"Clara" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I'm new to this group but looking for some help. We seem to have a very
persistant case of Ich in our tank.

Established (3years) 130 litre tank, water conditions are all as they
should
be, ammonia 0, nitrite 0 and nitrate around 10. Put in 9 new neons
recently
and we are assuming that's where the problem came from (unfortunatly we
don't have a quarantine tank).

Have treated with Esha Exit ( I think it's a malachite green based formula
but no ingredients on packaging) as advised by the LFS, followed the
instructions and the problem appears to just get worse. Has been going on
for about 10 days now and showing absolutely no signs of improvement, just
gets worse every day.

I've read up on the other posts on here and have now switched off the
lights
and raised the temp, and will try adding salt. My biggest concer are my
breeding pair of bristlenose catfish who have been in the tank for about 3
years now and are both showing signs of this problem.

Any advice/medication suggestions that anyone can think of would be very
gratefully received

Getting quite desparate now :-(

Clara



I went through much the same as you a few weeks ago with my Clown Loaches
after adding water from an LFS. I think the answer was to be as persistant
as the Ich was. Here's what I did:-

1. Raised the temperature to 83F initially (in the end I think it went up to
86F). An air brick at this point becomes somewhat essential.

2. Treated with a formaldehyde based treatment called Interpet Anti White
Spot Plus which I had had success with before - no luck

3. Started feeding a high protein diet - no real scientific basis for doing
this. I just figured that if they were fighting off the Ich they needed all
the strength I could give them.

4. When the meds didn't work I started adding low doses of salt. Combined
with adding the salt I spent a week of doing daily thorough gravel vacs and
30% water changes. At this point I'd got carbon in the filter to pull out
the first batch of meds.
Also tried the "lights out" option - turning them only to feed and do a
health check twice daily.

5. At the end of this week I then started adding Protozin. I did not touch
the water - so it still contained some of the salt.

6. Just over a week from adding the first Protozin dose everyone was clear.

It was only 4 of my Clown Loaches that were affected however I did lose some
fish through the treatment and the clean up. Casualties were 2 Platys, 1
Neon and 2 Guppies. The Clowns got better gradually so I can't say exactly
which of the treatments I gave was the best (one cleared up with just the
salt).

I believe the Guppies died due to a water quality issue that occured a few
days after the treatment - someone else has also recently posted a similar
issue (see "Mid Cycle"). My tank was heavily planted and the treatment led
to a lot of dead plant matter which led to a nitrite spike (probably an
ammonia one as well but I didn't detect it). So once the treatment is
complete I strongly advise a good clean up of all debris - I removed all the
plants, heavily vacced the gravel, rinsed the filter medium in tank water,
made sure none of the valves were blocked from plant debris and did a 30%
change.

Hope things clear up soon.

Gill