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Lv 5
? asked in PetsFish · 1 decade ago

Treating Ick with heat and salt?

My still cycling tank has Ick. Oh, no what did I do to stress my fish. 10 gallon. 6 fish, 6 week old tank. Fish were put in there 2 at a time. It has only been set to 76 degrees F. 4 of my tetras have a couple spots. 2 pristillas and 2 neons. I feel so bad. Years ago I treated a bad case of ick in a 5 g tank with that awful green stuff. It worked but stained everything. I felt guilty leaving my fish in a bare tank! Anyway, has anyone treated ick with a warmer tank and salt? I have read to keep the heat on 86 degrees F and use sea or aquarium salt, 1 tsp per gallon. and do 20% water changes everyday, vacuuming. And to do all this for 4 days until after you see there is no ick. May take 2 weeks. Any thoughts, suggestions??? My ammonia has been up for 3 days. Today at about .35-ish.

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    First you need to do 25% water change, vaccuum gravels, and then you add 1 table spoon of aquarium salt every 5 gallons of water, do it slowly, not all at once. Then you will raise the temperature up 2 F at a time until 84-86 F pay attention to your fish, if no signs of stress then increase up to 88F depends on how is your fish doing. Keep your fish in salt bath for 5-7 days, if you see any signs of stress do a 15% water change right away.

    Last time I treated ick , and parasites, I used salt, and Tetra Lifeguard at the same time. If you feel comfortable then use med during salt and heat treating too. The down side of using medication is it will harm your bio loads, your tank has not fully cycles so I think it will hurt a little bit.

  • 4 years ago

    whenever you do away with water from the tank, you may desire to upload freshwater aquarium salt back in. in case you have a minor ick project, you mustn't be continuously changing the water, as this could rigidity the fish out plenty extra, and thus unfold the ailment swifter. increasing the temperature to around 88 in a tropical freshwater tank, and dosing heavily with salt, might desire to be adequate to clean up the ick. bear in mind nonetheless that the fish should not be in this form of intense temperature for better than one week.

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