Treatment for Ich with planted aquarium

I have a community tank in my classroom with black mollies, dwarf gourami, black neon tetra, guppies, a juv severum, pleco, and corydora. One of the black mollies has ich. I've seen a bunch of treatments for it from raising temperature to like 86 (can my fish even handle that?), using garlic, using an API treatment (or other brand that has ich treatment). So my question is what is the best treatment for ich in your experience? I do have plants so I would like to avoid anything that could harm them

 

you have one sick fish who could be indicating the tank is under stress from some environmental factor, which increases the possibility that bacteria may also be present. bacterial infection is more devastating >80F, so I would just be careful with using heat for the main tank, really look for signs of other diseases in all your livestock first.

It will be ideal to quarantine the affected fish and use salt and some heat for ~2 weeks. Thats a brackish-capable fish so you should be able to crank the salt concentration up pretty high in a separate container.

If you don't have anywhere else to put the fish for a couple weeks of saltwater treatment, personally I keep methylene blue around for this sort of thing and it is what I would use first as a 30 minute bath treatment with some salt in the bath as well.

I would also do some extra frequent water changes on the tank just as a precaution for the next week or 2.

 

IF the fish has ich and I say IF the fish has ich. It is a parasite. Each spot is an individual creature. All of the tank is now infected. DO NOT move the fish to another tank or you will be treating two tanks with medication.

You ask what is the best treatment for ich in my experience.

There are strains of ich that are not effected by heat. All the ich in Australia is not killed by heat.
I have brought fish home that have the parasite ich 5 or 6 times. A number of doses over multiple days following the instructions of an ich medication containing malachite green and formaldehyde kills off the free swimming stage of the parasites. It does not kill the eggs. Medication is continued for 14 days after the last spots are seen. That will kill those parasites that were eggs when you started treatment.

The spots will likely disappear after two or three days. It’s most important to continue treatment for 14 days to get the parasites eggs as they hatch.

Follow the instructions, wash your hands. Avoid getting the medication on the carpet.

Before you start treatment you should confirm if you actually have ich ? A picture would help.

 

The school I teach at has a microscope so I got a piece of it off of the affected molly. It definitely looks like ich at 100x

 

The ich life cycle is very short . From egg to adulthood and back to egg is just under a week at tropical temperatures. If you are seeing dozens of spots that look like table salt sitting on the skin then it’s ich .
Start treatment as soon as possible.