# Pleco covered in ick



## Gaia (Jun 20, 2016)

A friend of mine just got home from the petstore and the silly girl didn't check the pleco. She was in a hurry and then put him in her tank. What's the best way to treat him fast? Poor guy is covered 










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## Rjjm (Jan 1, 2012)

You can try high heat and low to dim light. This type of fish are more active at night when there is no light and enjoy higher temperature which is just perfect condition to kill ich. Good luck!


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## Gaia (Jun 20, 2016)

Rjjm said:


> You can try high heat and low to dim light. This type of fish are more active at night when there is no light and enjoy higher temperature which is just perfect condition to kill ich. Good luck!


Thank you. 

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## Geoffrey (Jun 24, 2015)

It looks really bad, so I'd probably use a formalin-malachite green mixture such as Kordon Rid Ich or Mardel Quick Cure. Treat the main tank. Don't quarantine since the main tank is now contaminated
Search results for: 'quick cure'


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## Gaia (Jun 20, 2016)

Unfortunately it's in both tanks now. All the fish were in the same bag and she dispersed between the two tanks. Thanks for the advice guys  I have passed it on to her. 

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## rhennessey (Jul 25, 2014)

No matter what you do as far as chemical treatment goes you need to keep the temp as close to 30c or slightly above...higher is better. This will shorten the ich cycle to 14 days ish... there is only 1 stage of 3 that you can kill ich at and this is the free swimming stage...unfortunately the fish keep releasing these free swimmers constantly....so need to treat constantly also. if you are <30c your ich cycle could be 30-60 days...If the tank is a big one i'd suggest moving all fish to a smaller quarantine tank and treat them there....without fish in it the ich will naturally die off in the main tank anyway while you are treating in smaller tank...good luck!


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## Geoffrey (Jun 24, 2015)

That's true. If she quarantines, make sure the fish are kept in the quarantine tank for at least 2 weeks so that the ich can die off in the main tank. And turn the heat up in the main tank.


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## Gaia (Jun 20, 2016)

Thank you! You guys rock! Unfortunately the pleco died and so did a little cory. The poor things were emaciated but she's new and thought they were babies. So she's dealing with the other issues as well. The store told her not to feed very much and only every second day because of the heat being turned up. Is this correct? 

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## rhennessey (Jul 25, 2014)

not sure about that...turning the heat up speeds up the metabolism of everything...including the fish... and logically if they are running faster they would need more food to support the increase in metabolism. Sorry not a great answer ...anyone else have any thoughts on this?
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## rhennessey (Jul 25, 2014)

Oh yeah make sure and take the dead fish back to the LFS and give them heck for selling sick fish


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## Geoffrey (Jun 24, 2015)

Sorry to hear that, but yeah he looked pretty far gone 
I haven't heard anything about feeding regarding treating ich, but like rhennessey said, heat speeds up the metabolism so it'd make sense for them to need more food. You'd probably just need to keep on top of the water changes, which is beneficial to a sick fish anyways.


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## Gaia (Jun 20, 2016)

Thank you. I thought the same about feeding as well. The ottos are sooo skinny. I told her to add some zucchini and blanched spinach for them. I hope that was ok. I told her to remove after a couple of hours. She did take the fish back today and got angry with them. They refunded her money but barely offered an apology. Hopefully lessons have been learned. I definitely learned more about ick. I had no clue they had life cycle. Kinda disgusting actually. Makes a girl wonder if it they can get in your skin 😨

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## Geoffrey (Jun 24, 2015)

I haven't kept otos, mostly because their sensitivity scares me. Most are wild caught and generally don't accept commercial food. Hopefully the otos accept the zucchini and/or spinach, but if not, she may need to grow some algae. I think this blog is a good read on otos and here's an excerpt on growing algae:
http://www.myaquariumclub.com/before-you-buy-otos-please-read-this-8507.html

"I do a couple of things to try to make sure my Otos eat as well as possible. One trick I use is keeping a lot of small rocks in large jars of water, which I leave under the strongest possible lighting for a minimum of 16 hours a day and preferably 24/7. Direct sunlight works too, if you live in warm enough place. I feed the jars with some fertilizer which is made to grow algae specifically but any fertilizer used to grow plants in a fish tank would likely do as well. The water in the jars comes from tank water changes and is also used to top them up.

I have found that marble chips and ceramic filter media seem to grow the most algae in the least amount of time. Some other rocks work too, so long as they are not polished. If a rock isn't turning green, just take it out. I drop a few green rocks in the tank at each end, then return them to the jars when they're clean. My Malaysian Trumpet and Rabbit snails appear to adore the rock algae too and will swarm a new rock in minutes. I have to make sure there are enough rocks so the Otos get their share."


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