespoons/gal, which is 3-6 teaspoons/gal for several days. The sore is still there. Should a miracle happen and the sore disappears, I will report back. 

I found a reference that Mycobacterium fortuitum can grow on 5% salt. Seawater is 3.5% salt. Mycobacterium are tough bugs!

I'm sure the salt treatment will help for many diseases, but maybe not the Mycobacteriosis my fish have.


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## Sandhill (Oct 17, 2004)

I'm sorry the treatment isn't going well. I can report that the Ich treatment is a success. I hope you find a way to treat the sores.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Dear Sandhill,

The salt treatment did not help, BUT I now see a few precious baby Rainbowfish in my quarantine tank. I was delighted.


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