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to treat or not to treat

2K views 6 replies 5 participants last post by  leifthebunny 
#1 ·
I am 3 weeks into cycling my tank... amonia/nitrite is on the way down and nitrates are on the way up. Ammonia is still not completely gone, so I'm still in the cycle. I don't have a hospital tank unfortunately. The problem is that my starter fish appear to have ich and/or freshwater velvet. (Small white spots, and greyish/white film). I'm debating whether to treat with malachite green or just remove them (thereby killing them) to let the tank finish the cycle and the parasites in the aquarium die off naturally. If I do treat with the malachite green, will it kill my beneficial bacteria? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
#2 ·
If it was ich, raise the temperature and use salt to treat it.
 
#3 ·
What proportions should I use the salt? Like maybe 1 tsp per 5 gal or something? What is the ratio? And also can I get away with table salt or do I need to go buy aquarium salt? I've tried to kick up my temp in the tank, but my heater doesn't seem to want to warm the water past 78.
 
#4 ·
Salt is generally the best way to treat ich however I've personally had no luck with it. What type of fish are your starter fish? Some fish are very sensitive to salt.

My advice is to use the saltand if you have no luck then try medications. If you're in Britain then pm me and I'l recommend a medication I used with great sucess but again it is suitable only for certain fish so make sure you read it well before buying it.
Good luck.
 
#6 ·
3 x-ray tetras and a common pleco. I've heard that malachite green kills tetras. :-/ I definately chose the wrong starter fish... I don't know if it's possible to save them. I wasn't expecting a fungal/bacterial infection... I was expecting ammonia poisoning. Should I just get rid of the fish and let it finish cycling and let the disease run its course? I mean it will die off if there are no hosts, yes?
 
#7 ·
If you can get access to Seachem's Para Guard, I'd recommend using this. I've used it in my tanks with bettas, snails, clams, various shrimp and tons of plants and have had 0 casualties and 0 problems outside of a freak incident with a pair of pictus cats which I don't think was related to the Para Guardas they were already in a tank being treated by Para Guard prior to me adding them in.
 
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