# Advice for treating a planted aqu and clown loaches for ick



## AC (Jul 26, 2010)

Set up the 125 about a month ago.

Put 4 clown loaches in as the first fish last Saturday.

Today I noticed they are broken out in ick.

One week to be exact which makes me believe either the plants I purchased the same day at the same store had spores, or there were spores in the water from there

I have as plants...

Vallisneria
Cryptocrene
Anubis
Java moss
Banana plants
Some kind of lilly's started from bulbs bought at wallyworld

I am familiar with the heat and salt method, but unsure how that could affect a planted aquarium.

I have two types of meds available Ick Clear from Jungle with Victoria green, Acriflavine as the active ingredients and QuICK Cure which has formaline and malachite green as the active ingredients.

What I am not sure on is if the clown loaches can tolerate the malachite green.

I also do not wish to use it within the 125 if possible because it stains so badly.

I can set up a hospital tank if needed, but I still need to treat the 125 to kill off spores in the life cycle...

Any advice is appreciated.


----------



## triscuit (May 6, 2005)

Good questions!

First off, clown loaches are ich magnets. As far as I can tell, anytime you bring home a clown loach you might as well plan on treating for ich. I suggest you move them to QT right away.

The plants are not going to enjoy the heat or salt- so you were right in double checking. The good news is that with out a host, the ich life cycle should die out in the big tank, but you'll need to remove all of the fish for several days at least.

Loaches can be sensitive to treatments, so what ever you try watch carefully and be prepared to do water changes if they start struggling. Ich Clear is going to be a bit milder, although I haven't tried it. And I've heard that Quick Cure works, but only if you dose for 6 days, not three. A friend who has treated clown loaches with Quick Cure said she uses a half dose for twice as long with good success.

The recommended temp for the salt method is maintaining 86 degrees F, but I would watch the loaches very carefully as you slowly bring the temp up. If they are gasping, try leaving it a bit lower. Make sure you have surface water agitation to increase oxygen diffusion into the tank.


----------



## AC (Jul 26, 2010)

Thanks!

I was through about every article in the library that I could find yesterday and really couldn't get that question with the plants answered.

I did start raising the temp in the 125 with the loaches but only have it up to 80 at this time.

I did add aquarium salt, but only what I had found was actually beneficial for plants.

I was already considering the hospital tank and will do that very shortly, half dosing the meds.

What time span do you think the 125 will be clear if maintained at 80 degrees so that the plants aren't overly stressed and resulting in a huge algae bloom.

The reason I ask is I have a very over populated 55 that needs sorted out into the 125 now that the fish are about 1/3 of the way mature.

The one from my avatar is a real nasty one and is wrecking havoc on some of the less agressive fish such as peacocks and albino labs ...

She has claimed about half the tank as 'hers' and is just a terror.

I plan on leaving her, her male, an aurotis and his two females in the 55 with one pleco and moving the rest to the 125....

They seem to be able to handle her.


----------



## AC (Jul 26, 2010)

After finding fry today in my 55 and watching aggression sore like mad over the past two weeks I was considering something a little more radical on treating the 125.

I have the clown loaches in a 20 xtra high as a hospital tank.

They seem to be responding very well to half doses of QuICK Cure, salt and heat.

In fact, I could only see one white spot today.

Now, the 125 is planted, and cannot be heat and salted to maximum and probably still has ick spores and carp like that.

I really need to be able to get fish in it asap.

I do not consider that two weeks will be possible without some major showdowns in the 55...

I am already keeping the 55 as dark as possible to limit the action and I have fish hiding near the HOB filter and in corners behind plastic plants.

Anyway....

I was considering doing a 50% water change on that 125 tank with the ick issue and NOT using any declorinator at all when the new water was introduced.

My thoughts are that the chlorine would kill off the remaining ick and will not hurt the plants.

Maybe even add a small amount of bleach to the water....

Yes, I realize it will wreck havoc on the biological but I have the 55 that I can pull water out of, muck from the gravel bed, and use the filter media in my canister for the 125 and get a 12 hr cycle completed that way.

Any thoughts?


----------



## triscuit (May 6, 2005)

Sorry I missed your post over the weekend- Let's see:

To buy time, lower the temp in the 55 gallon. I know you are down south, so that may not be as easy as it is for me. You can also use a tank divider for a short term solution. Short section of PVC pipe would also provide more hiding spaces for harassed fish.

If your 125 has NO fish, then I would guess a week would be sufficient to break the life cycle of ich. Healthy unstressed fish won't succumb to ich very easily, so even if there is some live ich left, your fish from the 55 won't make the best hosts. If you have some fish from the 55 that are injured, maybe put them in with the loaches for treatment.

ontinue to treat the loaches and don't put them back in the big tank for a few weeks after the treatment is over.



AC said:


> I was considering doing a 50% water change on that 125 tank with the ick issue and NOT using any declorinator at all when the new water was introduced.
> 
> My thoughts are that the chlorine would kill off the remaining ick and will not hurt the plants.
> 
> ...


I'm not convinced that you could use chlorine or bleach effectively without killing the plants. I think water changes, a fishless week, and healthy fish will be sufficient. Keep in mind that loaches are ich magnets- and so this minor outbreak was kind of expected. Ich often floats around without causing trouble for healthy tanks.


----------



## AC (Jul 26, 2010)

Thank you for your input.

That 55 has 26 fish in it, not counting the fry which are 3 -4 that I know of.

3 plecos and 23 cichlids, possibly 24 as when I bought them I thought there was one extra in a bag but was never really able to get an acurate count once they were all in the tank.

No one is really beat up because no one fish can get picked on too badly.

It has a lot of hiding places, but what has happened over the past few weeks is that the bully has been harassing anyone who came over to the side where I found the fry yesterday.

All of your points make sense to me and I think I will just split them out on Monday which will be a week and hope that those loaches were not really contaminating the tank all that long.

I may even jack up the heat in there for a few days...

I just started dropping the temp back in the 55.

The lowest I can get it would be room temp at 73 degrees.

Do you have any idea of how to sex a common pleco?


----------



## AC (Jul 26, 2010)

Grrrrrrrr

Anyone know if snails can keep ick alive in an aquarium?


----------



## AC (Jul 26, 2010)

The clown loaches have made a strong recovery.

I split out the fish in the 55 into the 125.

I did lose a male Zemba to the one in the avatar before the split happened.

That is the second Zemba he has taken out.

He seems to wait until they are getting fairly big and went after the most dominant of the Zembas each time.

I still have what appears to be two male Zembas

I think I have most all males.

I'm ready for a third tank.

LOL!~


----------



## triscuit (May 6, 2005)

Thanks for the update- can you share what exactly you used and how you used it to cure the clowns?


----------



## AC (Jul 26, 2010)

Salt and heat along with half doses of QuICK Cure over 5 days in a hospital tank.

I didn't go wild with the salt knowing the loaches don't have scales...

I dropped it back to about 1 TBLSP/gal or a little less....

After the five days, I did a 50% water change, added a HOB filter and let them ride it out almost two weeks in the hospital tank.

Cleared the 125 of all fish (luckily only the loaches were in there).

Added a mild salt solution to that (I think it was like 1 1/2 tsp/8gal) and jacked up the heat to 83-84 degrees for the time period.

I did have a heavy algae growth during that period along with a snail outbreak.

12 hours after I put the cichlids, plecos and clown loaches in the 125 I could not find a single snail left....

That made me very happy.

That fish in my avatar took one out as soon as he was released in the tank.

After seeing him do that it will be really really hard not to live feed him something now and then.

He hit it like a large mouth bass.



Algae was non existant in less than two days.


----------

