Guidance On Treating Ich With Salt

[LongS]

Just noticed my Golden Zebra Loach has four to five little white specs on the body and fins and i'm going to treat the whole tank with the raised temperature and aquarium salt technique to avoid any complications with my filter bacteria.

I have recently added two platies and 4 Mountain minnows to the community set up which i believe to be the cause and i need a bit of advice.

So the questions are; will my Loach and Syno be ok with a salt treatment?

Am i using the correct choice of treatment?

Should i treat the entire set up?

The fish in the tank are guppies, platies, minnows, loach and syno featherfin catfish.

Advice would be greatly appreciated

 

[pkppv]

I just went through this to and used this method.

My loaches were ok afterwards, but certainly did not enjoy the week of ich/treatment.

Yea, you definitely want to treat the ENTIRE setup, or else as soon as you finish treatment, the ich could break out all over again

 

[LongS]

Can anyone advise on the catfish please?

 

[aquarimum]

Catfish cant tolerate salt. I have just finished a course of ich treatment and decided on the no salt because I have glass catfish and plecos. I bought stuff called punktol ultra by jbl and its worked wonders after just a few treatments. The course of treatment lasts 15 days and you have to do a water change every other day and add more punktol. None of the fish seem to mind but the water did go a nice shade of blue which fades after a while. I also raised the temperature by a few degrees to speed up the cycle of the parasite. It didnt seem to affect the good bacteria cause my levels have stayed ok. Good luck with whichever decision you make.

 

[LongS]

I did wonder about this. Every whitespot treatment i have seen in shops tend to affect the bacteria in the filter or say it may stain the aquarium. I can't risk affecting my filter as i have no other mature filter media and in effect would do more damage than good.

I might head to a catfish forum and see what they suggest about the salt treatment.

I'll keep people updated incase anyone has the same problem.

 

[LongS]

Just thought i'd update. Used the salt treatment and all is ok. The White spots have completely disappeared from the loach and he has been clear for 4-5 days. Today i dropped the temperature slightly back down to around 27 degrees. I will give it one more night then do a water change to reduce the salt levels. Overall the treatment has been ten days. Not long at all and the fish didn't seem to mind one bit, even the catfish.

I recommend using the salt treatment for this problem if you experience it. Very impressed with the speed in which it worked.