ick

[luvmydiscus]

Can coarse salt be used to cure ick?

[flukes]

You mean ich?? Commonly known as white spot??
Salt will help, depending in how bad it is, it can recover from ich using salt but meth blue might be needed..

Try salt first as its an easy alternative to using meds..

[Merrilyn]

Are you sure you discus has white spot. It's an unusual disease to get at the temperatures we run our tanks. If you can see the spots (cycst) on the fins, it means your fish is already heavily infected, and you may need something stronger than salt.

Go to your fish shop and get a good commercial white spot remedy. It's very important to treat for the full time suggested, because you can only kill white spot while it is in the free swimming stage, before attaching to the host fish.

[luvmydiscus]

Yes I know for sure it is ich. Being in the fish hobby for over 20 years one encounters this the odd time. I have always used Aquarisol for ich and I just wanted to know if the salt would get rid of it as I really don't like meds but know that in some cases it is needed..... :D

How this came about is my dear husband.... :lol: bless his heart... :wink: who knows nothing about fish....... :D decided to buy me a new little pleco as my beloved bristlenose has not been very active and I think might be on his last legs.

So home comes this little new pleco, he acclimatized him as he has seen me do this and when done put him in the tank. Well, I was pleased with the new little fellow but not please with all the white dots everywhere on him.... :cry:

So, to late to remove him now as he was in there for a good day. The next day all was well even though I added some salt as I did not like the look of those spots and well this morning the discus and the angel have the spots on their fins only. Nothing showing on the body but now the dear bristlenose is covered too.

So this is the story, I don't want to hurt hubby's feelings as this can be cleared up quite easily but I was wanting to use salt instead of the meds. Hears hoping that the salt will work, if not off to the store tomorrow to get a new bottle of Aquarisol.

[pitchblack]

had the same problem about a week ago blue meth fixed the problem in 3 days.. All fish happy now

[luvmydiscus]

Yep, all is looking very well. I could not wait and went this afternoon to get some medication. Tonight my Discus is looking good and the color is vibrant and he looks very happy. Back to eating normal and in a few days should have this all cleared up.

:D

[flukes]

Ive heard so many people tell me that ich is hard too cure from discus. But when mine got it from the heater failing, i was able too cure it with just salt and within a couple of days..

Maybe the desease on my fish wasnt as severe but it seemed easy enough too cure.. Alot easier than flukes...

[Merrilyn]

Luvmy, there is an interesting article here posted by proteus, about using heat and salinity treatment to cure ich.

http://www.discusforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=218

[luvmydiscus]

Thank you all for the replies. Interesting article about the heat and salinity.

Glad to report all is well this morning. I am going to do a water change tonight and then add a bit more medication just to make sure.

By the way, I did not tell hubby about stress he casued me. I nicely said that next time lets do this together and pick out the fish...... :D

He was very concerned about the Discus and he is a very beautiful fish, the focal point of our tank and of course the price we had to pay for him as a young fish.

The price we pay for Discus here in B.C. is crazy. First of all to find them is one thing and then you pay a whopping price to get them. Most of the time they are so sick and stressed out as the stores here just don't pay attention to their needs. Truthfully they really don't like to stock these fish as there is no demand for them here. To bad as I think they are one of the most beautiful fish for a tank.

Give you an idea, this one I bought last fall I paid 50.00CDN on sale at half price. Not uncommon to pay $120-125 CDN for Discus 2" in diameter.... :shock:

Thanks again to you all.... :D Here is a pic of our Discus.... :)

[Merrilyn]

What a cute little guy. Glad to hear things are looking better this morning.

That's a lot of money to pay for a small discus. What a shame they aren't more popular there.

[kalebjarrod]

i had ich the other day and put the temp to 32 added salt and did water changes every day adding salt to my "fresh" water

worked fine

[Merrilyn]

Ryan was that in a planted tank. Did it have any affect on your plants.

[kalebjarrod]

I was in the corner unit, which is planted but only with anubus, java fern and hydro

doesn't affect them to bad

the extra heat is a hinderance to growth but should only stop plants thriving not kill them