salt .. ick ... loaches

[Go Big or Go Home!]

how much salt do you add to a 29g tank to take care of ick

tank has

3 clown loaches

4 angels (3 med 1 med l.)

2 plecos

tank peramiters

amonia 0

nitrite 0.3

nitrate 20 approx

Edited April 6, 2005 by Go Big or Go Home!

[FishBrain]

Do your self a favor and dont add salt to the Clowns. I think that caused my problem!! after I checked loachesonline i found that Clowns dont have scales and are very suseptable to chemicals. Maybe cut the salt content in half if you want to try.. I used Melafix and turned the temp up to 81 degrees to help and that cured my little guys.

good luck

:ml:

[Go Big or Go Home!]

thanks Canadbis

wife spent 3 hrs on the net seeking every bit of info she could and came up with the following

1 tablespoon per 5 gallon of water and bump the temp to 85-86 degrees 1 degree per 6 hrs till max reached

damn i hope this works

the only thing we added to the tank was a new live plant and 3 days later poof "ICK"

[AquaDiva]

Yes, I was worried with the loachs, I know they can't handle chemicals well, and salt seemed the most natural way. So after hours of reading, I ran to the store and grabbed some aquarium salt, followed what it said to do, bought a stronger heater, and cranked it up, currently steady at about 87 deg. and even though, most said it was hogwash to turn off the lights, i have done that. I figure anything that might help, without adding chemicals to the tank, I'll try. So far, (fingers crossed) the spots are rapidly dropping off the loachs, they almost look like themselves again. Best I can see, my angels and plecos were not effected yet. So hopefully in a few more days, and a couple water changes, things will be ship shape again. Good news, nothing seems to stop those little loachs appetites!! They still swim around and eat as if nothing was wrong. If they make it past this, I will deffinatly keep some salt in the tank at all times, hopefully to avoid this from happening again. Quite scarry for a noob!! :cry:

[birger]

For ick keeping the tank in the dark really does seem to help,not just turning off the lights but total darkness,the high heat does a lot of the work as well.

With the fish you have do not keep salt in the tank at all times there is no need, for medicinal purposes okay but thats it,it would be like taking tylenol every day just in case you got a headache.

[fatpuffer]

Just make sure that you continue the salt therapy for a while because i heard that ich can only be killed in certain stages of their life cycle. look up the lifecycle of ich and see what stage and how long to treat for.

I made a mistake of discontinuing when all signs were gone...my puffs were in terrible state afterward, so i decided to continue it a month after the signs were gone.

js

edit: dark helps calm down the fish...so less stress!

Edited April 17, 2005 by fatpuffer