abn and medusa with ich

I recently added a medusa pleco and a ancistomus to my young pleco tank I think one of them came with ich .

so far I have seperated the three plecos annd two bleeding heart tetras (one had very small spots)

into a seperate 10 gl tank and added ich attack medicine.

is ich attack safe for these guys?

(I treated a clown pleco and tetras with it and he is doing fine several months later as well as the tank of teras and corys.)

should I also add salt to both tanks? and raise temperature?

I'm really worried because I really care about all these plecs.

the medusa pleco has no spots on her belly only on her topside but her fins seem to have cysts, I know she didn't have this when I got her.

Bad luck on getting the dreaded Ich

Basically the rule of thumb is any copper based meds need to be run at half dose for any of the scale-less fish such as plecos. I have used Ich-away in the past on half dose for twice the treatment period will good results when coupled with a temp rise to 28-30 degrees.

Salt can be good if used correctly, I have never used it to treat Ich so cant help you out on the specifics but know people who have. Im sure someone will be along shortly to add insight on the use of salt.

Good luck

thanks for the info Doug,

I had already dosed both tanks the quarantine tank and the original tank they were in at recommended strength about an hour ago , I hope they will be ok.

should I do a water change to lower it to half strength?

hrmmm, tough one.

I would leave it til as late as possible tonight then do a largish waterchange.

thanks! well I didn't do a water change yet, I just put in the second dose in both tanks, hope everything goes ok , the abn seemed to have less white spots on the stomach but I noticed he still has alot on his fins and topside. I hope as things progress it will get better the longer it gets the better chance of the disease being being effected by the medicine I am hoping. I didn't do any water changes yet, I might do a gravel vac tomorrow and big water change. t6hough last time this happened I didnt do any water changes until for about two weeks.

the medication will not kill the spots on the skin. It kills the parasites that are in the the water. The life cycle of Ich take about 7-10 days so what you have done now is kill off all the parasites in the water now meaning there will be no new infections. You have to repeat the proceadure once or twice more to ensure that newly emerging parasites are killed off too. i always dosed my tanks 3 times. day 1, day 7 and day 12. that way i knew that all of the parasites would have hatched and been in the water where the meds can kill them

well my snowball pleco died hours after the second dose was put in. There were no ich spots on him I think it was the medicine I feel hhorrible now for adding so many fish and making this one suffer he was doing so fine today on top of the wood in the tank he looked fin up until I saw him turning pale so I did water change and he still died

Rey wrote:

well my snowball pleco died hours after the second dose was put in. There were no ich spots on him I think it was the medicine I feel hhorrible now for adding so many fish and making this one suffer he was doing so fine today on top of the wood in the tank he looked fin up until I saw him turning pale so I did water change and he still died

Sorry to hear of your loss. Sometimes white spot can just be in the gills and there are no visible signs.

thanks I appreciate that, do you think I can use ick clear with ich attack, since ich attack doesn't have copper and is herbal, don't know if here is some toxicity with both combined.

sorry to hear about the loss.

I would def not run the two together. the current meds have pushed the fish enough. Im sure if it killing the fish, its killing the parasites.

if you do want to try the other herbal one then i would first throw some activated carbon into the filter to remove any of the old copper based med still in the water. once you have let that do its thing for three-four days, take the carbon out and toss it and then go with the herbal option. I suspect, like most herbal options, they are not as effective as the copper based ones and may not be as effective. however, seeing as you have used the copper based one already, the herbal might be enough to deal with the stragglers who are emerging post med dose.

thanks Doug I tried the herbal med first actually, but I added a quarter dose of the http://www.junglelabs.com/pages/details.asp?item=TB626 in the hospital tank because they look pretty bad in there, two teras are dying or one already did and I am decreasing to 1/3 dose of the herbal stuff in the main tank.

I decided I'm going to do a big water change now on the hospital tank since it has the copper based stuff in it, I'll redose the hospital tank with the herbal med kordon ich attack since I would have cleared some of that med out and I haven't added any today yet and havent done a water change on this tank since I ou tthe sick fish in there. Don't know if I m doing the right thing here but I am worried about that copper based med killing the fish and now I see plenty of bad reviews on it.

First of all sorry for your loss...

I have to agree 100% with doug on the advice to remove the ich......
But it sounds almost certain that the meds may have killed your snowball....

For me Ich isnt the worst disease out there but can spread like wild fire, especially on bottom dwellers like plecs...
Ive had it a few times and one had maybe 60 young bns fully infected with it....
As doug stated the water temp needs to be lifted as the ich cannot survive to well in higher temps also try improving your O2 level's...

Then come the meds, although i use the big brands for bacterial probz such a Pimafix/Melafix i only use one for White Spot which is ESHA EXIT...this can be found off ebay...ive had 100% success from this med and i have found with this med it doesnt seem to affect any other tank mates without the disease or symtoms...

Remember White spot can come from a few places!! Either a new addition thats already carrying Ich or from your own Aquarium, once its gone be sure to keep on top of your substrate, ie..clean water changes with a gravel vac.....

I hope you clear it and hopefully no more of your fish are infected by this pain in the arse that is ICH..

CuRbY..........

P.S Please can i see some pics of your Medusa Please,,

thanks Curby, sorry for you losing those fish as well.

well my abn and ancistomus pleco are looking better but the medusa pleco died .I did a gravel vac an 50 percent water change with R/O water, maybe that was too much but the other two in that tank look like they might be getting better slowly. I noticed the ancistomus plec had white spots on the first few days but not sure if that was ich well it progressed quite quickly. I just thought the medusa pleco would be so much better in my 29 gl tank/109 liter tank with plenty of wood as opposed to the 5 gallon/18 liters tank she was in at the store. they have really old tanks there so I guess they do well there, but before I noticed they had the largest bn I had ever seen like about 7 or 8 inches 17 cms or so, that was lying dead for some time in a 55 gallon/208 liters tank with goldfish, propably too low of a temp.

I have two royal plecos one or two had a few spots now not showing any, an albino common pleco "yellow pleco"never showed any signs , a butterfly pleco and a marble sailfin pleco who both never showed and signs of ich and upside down cats that had ich all seem healthy in the same tank that I only used the herbal meds. I never used the malachite green stuff except for a quarter dose in the sick tank and no one seemed to get sick immediatley but I did do a water change awhile after since I was worried about that med being too toxic.

the ancistomus has alot less spots the abn sailfin is eating I think, the zucchini I put in looks chewed on.

the lfs told me alot of the temperature flucuation we been having in this area has caused some bacteria growths.

I am just confused because I thought I was doing the right thing with the kordon ich attack that is supposed to be safe for scale less fish.
I am thinking that I added it directly to the tank and it blew right into the face of the snowball with the powerhead since he was perched on top of some wood exposed . but none of the other plecos seem to have been affected by the so-called safe medicine. even the guy at the lfs was perplexed, they have really aged tanks there some 20 years old with only undergravel filters, so I am wondering maybe my tank was too immature it's only been setup since august or september and it has an aqueon 55 and an aquueon 30? I think as well as an ATI type IV sponge filter rated for 80 gallons. I also have two of the larger air pumps.