The Puffer Forum

Hi there!

Last friday I bought one F8 that has white-spots on his whole skin and fins. It is so hard to find them around here, I decided to give my blood for this fish. I put him in a hospital tank last friday and on sunday I added 2 meds made of formalin, malachite green and methylene blue. Also, I added 4 tablespoons of salt/5G and I keep the temperature at 84.2ºF. I'm rigorously following the meds' intructions and changing 100% of water DAILY to keep it as pristine as I can (always replacing the recomended amount of meds).

The best of my news are that when I got home today (3 days past from the beginning of the treatment), I went to give him some clam and I noticed my fish has NO sign of ich!!! Nothing... nor even a dot OMG I AM so happy!!

I started the treatment on sunday, as I mentioned; the instructions say to treat for 5 days, so it'll be done next friday, right? After that, how long should I keep him in the hospital with no meds to BE SURE he is healthy? I'm counting on you all!

Sorry for the long text and thanks!

according to the library on here:
"The best way to prevent ich, as I stated above, is to quarantine all incoming fish. A minimum of four weeks in quarantine is the best way to go."

so im guessing since they recommend a 4 week quarantine (and i was also told the life stage of ich was 4 weeks when i had an outbreak myself by a fellow on here) thats a pretty safe amount of time to make sure he's healthy. but quoting the library is about all i can do (complete novice!)!
I hope everything works out!

The ich lifecycle is 21 days. Keep doing what you have been doing w/o meds, for that long after the cysts are off the fish.

21 days? Sounds good. I just noticed my two Bettas have a lot of Ich (they had white bodies so I couldn't tell), so I set up a hospital tank and such. Looks like they'll be gravel-less for quite a while, hehe!

ok.. thanks everybody, so I suppose I should keep him in a QT for 4 weeks more. Too bad!!! There's a wonderful well decorated tank waiting for him!!! LOL (just kidding... no chance to infect the whole main setup).