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Re: Ick in a planted tank?
> I have recently added a few rainbowfish to my aquarium. I did not have a
> separate quarantine tank to put them in so I went ahead and added them to
my
> planted tank. At the time, they did not have any noticeable signs of
> disease. Since I have introduced them, my swordtail platties and one
> rainbowfish have ick. I don't want to uproot all my plants and have to
> cycle the tank from scratch after medicating the entire tank. Is there a
> product that will get rid of ick without disturbing the biological media in
> the tank? Would a UV Sterilizer work better than medication in the long
> run?
I had a big problem for a long time with Ich on black tetras. I tried using
several remedies (usually copper based) to cure it with poor results. (Copper
can also have adverse effects on fish and plants.) Anyway, I tried using a
malachite green based medication and it worked VERY well. Just make sure you
don't have any scaleless fish, I did some damage to some loaches when I
treated my tank. As far as your biological filtration is concerned, one of
the joys of having a planted tank is that you don't have to rely much (if at
all) on your bacterial filtration. You can pretty much kill off your entire
bacterial colony and the plants will pick up the slack, and they will
probably even do better.
Craig