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Ich in planted tank with invertebrates
I have a struggling planted tank with mollies, a plecostamus, some kind
of livebearing snails, and shrimps. It also had small guppies, but I
moved them temporarily to a heated goldfish bowl to grow them out. The
pleco is a new addition, to replace the previously discussed flag fish.
The pleco had ich, and now the mollies have ich. (For some reason, I
didn't think plecos got ich because they are scaleless.) I have a
bottle of malachite green, but I don't know if it is safe for
invertebrates. I also don't want to stain the glue in my tank blue.
The guppies were sickly until I isolated them in the goldfish bowl, with
a hunk of java fern, and malachite green just in case they were ichy. I
don't think they were sick; just harassed by the FFF and the shrimps.
Most of the guppies had died or were eaten until I isolated them. The
survivors have doubled in size now in about a week, and are big and
strong enough now to fend for themselves. but I don't want to
reintroduce them until the ich is under control.
What can I use to treat the tank? Is the malachite green safe to use,
or will it kill the shrimps and snails? What about its reputation for
permanently staining the tank seams? The label has no useful
information.
I don't have any more quarantine tanks, but I have a lot of half-gallon
canning jars, and the room is pretty warm. If I take out all the fish
for a week or so, and treat them with m.g. in their own jars, will the
ich in the tank die out on its own, or will the inverts serve as an
alternate host and keep the infection alive?
I looked through the archives, but I didn't find anything about inverts
and ich. Thanks.
Best regards,
Bob
--
"I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer."
--Kehlog Albran