Subject: raising baby fish (oh, yeah, and ich....) (and way too long...)
From: "Rick"
Date: 3/29/2004 2:23 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:


"OldTownSta" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the info & reassurance! Great forum & wonderful helpful folk!

Guess things will be o.k. -- in the 100 fry (gups, mollies, zebras) 55
gal.,
I've got an Penguin biowheel 330 & sponge filter going, some plants.
Feeding
w/ liquid baby food (1st wk or two), crumbled tetramin, live new hatched
brine
shrimp, frozen baby brine shrimp, frozen daphnia (rotating these last 3) &
the
occassional algae tab.

Complicating factor is that I had to treat the main 120 gal community tank
for
ich (damn clown loaches), & with lots of plant / water / net sharing & a
few
fry flashing figgered I'd better treat the baby tank too.

I read all the internet hoo-ha on ich (very helpful of course), and went
with
the reasonable sounding program I found somewhere (skeptical aquarist
mebbe?)
as follows:

* Formalin/Malachite green med (Rid-Ich+ in my case) at full dosage (1 t.
/
10gal) for four doses at 3 day intervals, each time accompanied by 50%
water
change.
* Heat raise to 86 F. sustained through treatment.
* 1 T salt per 10 gal.
* Carbon out the meds & fresh water partial changes & slowly reduce temp
back
down after the med had run its course.

Seems to be going ok. Clowns (previously removed to a quarantine tank &
over
medicated before I'd done adequate research) all died, lost one neon in
the
main tank, but everyone else seems to be doing ok, & the flashing &
scratching
on stuff has stopped.

I'd been concerned about this regimen w/ the babies, but they seem to have
tolerated it very well, no losses at all. (I started trying to treat the
baby
tank w/ just heat raise & salt, until I saw a couple of the guppy fry
flashing
& had to add new-bone mollies from the community tank being treated)

Should I expected long term negative effects in the fry from the med?

Nervous as I was about using "heavy duty" meds, the main community tank &
the
fry tank both seemed to actually perk up w/ this regimen.

Now, once this ich treatment has run it's course, I'm thinking about
keeping
the tanks a bit warmer than I had been (had been at 76 F, maybe aim for
80-81F?), and periodically doing a partial water change w/ 1 T / 10 gal.
salt
instead of strictly fresh water. Having sort of looked over the salt
threads
in the forum, seems like an occassional salt treatment might be a better
go
than trying to maintain a full time salt level.

Main 120 gal. tank has kribs, cories, zebras, neons, guppies, swords,
mollies,
pl*co, b.g.knife, glass cats, hatchets, cherry barbs, angels, pictus.

I would like to add back some clowns, but I'm so snake-bit on them now I
think
I have to quarantine them for like 5 years, and by then they'd be too big
anyway. If our LFS's ever get kuhli loaches in again, I may try adding
them
instead (assuming the BGK won't think they're spaghetti), since I loved
them as
a kid. In another inch or two, the BGK may need to go to a "big fish" tank
anyway. Sort of had the impression that clowns might not tolerate
kuhli's,
altho I'm not sure of that.

Sorry to go on so long, but I am having great fun & do appreciate the
comments
& suggestions! -- Jim


your treatment routine sounds o.k. I stopped raising the tank temp and
adding salt and it works just as well. Raising the tank temp anywhere under
90+ degrees simply speeds up the life cycle of the Ich parasite and when
your doing a full 10 day treatment it really doesn't matter much. Malachite
green is somewhat degraded by light so many use dim lighting or no lighting
during the treatment. I use Quick Cure and simply add 2 drops per gallon and
normally by the 2nd treatment very little signs of ich can be seen. By the
3rd treatment none are visible however it is important to continue and
finish. To salt or not to salt, age old question and many different opinions
on the subject. I wouldn't use it in a planted tank however I do use it to
stimulate slime coat regeneration in my Hospital tanks. Nice mix of fish in
your 120, of course in the end there will be only one fish left which is the
ghost knife, and he will be well fed.
Rick




You double dose Quick Cure?
That can be quite dangerous and or lethal to some types of fish.
try not to forget to mention the fish that must be half dosed, or even removed
when using Quick Cure every time you post using it as a treatment.
There are newbies or others who don't know this ahead of time and may harm or
kill their fish thinking it was ok.