The dreaded ick!

[b3nnl]

Evening folks, after a rocky start last year, everything was starting to look good.
Plants are starting to grow in very well, minimal fish loss and the whole community was working well.
Then...” is that a white spot on my one of my clown loaches?”

Yep, it was was the start of the blinking ick. I acted quickly and pushed the temp upto 29-30 and due to the habitants of the 190ltr tank being a mixture of snails, shrimps, tetras and the clowns I got myself some kordon ich attack. I started dosing about a fortnight ago and I’ve been double dosing for the past week. Trouble is, I’m not seeing much improvement. I’ve read up a fair bit on the ick attack and it’s quite a weak treatment, but that’s why it’s safe for the molluscs and the clowns too.

Can anyone shed their wisdom on how to get this sorted out do I just crack on and hope it starts sorting in the next week? I’ve had no losses so far and everyone’s still acting normal, if there were no white spots I’d not know the difference. I could set up a small tank for the molluscs and hopefully catch them all and transfer them, but it’ll be a right pain in the arse as the tanks heavily planted.

Happy to hear people’s thoughts on this.
Cheers Benn

[PaulVerrall]

I had ich a while back, I tried a few things but the only one that worked was Seachem Cupramine, it eradicated it from my tank, took a couple weeks. Its copper though so the shrimps and snails would not survive. Would have to move them.

[Tycho]

I use F M G mixture combined with upping temp to successfully treat my pleco's a few months ago.

[plankton]

Plus some garlic to boost their immune systems.....
How big are the loaches now and how many do you have?
Is there anything obvious that would stress them (hence the ich)?

[b3nnl]

The loaches are only about 1&1/2 inches and theres 6 of them, plenty of space for them presently but I will be looking to go for a 5ft tank later this year as soon as the house renovations are complete.
The only issue I’ve got is the nitrates. My tap waters. 20ppm so they’re constantly in around 40ppm, I’m going to start investing in some nitrate removing kit, whether that’s resin based or mechanical, it’s the only way I can see of getting them down.
Other than that, can’t think of anything else.

[PaulVerrall]

The loaches are only about 1&1/2 inches and theres 6 of them, plenty of space for them presently but I will be looking to go for a 5ft tank later this year as soon as the house renovations are complete.
The only issue I’ve got is the nitrates. My tap waters. 20ppm so they’re constantly in around 40ppm, I’m going to start investing in some nitrate removing kit, whether that’s resin based or mechanical, it’s the only way I can see of getting them down.
Other than that, can’t think of anything else.

You're lucky at 20ppm. Mine come out the tap at 40ppm, I have matrix in the filters which lowers it to about 30ppm.

[plankton]

Nothing wrong with the nitrates. If you had discus or blue rams it would be more of a problem.

[F3l1ss]

Are you definitely sure it's ick?

[plankton]

Pics would confirm, but loaches are prone to it and also hole-in-the-head with the wrong diet.

[b3nnl]

Sorry for the delay in replying






It’s definitely ich, but touch wood, it’s starting to go. There were a few spots on the other clowns but now it’s just him and he’s losing those spots now as he has a load more a few days ago. I’ll keep double dosing until they’ve all gone and then a further week after just to be sure.