My 55gal has Ich, my Pictus has it pretty bad, and I've noticed some spots on my new Platys.
Can I use salt in a tank with Pictus and Ottos?
I know that a major water change is in order, but what elce can I do with catfish in the tank?

I would go for a lighter salt amount, maybe 5 teaspoons for the tank. Maybe space each teaspoon by and hour?

Obviously keep an eye on them and premix the salt. It shouldn't really take much salt to help kill ich, it's just a lesser concentration may take a tad longer.

I picked up 2 20 gal heaters and am slowly taking the temp up.
On the up side, I spotted a fry in this tank while I was doing the W/C.

How do I "clean" my gravel vac before I do a W/C on my other tanks?

Ich is always in the water.

You could just do a small salt bath for the equipment, maybe 5 minute soak 1 tablespooon per gallon of water.

If you would get a bigger heater, one for a 55 gal or even a little bigger, slowly raise your temp to about 82 or 83 and you wouldn't need to use salt. Keep the temp to that for about 10 days and then do a large water change. The cats and the oto's don't tolerate salt to well.

This is how I treated my tanks when I had outbreaks of ich years ago and did a great job. the heat makes the life cycle of the ich go faster but they can't tolerate the higher temps.

2 20 gal heaters won't cut it though.

The 20 gallon heaters are more than likely 100 watts each, combined their 200watts should be able to bring the temp up. The cats should be bothered by the small amount of salt I suggested.

As with anything just watch them.

I honestly get rid of ich in less then 3 days by slowly raising the tank temp to 88-90F, leave it at that temp for 12 hours...then slowly lower it again. After that I do 25% water changes and if needed I use 1/2 teasoon of aquarium safe salt per gallon. Always works out for me with no deaths or post illness. You have to be really carefull of the aeration levels at that temp...need lots of air bubblers...lol

I have the temp up to 84F, Glaive is right, the heaters are 100 watts each and so far they are doing the job. Unfortunatly I can't get anything bigger right now, they aren't avlaiable here, the 20's are the biggest they had but they can special order me one in 2 weeks when they order again, :pft: and they didn't have any aquarium salt so hopefully the heat will do it. I think I will try raising the temp a couple more degrees, I shouldn't have any issues with oxygen, I have 2 sponge filters, 2 bubble stones and a power filter so there should be enough air and water flow to keep them breathing.

Update

I took the temp up to 90 degrees for 24 hours and then slowly reduced it to 82-84 and was going to keep it there, the pictus was looking good, only a few spots of Ich left, then we had to treat the house for fleas :cuss:

I removed the power filter and heaters and disconnected the air lines so that i could get a good seal on the tank. I taped plastic wrap over the tank and we set off the foggers and sprayed and left for 3 hours. We came back to open up the house and air it out, grabbed the laundry and I went and did laundry while Hubby came back and started vaccuming, we left the tanks covered because the vaccuming was going to put the chemicals back into the air. Hubby said that he looked over at the tank and the shark was freaking out!, the temp was 92-96F, he pulled the plastic and put the power filter back on it and that brought the temp down. He said that the Bala was swimming under the Pictus and pushing him to the top for air, I guess they were all gasping for air when he uncovered the tank. The tank was covered for about 9-10 hours with the lights on.
The pictus didn't make it, I found him on the uptake tube of the power filter this afternoon when I got up :rip: :sook: I guess the high temp and drastic fluctuations were just too much for him.

Sounds like a lack of oxygen. When covered like that and nothing running there is little to no oxygen going into the water and after awhile the fish will deplete all that is available to them. 8 - 9 hours is a long time for a fish in that situation. At those temps the oxygen went pretty fast.

Yeah, that was my other thought. For a while before the Pictus died the Bala would get under him and push him to the surface, and Hubby said that he was doing that a lot when he uncovered the tank.
They were buddys.:drunk: I think the Bala is looking for the cat, he has been searching all of it's hidey-holes.
I think that the pictus would have survived if he hadn't been so stressed to begin with, even the 2 Platy fry survived and are already coloring up. jay

Well I noticed Ich on the balla yesterday am and he was dead when we got home this morning. :sook: :rip:
I will be checking paramaters and such after I'm done with the g-pig cage, and probably do a W/C as well.
None of the other fish are showing any signs of illness, should i treat the tank for Ich anyway? I want to replace hubby's fish but I don't want to bring healthy fish into an ill tank.

I was wrong, now the barbs have it. :cuss: :banghead: :cuss:

I would treat the tank, but you should put any new fish into quarantine to be sure that the new fish doesn't have any illnessess to pass on to the other fish. It makes for good practice.

OK, here are the paramaters

Ph 8
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10
Ammonia .25 (as usual, there is ammonia in my tap water and my tanks NEVER get below this level)

You need to get Prime for your water changes.

Yeah, I know, but I either have to order it online or get Hubby to drive me 3 hours to go get it.

Well, 1 of the barbs is dead and the other 2 are fading fast, one of the ones still in the tank has lost almost all of his tail, I think the platys have been picking on it.
I'm not expecting the barbs to make it so I will be down to 2 adult platys and their fry (4 I think) and the 2 ottos in the 55gal tank. :pft: :rip:

I should be able to get some aquarium salt in a few hours when we go to Wall-mart.

try starting with 3 table spoons and see how they are after a couple hours then add 2 more and keep an eye on the fish.

OK, they got the first 3 Tbs almost an hour ago.
I havn't seen any sign of Ich since the barbs died, and I now have another batch of platy fry.
How long should I wait before adding more fish? A week or more?

I'm probably going to wait until tomorrow am to add the other 2 Tbs of salt, that will probably be the soonest I will be able to keep an eye on the tank.

Sounds good Dot. It may well be that 3 tablespoons would be enough, I just felt the ich episode had gone on a while.

Ok, it's been 5 days since I put in the 3 Tbs of salt and 2 days since I put Prime in, the Platys and Otto's all look fine and are eating well, and in the case of the Platys, reproducing like crazy. jay
I havn't seen any signs of Ich since about the 21st-22nd of September when the Barbs died, so what is my next step?

Continue doing your regular stuff like water changes but keep the salt constant via replacement for another week to be safe. Ten phase it out with your regular water changes.

OK, thanks for the help, I have a W/C scheduled for my "weekend" (Wed & Thurs). I'll probably pull about 15-16gal, that's what my shop-vac canister holds, and replace 1 Tbs of the salt. Is there an easy way to disolve that stuff, it seemed to take forever?

Yeah hot tap water in a little yogurt sized container. The hot water will not fluctuate the over all tank.

That's what I was afraid of, LOL, that's how I did it the other day but it seemed to take forever for it to disolve, but that was 3 Tbs, 1 should take less time.