Loaches Online Forum

I had a case of ich recently and of the six or seven times I have had to treat for ich in the last 28 years, this was the most successful. In the past I have always treated with a half dose of formalin and/or malachite green (and of course raised the temperature and lowered the water level to increase oxygen). In some of these previous cases I lost fish and at best, the fish were always very stressed and clearly suffered. The loaches would be stressed and have a very high rate of gill movement and would spend a lot of time at the surface getting extra air.

I know that it is controversial, but I treated with salt this time and the results have been very good. The details are: Over three days time I raised the temperature to 88 degrees (31 C). Over the same three days I gradually added salt up to a concentration of 2 tsp per gallon (5 times each of the three days; dissolved and added slowly). I also lowered the water level by 1 inch so that the filters were splashing the surface. After 1 week all signs of ich were gone. During this week I also daily vacuumed the sand to remove as many parasites as possible. I continued treatment for another week. This was a mild case with 7 or 8 fish showing 5 or 6 spots and 15 or 20 others flashing. I am also running UV so this probably helped.

The above described results could have occurred the same (and have in the past for me) if I had used formalin and/or malachite green, but what I have not yet said, and which was dramatically different from past treatments, was that the fish showed virtually no signs of stress throughout the treatment. The loaches continued to eat well, were out and about playing, and even having skirmishes among themselves. Unlike in the past, I never felt that I was in any danger of losing fish this time. Only the giant danios looked like it was hard on them.

The fish in the tank are: Clowns, striata, rostrata, kubotai, SAEs, brilliant rasboras, scissortail rasboras, giant danios, and serpae tetras. The clowns and striatas showed visible ich. The kubs did a lot of flashing.

How did I get ich in my tank since I have carefully quarantined? My only guess is that I have had it all along, but the fish have been healthy enough to fight it off so that it did not get past being on the gills of a few. I do know what triggered the outbreak. I use R.O. water and about 1 month before I would normally change the filters my clowns started showing a few black spots. I checked the TDS of my R.O. water and it was higher than good filtered water should be so I knew that my filters needed to be changed. It is likely that some chlorine got through, caused the black spots on the clowns and weakened them so that the ich could establish a foothold. This is all supposition: I don't really know for sure. I changed the R.O. filters immediately, but then the ich showed up. The black spots on the clowns are completely gone now.

I am still removing all of the salt at a very slow rate. I change 10-12 percent of the water each day. After 9 days of this it is still at 34 percent of the salt that I put in. It will take nearly a month more to get down to 1% of the salt.

I have salted as well, with success and zero losses in the past before the internet and all the exchange of info and opinions.

I noticed similar results to what you describe and think it shouldn't be wiped from the table as a possibility for treatment. I think the loach tolerance is higher than suggested.

Also have a last resort salt treatment when things look really bad that works.

Will only discuss in a PM for fear of banishment though.

Keith- it sounds like you avoided disaster. Congrats.


Yeah, salt is a very safe ich treatment if it is done correctly and slowly like you have done.

How are you doing water changes and how much flow is in the water bridge?

One thing that I thought that might of caused the black spots on my clowns when they were having that problem was that during water changes I only filled up one tank with fresh water.

Because I use water bridges, filling up only one tank with fresh water would cause a water chemistry imbalance of some sort between the tanks. There was an obvious TDS difference between the tanks for a few hours after a water change, but I think the hormone levels of the water in each tank were different also. Right now I think it's the reduction of hormone levels that triggers the fish to produce the black freckles.

After I changed my water change method and added more water flow to the water bridges, the clowns stopped getting black spots. Right now I get on average of about 1,000 gph of actual water flow in my water bridge. I get the flow from two Filstar XP3 canisters that are cross linked in the 2 main tanks (rated at 400 gph each) and a Quite One 4000 Pump in my sump (rated at 1017 gph).

chefkeith- For water changes I have been pumping the water out of the small tank and pumping fresh water into the large tank. The flow through the bridge is only about 15 gph. Thus I definitely have a lag time before it equalizes. My normal water change is 6% to 7% daily ( I'm just doing more now in order to reduce the salt faster) so the TDS change is usually quite small. I keep the tank at about 200 TDS and the two tanks have always been within about 10 TDS of each other, even right after a water change. Currently with the salt reduction, the difference in the tanks right after a water change has been 50 to 100 TDS out of a total of 1200 TDS.

I will keep monitoring this, since it is important that we get more evidence for what causes the black pigment spots on clowns.

Glad things turned out well.

Sounds like a great treatment method. I am sure that part of the success is raising the salt level slowly over several days.
I also have had great luck with an ultra violet sterilizer. I am sure that it is the combined approach, too that helped get rid of the Ich.

Thanks loachmom and Diana.