white dots..

[chris1805]

I just came home today, and when i looked at my tank i found all my cardinal tetra's covered in white dots, my ramirezi male as well and got 2 fire neon's that are covered with them as well.
Any tips on getting this under controle as soon as possible?
I have put a little bit salt in my tank and got the RO-machine running to get water as fast as possible to do a water change.
How much water should i change?

 

[Linus_Cello]

Sounds like ich. Heat the water to above 80 degrees F, add extra aeration and keep the tank dark.
What are your water parameters (temp, pH, hardness, etc)?

 

[chris1805]

temp used to be 24 degrees celcius so about 76 F, ph is about 6.7 kh is about 1-2, TDS was 117.
The medicine my local LFS sells is exit, does anyone know if this is a good one to use?
Turned up the heater so the temperature will rise to about 29 degrees celcius to prevent more damage

 

[gerald]

Linus - why do you suggest keeping the tank dark? Ichthyophthirius does not use photosynthesis, far as I know. If there are plants in the tank, you want to keep them working (uptaking ammonia) so I would maintain your normal light/dark cycle, ... unless Linus has some further info I dont know about. Ich is usually one of the easier diseases to cure if you catch it early. Most anti-protozoan meds will kill it, but only after the cysts drop off the fish. The ones currently on the fish have to grow and mature a few days before they drop off and can be killed. Heat and salt (1-2 teasp per gal) often works OK without any other meds. I'm not familiar with "exit" and dont know what is in it.

 

[sorriva99]

Ichtyo ' s bacterium orienting with the light, so if you keeping the tank dark he can't found a new fish to contage.
I'm not sure at the 100% of that, but when my tank took ichtyo hight t and dark was sufficient to ketch it..
Sorry for my English..

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

The medicine my local LFS sells is exit, does anyone know if this is a good one to use?

It is <"eSHa EXIT">, I've used it successfully.

Salt (NaCl) and plants isn't a good mix, in fact I'm not very keen on salt at all. Have a look at: <"Water Chemistry: Osmoregulation, Ionic Imbalance & pH">.

cheers Darrel

 

[gerald]

Depends on the plants - there are quite a few that grow just fine with 2 teasp per gallon NaCl salt (about 3.5 g/Liter) and many others can tolerate it long enough to get through a week or two of ich treatment. Najas, Elodea, Javafern, Javamoss, Ricciocarpus, Limnobium, and Susswassertang are some that do OK long-term for me in brackish tanks at 2 to 3 g/L. Another option is to move all the fish to another tank (or cooler) for treatment, if your plants do not tolearte salt or meds. Any ich left in the main tank will die without a fish host. Agree with Darrel you don't want to keep soft-water species in salty water long-term.

 

[Linus_Cello]

Linus - why do you suggest keeping the tank dark? Ichthyophthirius does not use photosynthesis, far as I know. If there are plants in the tank, you want to keep them working (uptaking ammonia) so I would maintain your normal light/dark cycle, ... unless Linus has some further info I dont know about. Ich is usually one of the easier diseases to cure if you catch it early. Most anti-protozoan meds will kill it, but only after the cysts drop off the fish. The ones currently on the fish have to grow and mature a few days before they drop off and can be killed. Heat and salt (1-2 teasp per gal) often works OK without any other meds. I'm not familiar with "exit" and dont know what is in it.

My advice on keeping the tank dark is to reduce stress on the fish, and allow the fish to fight off the ich on its own. With the lights on, and perhaps people or something moving in front of the tank, this could stress the fish.

 

[Mike Wise]

Note that many Ich medications use chemical dyes which are very toxic to tetras and scaleless fish (think catfish and loaches). Use with care. Higher heat and major water changes (to remove swimming Ich spores) is time consuming, but the safest method. Me? I'm 'old school'. I use Malachite Green + Formalin (a carcinogen, not to use casually) VERY carefully.

 

[ErtyJr]

I'm a little different than most. I don't care for the use of meds as I often feel many can do more harm than good.

What I do is generally raise the temp to 85 or so, do tons and tons of water changes, and start feeding all live foods.

I've found that when adding live foods the fish have to hunt, such as bbs or freshwater amphipods (or scuds) that their hunting instincts kicking in can sometimes be the best medicine there is.

This is just my opinion of course, but I have successfully treated ick in my display tanks many many times without losing a fish and without removing a fish or adding meds. I don't think I've ever lost a fish using this method.

May not work for you, but it certainly does for me. Good luck

 

[chris1805]

Thanks for all the help, used a lot of the tips you guys gave!
The itch is gone, but sadly lost all of my tetra's , 1 little angel and my ramirezi male also died the 4th day
Sadly your advice about the tetra's came in a little to late mike, Poured the medicine in there at wednesday morning and when i came back the tetra's were dropping like flies They all died within the day. I feel stupid that i didn't recognize the diseases earlier to prevent this many damage to my fish...

Thanks a lot though!