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I saw some ich on fish in my 55g but... I can't possibly catch and move all the fish that have it. This is my heavily planted tank and aside from the difficulty in catching them through all the plants that's too many fish to fit in my 10g hospital tank. The tank also has rainbow shrimp and 50 applesnails.. again finding them all and moving them is a near impossible task. Is there a medicine I can use that won't kill off the sensitive fish, shrimp, snails, and plants?

Hi Sham,

Unfortunatly, the very few meds snails can handle, most shrimp can't. So, I don't know of any meds, per se, you can put into the tank safely. I've heard from applesnail.net that Kordon (malachite and formaline combo) is snail-safe. But as far as shrimp, I'm not sure. And I don't even think I would try it on snails.

Whenever I've gotten a case of ich, I've been able to treat it very easily with water changes, heat, salt and darkness.

I'd start out with a very good, deep gravel vac and water change today (as much as possible), and daily thereafter. And slowly raise the temp to 82-84 F over the course of a few days.

If you think the rainbow shrimp will handle the salt (ghost and Amano can) then add that, slowly, to the tune of 1 TBSP./5 Gallons. But it may not be necessary.

Personally, I have found a correlation between turning the tank light out (for up to 4 days with plants) and getting through the "visible" ich stage quickly.

I think daily water changes help the most.

Raising the temperature would be a very bad thing. The little plecos I got were kept in 72 degree water and I spent a week acclimating them to a higher temperature but I guess it wasn't enough time. My tank is at 79 right now. The 2 I saw yesterday had ich but I only managed to catch one. Try hunting down four 1-2" plecos in a fully planted tank. It's spread to the threadfins which I moved. At least I think I got all of them... There are also otos in the tank which would not appreciate higher temps. The otos must be spawning in my amazon sword again because I swear there was only 5 left in there and I moved what I thought was all 5 to another tank. Trying to find the plecos a whole group of little otos came out of the sword plant and nearby aponogeton. So on top of the rest of the sensitive stock I also have oto fry.

Oy. That is tough.

Congrats on the otto fry! Ottos's are so cute.

I have an otto being kept in a tank at about 80 F, and he's fine. But I imagine fry would be very sensitive.

Hopefully someone else will have a good suggestion. Good Luck!

Kordon makes an all natural product called ICH Attack Disease Inhibitor. Safe for just about everything. I have had good luck using this product. You can order it at www.thatfishplace.com. Bigalsonline.com used to have it but I didn't see it listed any more.

Thanks jhugho
I think I've got the ich under control this time. I did some huge water changes and pulled out what fish I could to treat with rid ich plus. There aren't any spots on them today but I know that doesn't mean it's completely gone and I've only seen 3 of the 4 plecos. I'll order some in case the ich comes back and it could be useful in the future.