Back with another tank

[Silencedogood]

Hi all! I have a 20 gallon planted tank and my male swordtail has ich. It's been a while since I've had a tank, especially with ich. I am slowly raising the temperature to 82F and I am going to add salt. Is there another treatment I should be doing besides that?

Thank you!

 

[Naughts]

Hi, welcome back. You need 86f/30c to combat the ich. You do not need salt. Leave the temperature at 86 for 2 weeks, or for 7 days after the ich is no longer on the fish. An alternative, not additional, treatment would be ich meds. I prefer the heat method and recommend it for people with tropical fish and adjustable heaters.

 

[GaryE]

Same advice, but I prefer to use malachite green dye based meds and avoid the salt and heat. Salt is harder to remove for my softwater fish, and 86f/0c would seriously harm if not kill many of the fish I keep.

Swordtails tend to like the cooler side of the tropical range but they are salt tolerant as hardwater fish. But as long as you act quickly, dyes are better meds for ich.

 

[Silencedogood]

Same advice, but I prefer to use malachite green dye based meds and avoid the salt and heat. Salt is harder to remove for my softwater fish, and 86f/0c would seriously harm if not kill many of the fish I keep.

Swordtails tend to like the cooler side of the tropical range but they are salt tolerant as hardwater fish. But as long as you act quickly, dyes are better meds for ich.

Are the dyes safe for snails and plants?

 

[GaryE]

As always, it depends on the plant. I have had no problems, but also rarely see ich except in quarantine tanks.

They don't kill snails, or I'd be buying jugs of the stuff.

Heat has killed plants here, as has salt.

 

[Silencedogood]

As always, it depends on the plant. I have had no problems, but also rarely see ich except in quarantine tanks.

They don't kill snails, or I'd be buying jugs of the stuff.

Heat has killed plants here, as has salt.

Okay good to know. I recently added the swordtail and he didn't have ich when I got him and none of my other fish do so maybe it's just stress? I have a lot of plants so I might just do the dye treatment instead.

 

[GaryE]

That's a nice tank.
People are talking about stress ich these days. It isn't a disease. It's an animal, a parasite. He probably carried it in from the store.

The longer it's untreated, the more it feeds and harms its host. It feeds and breeds. By now, all the fish in the tank have it, though it may not have produced white cysts yet. If it's in the gills, you don't see it right away.

 

[Silencedogood]

That's a nice tank.
People are talking about stress ich these days. It isn't a disease. It's an animal, a parasite. He probably carried it in from the store.

The longer it's untreated, the more it feeds and harms its host. It feeds and breeds. By now, all the fish in the tank have it, though it may not have produced white cysts yet. If it's in the gills, you don't see it right away

Thank you
I appreciate the information! Hopefully the treatment is effective. I have had a difficult time with ich in the past