Loaches Online Forum

Hi,
I'm currently going through an ich treatment on my 75 gal Sid tank. Started 8 days ago by raising the temp to 86 F adding aquarisol (Cu based parasite medicine) each day and doing 33% water changes/gravel vacuuming every other day. I also have UV going on this tank. Anyway, the white spots are gone and the Sids are barely flashing anymore... so far so good.
Before I started all this, I removed my rabbit snails and most of the shrimp as aquarisol is very bad for them. My question is: When I'm finished the ich treatment on the tank (I plan to go for 14 days total), is it safe to put the snails/shrimp back in? They have been in a fishless 10 gal tank since the start of the treatment.

thanks
Batch

Unless it is a major burden,

I would keep the snails/shrimp in their tank for 4-5 weeks just to be on the safe side that they do not carry Ich back into the tank. It is less likely that they infected but could harbor a cyst that could reintroduce ich to your system.

I would also suggest adding gac to the tank after a couple water changes to purge out the copper before reintroducing the inverts. Cu is pretty good at killing invertabrates in far lower concentrations than what you usually treat fish with.

No. I would give it several months, then go get some cheap shrimp (Ghost shrimp, probably) to test. Copper seems to really hang in there, which is why it is better to treat in a hospital tank.

UVvis wrote:Unless it is a major burden,

I would keep the snails/shrimp in their tank for 4-5 weeks just to be on the safe side that they do not carry Ich back into the tank. It is less likely that they infected but could harbor a cyst that could reintroduce ich to your system.

I would also suggest adding gac to the tank after a couple water changes to purge out the copper before reintroducing the inverts. Cu is pretty good at killing invertabrates in far lower concentrations than what you usually treat fish with.

What is gac?

Anyway, the RCS that I did not catch (ie stayed in the main tank that was treated) didn't die. Kinda surprised by that. Anyhew, just for the sake of paranoia, I'll keep the snails/shrimp that I removed in their own tank for a couple more weeks. BTW no fish were lost to ick!

Batch wrote:What is gac?

GAC is granular activated carbon.

UVvis wrote:

Batch wrote:What is gac?

GAC is granular activated carbon.

Ahh. I use "gac" (bio chem zorb) and poly filters.