How To Deal With Ick In A Cold Water Native Aquarium.

I have a 33 gallon tank with some river chubs, long nose daces, and two very small trout fry ( 2.5 inches) that my 5 year old daughter brought home from a local river about a week and a half ago in a bucket, have to keep them as they can't be released. The temp of the water is just under 68 deg. Lots of filtration and water flow, will have to move them to much larger tank soon. I am not that comfortable with fresh water ( have a large reef tank) so am needing help on a problem. Ick has broken out in the tank and am unsure how to fully treat it. For salt water I raise the temp, use garlic, fresh water dips and have had good success. With this tank I cannot raise the temp. because of the trout, and have lots of native plants, so copper is unwise. Any thoughts would be helpful. My daughter loves these fish and am eager to keep them healthy.

Thanks.

Get some aquarium salt and work your way up to 1.5 tbps per 5 gallons. You can try a low dose of coppersafe which shouldn't kill off most of your plants. It really depends on how bad of an outbreak you have. Are you positive it is ick?

Get some aquarium salt and work your way up to 1.5 tbps per 5 gallons. You can try a low dose of coppersafe which shouldn't kill off most of your plants. It really depends on how bad of an outbreak you have. Are you positive it is ick?

I also thought salt but I have to admit that salt should melt most plant life. I never use copper so I have no idea if low dosage is acceptable with plants. I also wonder if it's really ick.

This is a tough one! Personally, I'd get that tank between 1.5~2 TBS salt per 5 gallons and change %50-75 water every three days until obvious signs disappear. I'd then continue the salt levels and change water every 5 days for a while. I guess I might be a little more light handed with the salt if I had a lot invested in the plants but I might also remove the plants for salt treatment.

I question ick. Perhaps you are seeing something else. Do all exhibit the symptoms? Which species of trout? Where are you? What temps were the stream the fish were from? It is a long shot but you could be seeing damage/regrowth on the fins. Did all the fish come from the same bucket?

Maracide will do the trick and it won't kill your plants.

I question ick. Perhaps you are seeing something else. Do all exhibit the symptoms? Which species of trout? Where are you? What temps were the stream the fish were from? It is a long shot but you could be seeing damage/regrowth on the fins. Did all the fish come from the same bucket?

I think it's ick. The chubs were and are rubbing on the rocks and bottom. Most of the fish have wite spots on them. The trout (rainbows) are the only fish that are not rubbing on the rocks. The river they were taken from comes down from the mountians, so is cold this time of year. The tank is in our basement but is warmer than the river ( could be a factor, but the river can change temp quite a bit from morning to afternoon especialy on a cool morning to warm afternoon.) My daughter brought home chubs in mid summer, and the trout and a few more chubs about a week and a half ago. I went to a stream that runs in to the same river the nex day and we collected some plants to put in the tank. Perhaps the plants had parasites on them. I thought the fish would be able to handle these plants because they would be used to any organisams on them. Did not factor in effects of stress and the fact they would be in a confined area. Can ick exist in a stream? Could it be bacterial or a differant type of parasite? The spots are on the fins and body. Just noticed the spots yesterday, but the fish were rubbing for about a week. Tested the water and 0 amonia and nitites. The tank cycled a few weeks ago. I bought a product called ick guard last night and put it in as directed (supposed to be plant and delicate fish safe ingredients are victoria green and nitromersol ). Should I stay with this or try salt as mentioned by others, or do bolth? Was worried how the salt would effect the trout fry. My daughter caught the trout in a pool beside a small water fall that was recently cut off from it due to falling water levels. The trout would have died but my dad said the water was clean as water was trickling in it over a rock. If I go to salt what type would be best rock or the sea salt I use for my reef tank? Would salt be safe to use with this medication. What do you guys think?

Considering the plants are new and can easily be replaced, I would pay no attention to them. Ick meds do work but ick can take a long time to be treated.

Personally, I would get the salt up to 2 TBS per 5 gallons and change large amounts of water often. I would also maintain these salt levels forever. Lots of people use between 1 and 2 TBS per 5 gallons to prevent these things from happening in the first place (I do). I use meds in emergencies along with salt. I feel any medication is risky and only use it as a last resort or when I know for sure what the problem is (external parasites) and have experience with the medication.

Considering the plants are new and can easily be replaced, I would pay no attention to them. Ick meds do work but ick can take a long time to be treated.

Personally, I would get the salt up to 2 TBS per 5 gallons and change large amounts of water often. I would also maintain these salt levels forever. Lots of people use between 1 and 2 TBS per 5 gallons to prevent these things from happening in the first place (I do). I use meds in emergencies along with salt. I feel any medication is risky and only use it as a last resort or when I know for sure what the problem is (external parasites) and have experience with the medication.

Thanks,
I will take your advice and use salt. Does salt also help if it is bacterial? Do you think it is ick? Keep in mind everything in the tank from rocks to plants to fish, came from the river. Local tap water is excelent qualiy and treated.

Thanks,
I will take your advice and use salt. Does salt also help if it is bacterial? Do you think it is ick? Keep in mind everything in the tank from rocks to plants to fish, came from the river. Local tap water is excelent qualiy and treated.

I'm just an average guy with one opinion so listen to others as well. The nice thing about salt is the fact that it can do little damage to fish and usually can buy time until you figure out what's happening in your tanks.

I'm not sure if salt specifically helps with bacterial issues but I can tell you that I kept tropicals for a while before I kept natives and never used salt. I never had all that many issues without salt and tropicals either. Once I started keeping natives, I began to have all sorts of minor issues that occasionally cost the lives of fish. I took the advice of others and started using salt with a rather skeptical eye. I started with small amounts and never noticed any problems aside from madtoms so I kept upping the amount until 1.5 to 2 TBS per 5 gallons. I can now say I have very few slime coat issues which were the bulk of my issues with native fish keeping. I view salt as preventative maintenance and I'm a huge fan of it's use. Salt isn't for every tank though. I don't use salt in planted tanks but others seem okay with small amounts in planted tanks. I'm also careful about using salt with madtoms. They seem to resent large sudden doses.

The salt helps with the fish's breathing and it might also help by having a slight hypertonic effect on the ick parasites.

I am new to the forums here.....however I have been keeping and breeding fish for close to 20 years now. Both native and tropical.

For most all issues within a tank, Ick mainly, I also use salt.....usually clears it all up fairly quick with litte to no side effects.

Ick killed all but two fish in my 29 gallon last year (my bluespots were fine) then spread to my 75 gallon tank so I dosed it with coppersafe and only 3 or 4 died in that one.

One thing I tried out was one of those UV light canisters that attach to the outlet line of a canister filter. I tried it on a lark for my 140-gallon tank, and haven't had an ich or an algae problem since. A significant expense up front but it seemed to prevent problems. I just put in a new speckled dace I collected a couple of weeks ago, which has developed some ich that I imagine it already had and the ich survived the initial treatment, so we'll see what happens. I'll probably pull it and put it in hospital.

shawn

Yeah, there was an article in one of those fish magazines (probably TFH or FAMA) about 1995 that had a lot of detail about UV units as treatments for various parasites. The article had a lot of detail (like how many watts for what duration would kill specific parasites). Of course I disremember those details, but what I do remember is that the flow rates needed to be slowed down a bit to kill multi-cellular organisms.

Later edit: I posted on this back in May, here is what I wrote:

You will need to slow down the flow rate, to something like 30-50% of the recommended rate (depending on the wattage). OK, wait a minute, here is detail: to kill ichthyophthirous, you need 23,000 microwatts per second per square centimeter. Remember also, that used UV bulbs lose power (something like 10% in 100 hours.) Thus, for a standard, new 8 watt unit, you generate 15,000 at 240 gallons per hour, so you want a flow rate of half or less. Or, daisy chain 2 units. I got these numbers from a July 1995 Tropical Fish Hobbyist article by Erik Johnson, DVM.