The Puffer Forum

I have a 90 gallon tank with a 6 inch fahaka puffer. I did a water change of 50 % two days ago. the new water I put into the tank was the same temperature. I removed one of the mayalasian drift wood from his tank and put it into my new tank with a common puffer. Anyways I noticed today When I woke up he had 3 white dots on his body and two on his fin. Im pretty sure its ick. The day I did a water change I feed him a feeder crayfish in a aquarium and last nite I feed him a mussell. What would be the best way to cure freshwater ick? Im not really a big fan of medicating puffers. I had sap's with ick in the past and I used this product called super ick from api. Unfortunatley I lost 2 saps and had 2 left in that process.

water parameters:

fahaka puffer aquarium

gh - 30
kh - 40
ph. 6.0
ammonia - 0
no2 - 0
no3 - 10
temp - 79 F

feeder crayfish aquarium

gh - 20
kh - 60
ph 7.5
no3 20
no2 0
ammonia 0
temp: 76

Is it bad? If it's mild just raise the temp too 82-84 and do daily water changes.
Also you could use Aquarium salt thats the reccomended way but I'm not sure how that would work out with wood and if you ahve live plants.

flamesofifreet wrote:Is it bad? If it's mild just raise the temp too 82-84 and do daily water changes.
Also you could use Aquarium salt thats the reccomended way but I'm not sure how that would work out with wood and if you ahve live plants.

Its not that bad. The ick isnt everywhere on his body. He still has appetite as well. I do have life plants as well. how much water change should I do? should I clean the gravel daily or just skim the top of it or just change the top of the water? should I remove the filter and throw them away? how much salt should I add per 10 gallons to cure the ick? I have never put any salt in the aquarium before. He just in fresh water with conditioner.

I'd do 50 percent water changes, also clean the gravel as that's where the ich lives when it's not on the fish. You can keep the filter. Follow the directions on the box of aquarium salt to know how much to use, I can't remember at the top of my head, but it might not even be neccesary.

flamesofifreet wrote:I'd do 50 percent water changes, also clean the gravel as that's where the ich lives when it's not on the fish. You can keep the filter. Follow the directions on the box of aquarium salt to know how much to use, I can't remember at the top of my head, but it might not even be neccesary.

aight ill try that. do you know how long freshwater ick last for? I just want to know when I should return my temperture back to normal.

Use the library people! No seriously, for common things like this, we usually have a library article.

http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/lib ... tal/fwich/

Puffers don't respond well to medication in many cases, so we usually use the no-med approach for something as simple as ich.

With your plants, it might be more difficult to do the heat/salt route, but that article will give you a good place to start.

I did heat and salt with my tank and the plants were fine. I ran the treatment for a month even though the cysts dropped after two days. I did full gravel vacuum every third dsay for two weeks and then down to once a week after that. I had no resurgance of ich, all plants/wood were fine.

It depends on the type of plants you have but most will tolerate the salinity for a breif period

3 spots may not indicate ich. Are they tiny (about the size of salt) & raised? Or more like cloudy spots, larger than salt?

well picked up PP, if so they could just be the spikes. I take this as a sign of irritation and a water change normally sorts it out after a few days

Well, he did say it was on the fin too but I get whitish, blotchy spots on some of my fish's fins sometimes too & they hjust go away. The advised treatment isn't harmful though, just a PITA, if not necessary.

yep spot on again, I think I need to have a lay down, I missed that too

Isn't it daytime over there? 2:45am here. I need to try to get some sleep myself.

manutius wrote:I did heat and salt with my tank and the plants were fine. I ran the treatment for a month even though the cysts dropped after two days. I did full gravel vacuum every third dsay for two weeks and then down to once a week after that. I had no resurgance of ich, all plants/wood were fine.

It depends on the type of plants you have but most will tolerate the salinity for a breif period

ill try that out. Im doing like 20 percent water changes daily. is that bad?

Pufferpunk wrote:3 spots may not indicate ich. Are they tiny (about the size of salt) & raised? Or more like cloudy spots, larger than salt?

they to look like salt. they are on his fins as well. I feel so bad for the little guy. I hope he gets over it. I will get really sad If i lose him.

does ick stick to plants? im planning on taking all the real plants out and put it into another tank. I havent done it yet but is it a good idea?