How can I treat Ich in planted tank?

[bluedragon]

Hi
I discover my fish have ich/ick, i lost 1 cardinal and 2 rummy nose tetras. It is imposibble to take the fish out from tank and treat them in hopital tank without tearing down the plants, and i have 8 ottos they are always under big drift wood so basically i won't be able to take them out.
Is there a way to treat the planted tank without hurting plants. i have few medicines like coppersafe, tank buddies but they are not safe for plants and invertibrates. (i have few snails in tank)

Thank you
Regards
NN

 

[shoggoth43]

If it's not too bad I have raised the temps up into the mid 80s before and done several water changes ( as in at least daily ) by siphoning the bottom in the theory that most of the ich settles down there first. I'm not sure that will help you here but it's worked in the past for me. You won't be able to add salt either because of the ottos.

-
S

Hi
I discover my fish have ich/ick, i lost 1 cardinal and 2 rummy nose tetras. It is imposibble to take the fish out from tank and treat them in hopital tank without tearing down the plants, and i have 8 ottos they are always under big drift wood so basically i won't be able to take them out.
Is there a way to treat the planted tank without hurting plants. i have few medicines like coppersafe, tank buddies but they are not safe for plants and invertibrates. (i have few snails in tank)

Thank you
Regards
NN

 

[scottward]

Had you recently added anything new to the tank to cause the outbreak? If not, it is possible that ich was slowly 'ticking over' in your tank waiting to strike. Have you done anything recently that may have stressed the fish to cause the ich to breakout enough to become noticeable?

If you raise the temperature of the water, you will speed up the process whereby the ich falls off the fish and goes into it's reproductive stage. Once it's finished reproducing, it will again seek out a fish host. If the fish are in good health, they should be resistant to becoming reinfected. If they are not in good health, they may again become re-infected but they will become progressively more infected.

As you cannot remove the fish, and I assume cannot remove the plants either, you could try simply raising the temperature and hoping that that is enough to knock it into submission, as Shoggoth has suggested. If that doesn't work - I'm pretty sure that Tripple Sulfa will knock out ich and is also plant safe??

Scott.

 

[bluedragon]

Thank you S, I have raised the temp slowly, right now it is at 86.7 F. No sign of stress in fish, I was more worried about German Blue Ram but they look happy and more colorful. I will try to increase to 89 if they don't mind. (I read ick dies at 89 F) and will keep the tank in 86.5 for 10 days with 25% water change daily. Hope this will help.

 

[Biollante]

Additional Aeration

Hi,

Raising the temperature is a good strategy.

You are correct if your fish can take it 90 F (32.2 C) for three days is good then back of to 86 F (30 C) for another 10 days. Consider additional aeration, if going beyond 86 F (30 C) is stressful stay at 86 F (30 C) for 14 days.

You may stress some bryophytes so consider removing them to a tub or jar for the duration of the treatment. :gw

Biollante

 

[deucebiggss]

I treated a 75 gallon tank with Formalin-3 and a UV sterilizer for 4 weeks with no issues. Haven't had any problems since. Unfortunately, every tank is different.