Re: Treating Ick in a planted tank.

[Bill Wichers <billw at waveform_net>]

>What is the best course of action? I've read a bit on it, but it seems
>the medications cannot be used in a planted tank. I've one fish, a newly
>aquired clown loach which is currently infected. At this stage, no other
>fish is infected yet.
>[snip]
>Not that it matters because treating the visibly infected fish in
>another tank would not necessarity remove the parisite from the planted
>tank.

The best way to start is to isolate the infected fish. Either get a small 
(I like 2.5 gallon tanks, 5 gallon is OK too) tank, or use a largish bucket 
(5 gallon bucket half filled works well). Treat the fish in the quarantine 
tank as recommended by the maker of whatever ich remedy you're using. If 
the only fish you have that is infected is a newly acquired fish, then you 
should be OK if you isolate the fish quickly. Once the ich gets going in 
your tank you can start having problems.

There is some info on the krib at http://www.thekrib.com/Diseases/ich.html 
that suggests removing *all* the fish from the planted tank for a while may 
disrupt the life cycle of ich enough to kill the ich in the plant tank. Not 
sure how well that would work in practice though. I'd stick with treating 
the infected fish in a quarantine tank and keeping an eye on the 
inhabitants of the main tank to check for further infections.

BTW, I prefer to use white buckets for my tanks since it lets you see the 
fish'n'critters in the buckets. If you use the normal malachite green based 
ich medication then you'll probably stain your bucket to a turquoise color. 
You can get polyethylene bucket liners for <$1 if the stain is a problem 
for you.

         -Bill
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Waveform Technology
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