THE WORST MAY HAVE HAPPEND

[Jae1525]

What to do?

My girlfriend bought 2 Dwarf gourami for a week now and I noticed some tiny white spots just 3 or 4 on their dorsal fins and a couple on their side fins! They were fully held in the fish store for a week prior to us buying them so I presumed they were ok as they had no sign of disease when I bought them.
Even though I have kept fish and inverts for a while I have been fortunate not to have had any dissease yet... until now I think!

My 4 main problems are...

1: I have no quarenteen tank!!!
2: I have 6 inverts (5 Amano shrimp and one Mountain Shrimp)
Obviously this meens copper based medication is out of the window as it is fatal to inverts!
3: I have 3 pepered cory cats so I believe it is not appropriate to raise the salinity levels or indeed have any salt in my aquarium at all! Also the non-copper based ich treatment can be harmfull to catfish if they are exposed for long periods of time!
4: My tank is planted and turning up the heat would kill the plants!
(not that I care about the plants but the Amamno Shrimp love them!)

If you have read many of my previous posts I'm a bit of an invert/catfish fan and anthing that swims above 1 inch from the substrait is my girlfriends (you know how they like those pretty fish that do nothing but pollute the water)
Secretly I would gladly throw the gourami to Xu-Xi, dave and kittie (my cats) but as we know the tank would still have the ich!!!

Please Jim, can u fix it for me to have a dissease free tank?

 

[Teelie]

Salt should be okay if you properly dissolve it in water then evenly add it to the tank. Raising the temperature shouldn't kill anything either if it's only for a few days. Despite posts to the contrary, Cories and other scaleless fish can tolerate the moderate amount of salt in their water needed for taking care of ich. If you want to, after the ich is gone, do several small water changes over the next several days to remove the salt.

 

[Jae1525]

Cool.

How much salt are we talkin here, what kind of salt?
I know peppered cory can handle upto 79f and that is the lowest temp tollerant species I have in my tank but should I chance a little higher?

 

[Jae1525]

I think its worth mentioning that my cory cats are only about an inch long 2! Would this make any diff when using salt..

PS Forgot to say thanks for your reply so...

Thank you

 

[Teelie]

A tablespoon per 10 gallons of aquarium, kosher or pickling salt though if you want to be cautious you can halve that though I don't know how much longer it may prolong the treatment.

Never use table salt or any salt with anti-caking agents. Aquarium salt is ideal although Kosher salt and Pickling salt are essentially the same thing and both lack the anti-caking agent most other salts you use like table salt, have.

Keep the temperature around 80-82° for a few days and it should go away. The cats ought to be fine but like any treatment, sometimes a fish has a poorer immunity than normal or just can't tolerate the treatment and may die. Unfortunately this is a risk no matter what the fish species or treatment. That risk is always there though normally it's slim.

 

[Jae1525]

Went to my LFS today and got some aquarium salt and some inverabrate safe whitespot treatment.

I'm slowly raising my tank temp overnight in prep to do a water change and add the salt and treatment.

Took the carbon outta my filter 2!

Thanks for all the advice!!!

 

[Jae1525]

I think its worth saying that my tank is nearing the end of its cycle. Nitrites are under control and all my other water stats are perfect. Defo the best cycle to date!

Its just annoying that I left my old tank in the garrage when I moved house so I have no quarenteen tank! DUH!!!
Thats why I'm doing an intensive cycle with quite a few fish in my tank at the mo.
Got no money til the end of the month to buy a small setup!! roll on payday!

 

[Jae1525]

*************
***UPDATE***
*************

I checked the gourami this morning and some of the spots have fallen off leaving little tiny green spots in their place! I suppose this is normal as this is how the parasite reproduces.

I did a full water test and was more than happy with the results.
The major ones are:
Amonia: 0
Nitrate: 20
Nitrite: 0.3
PH: 7

I removed the carbon from my filter and did a 30% water change to reduce levels even further as the treatment lasts for 8 days and I dont want the water quality spiraling out of control within this time.

I disolved the Octozin treatment and slowly put it into the water flow along with my treated water a bit at a time.
It dispursed into the water but remains kind of granular and my tetra are eating little bits!!! Is that right?!! Is it systemic?!! It wouldn't disolve any more than it did even with 2 mins of stiring!

I held off on the salt for now as I didnt want to put to much stuff in my tank all at once. I'm gonna see how it goes over the course of the treatment and if I have no joy then the salt is the next step I think.

I feel sick now and also feel like I have put poison in with my other fish and inverts on account of 2 Gourami!