emilai333

I just noticed that two fish in my rm's community tank appear to have ich (she feeds and I clean, but she's been busy lately so hasn't been paying as close attention as usual). I would like to treat the entire tank both because if more than one fish is sick they've all been exposed and could get sick and because I don't currently have a tank for an iso tank - I've been preparing for moving this summer and everything is being disassembled. My problem fish is the loach. The cory has been moved to the goldy tank, as he is mine and won't be going with my roomie this summer (he'll be going with my goldy to a different friend... btw I'm going to Alaska, that's why all the frantic rearranging of tanks). I don't want to hurt the loach with the meds I need to use on the other fish, especially as Chaos is the rm's favorite fish, but I also don't want to move him to the one tank with space for him, and expose my other fish. Especially this close to moving, as that will be very stressful for them anyway. We're also flat broke at the moment, so we're limited on what we can use to treat the tank. I have Furan 2, tetracycline, and malachite green. Are any of these products safe to use with a loach or, alternatively, would it be safe to move the loach to a one gallon for the duration of the treatment? I can probably rearrange enough filters to get a box filter in the 1g without risking my other fish. I need advice asap so that I can treat the mollies and get them healthy before finals week. Thank you in advance.

Shastam

I'd love to know that too! What I did when my goldy's got ich was move my loaches to a seperate tank since I didn't see anything on them and didn't want to stress them out. I think that one option is to use ich treatments that don't have formaline in them. And then use at a half dose for tetras and scaleless fish. But I never got a good answer on this one!

emilai333

wait, tetras are sensitive, too? well crap. Alright. Well, I'll figure out what to use when I get back from class and use it at half strength. I have to treat the tetras, may as well treat everyone at half strength. I'll be risking the loach but its that or risking a whole other tank. I'll post again later.

Thanks for replying!

emilai333

well, I'm going to try the Furan at a little less than half strength and cross my fingers for the loach. The malachite green lists specifically that scale-less fish are sensetive to it, and the Furan doesn't, so I'm going to just have to pray.

Wish me luck.

sgould

Gradually raise the temp in the tank up to around 82-83. Ich doesn't do well with heat, and from what I have read a number of people have been successful treating it with temperature alone...no meds. I would keep the temperature elevated for 1.5-2 weeks. If you are using meds, don't forget to remove any carbon from your filter, as it will make the medicine ineffective. Good luck!

Shastam

I agree with raising the temp, I forgot about that . I usually add salt with a temp raise, but I guess that doesn't work with loaches. I hope that will work on its own! If not I found out that a half dose of maraycn should do the trick. Good Luck!

emilai333

Well, great news, having added the Furan before reading about the temperature, I just left the Furan in at low dosage and the ich is already mostly cleared up, and my molly (who had it worst) is acting much better, he's got his dorsal fin fully extended and was begging for attention when I walked past a bit ago. The loach doesn't seem to have been affected so far. **keeping fingers crossed**

Thank you all for your advice!!! Things are looking good!!!

sgould

Glad to hear the situation is improving!

Shastam

I'm glad they're all getting better! Just remember to keep treating for the full time even if they do look good, the parasite still lives in the water for awhile after its cleared off the fish!