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Re: Ich in planted tank with invertebrates

i wouldn't screw around with malachite green if you have inverts . . . i 
once added some amano shrimp to a tank that was undergoing treatment for 
ich, using seachem's paraguard ("with a synergistic blah blah of malachite 
green) and the shrimp immediately went into paroxysms of agony . . . i 
removed the malachite green with carbon, and used salt (1 tbsp per 5~6 
gallons) . . . and i have not looked back since . . . the plants didn't 
seem affected by the salt . . . on the contrary, they were still bubbling . 
. . but i'm sure it's not good to have too much salt . . . just dilute it 
with water changes after a few weeks, just to be sure no more ich exists . . .

>Subject: 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