Ich and plants

[vealboy]

OK so I am wrapping up my first encounter with Ich, I think I am on day 13 or 14, and there has been no appearance of an Ich resurgance. So I am pretty pleased about that. I used Malachite Green under the brand name "Nox-Ich."

OK, I say that to ask this, I removed plants on day 8, as they had become really discolored due to the higher temps (83 degrees) and the malachite green. I put these plants in a bucket with water, and some plant food. I want to put these plants back into my tank, but I am concerned, is it possible for Ich to still be attached to these plants?

[cloudhands]

You should be safe after about 4 days or so at normal temperatures. We quarantine plants for about a week if we get some from an unknown source or a tank that has fish in it.

Once any cysts that may be on the plants hatch, the swimmers can't live long in the absence of fish.

[Diana]

Ditto: The Ich that may have landed on the plants after falling off the fish only live for about 24-48 hours, dividing and reproducing. Then the tomites can only live a day or so without finding a host.

These are at temperatures of about the mid 70s.

Room temperature: I would still say a week is safe. (a day or two in each phase, and double that to be sure)
Warmer: probably they will all be dead in just a couple of days, but still, a week is good insurance.
Pond temperature: Might be better to wait a couple of weeks. Perhaps 2-3 days in each phase, and double that to be sure they are all dead.

[vealboy]

Good, that is what I thought, but I wanted some reassurance. On a related topic, is it safe to assume that Ich can also infect tiny snails that live in my 10gal plants tank?

Some time ago I got about 20+ tiny snails from LFS to put into my plants tank to clean up the algae and such. I have been growing plants in the 10gal tank for 18 months or so. Last month I removed 2 large plants from the tank and placed them in my 55 gal community tank. Not long after that I witnessed my Cichlid flashing. I assumed that it was just a show of dominance for his smaller tankmates (clowns, tetra, gourami). I never witnessed Ich on the cichlid, because it is white in color. I only discovered Ich when it appeared on one of my clowns.

I can only assume that the source of Ich was the snails.

[forlan2074]

I was looking for a tropical plants via online nursery for my garden and i just got one from here http://www.nationaltropicals.com.au/ It is very easy to order.We just have to select the category of the plant we need.

[adampaulson]

I goofed on quarantine recently (quarantine tank had a breakdown, gambled on putting healthy-looking new fish in community tank after just 3 days, paying price now)... and I had a small problem of ich with 3 or 4 of the fish after not having seen the disease in many years. I know it is ideal to take all the fish out and treat them in a separate hospital tank, but this was just not practical in my case. The main problem was, my tank is heavily planted and has 40+ fast fish (cannot treat fish separately without tearing tank down), and most meds will hurt plants. So, since no I met seemed to know, and there is little info on the web (there is a TON of info on treating ich in tanks w/o live plants, including my previous article here), I did some research, and a little experimenting... so here are my results, for people with plants in their aquaria hoping to treat:

[vealboy]

Adam, there doesn't seem to be a link except for mobile shredding. ?

[chefkeith]

Veal- that is spam. It's not even original content. It is stolen from-
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article17.html

The spambots have been attacking this forum for quiet some time now.
At least they are getting better content now, before it was just ramble.

[vealboy]

Thanks Chef! I was duped by spambot! You are right though, the content was good. Thanks for the missing link

[Diana]

Most aquarium plants are OK with most Ich treatments. However, some medicines (Not just Ich meds) contain salt (Sodium chloride) and this is not OK for the live plants. As you have found out, most plants are not going to do well in the high temperatures, either.

I do not think that Ich actually lives on the snails, the snails are not the correct host. But if the water had some Ich organisms in it and you scooped out some snails or plants to move to another tank then the water included with the move can move the Ich, too.
Remember how short a time Ich can live without a host, though. The snail and plant tank would have to have had some contact with an infested fish within a few days, a week at the most, before you moved things around.